I've Made A Sad Decision
In a thoroughly entertaining 1989 film comedy called “Let It Ride,” widely available for purchase or rent, Richard Dreyfuss plays a cab driver named Jay Trotter who loses regularly at the race track. After having made his wife a promise to quit gambling, he overhears a conversation about a fixed horse race and decides to make one last bet on the horse mentioned in the conversation. The horse wins and then Dreyfuss “lets it ride” by placing all his winnings on subsequent races for the rest of the day, winning every time.
The celebrated punch line uttered by Dreyfuss’s character in the film: “I’m having a VERY good day!”
Beginning with President Biden’s disastrous performance in his debate with Donald Trump, I’ve set out numerous times to write the Substack article you are reading now, but each time there were events and news developments that caused me to re-think the thoughts I wanted to share with you.
The bottom line on all of this was to be my expressed opinion on whether Joe Biden should drop out of the race in favor of another candidate. On one day, I thought he should drop out. Then on the next day, I thought he should stay in. The day after that, I again thought he should step down. Then the next day, “Hell no, Joe, remain in the race!”
I’ve finally reached my conclusion, expressed near the end of this article, and with your own responses sincerely welcomed.
Like Jay Trotter in “Let It Ride,” Donald Trump is not just having a very good day, but a very good year, facilitated by:
The eagerly awaited debate. Barely five minutes into it, my wife and I looked at each other and simultaneously said, “Uh-oh!” And it wasn’t just Biden’s performance that alarmed us, but the format itself. We had thought, going into it, that the mere fact of each candidate’s mic being muted when the other was speaking would be enough to give Biden an advantage. But this turned out not to be the case as Trump forcefully spewed out a well-documented 30 or so lies that lay unchallenged by moderators committed to not becoming part of the debate themselves.
The Supreme Court decision on Trump’s claim of absolute immunity. While not a total slam-dunk victory for Trump, it establishes hitherto unheard-of parameters on what constitutes an “official act” and, perhaps more importantly, places restrictions on how evidence may be allowed or disallowed in consideration of whether certain acts are official or not.
The growing schisms within the Democratic party and among its supporters. Democratic politics have always been messier than Republican politics, due in large part to the party’s “big tent” that accommodates a wide range of political viewpoints and philosophies. But to see the slowly growing peeling-off of support for Biden among key elected officials, as well as calls from the editorial boards of respected mainstream publications for him to withdraw, is disheartening in a race where most polls have Biden behind. And while some may discount the disillusionment of an actor such as “George Clooney” as just being the whining of a Hollywood elite figure, the simple fact is that Clooney and his wife are also committed humanitarians who have long been Democratic stalwarts and fund-raisers, and many of their entertainment-industry colleagues hold similar views on Biden.
The just-announced decision of Judge Aileen Cannon to completely dismiss the Florida classified-documents case on the ground -according to her reasoning- that Special Prosecutor Jack Smith was illegally appointed. While this decision flies completely in the face of all prior precedent regarding special counsels, and will surely be appealed and overturned, it fully serves the ultimate goal of all the Trump legal strategies, which is to stall and delay the actions against him until they become moot and “disappear” with the return to office of Mr. Trump.
So where do we go from here?
I would like to see an August Democratic convention that results in the nomination of someone other than Joe Biden, but also serves as a forum to showcase and celebrate Joe Biden’s long, successful government career and, particularly, the many accomplishments and successes of his presidency.
As so many have noted, DEMOCRACY is at stake in this election as a singularly unqualified candidate, both in terms of his intellectual capacity and his history of personal failures, may be headed not just to victory, but to the beginning of an authoritarian dictatorship.
Numbers don’t lie, at least this year. The polls are headed in the wrong direction, and I don’t know what can turn the prospective outcome around short of a change of candidate at the top of the ticket. If the next few months until November 5, are to be consumed not with a debate on the issues but with constant inspection -and dissection- of the daily demeanor of the Democratic Party’s standard-bearer, we may be hoping in vain for a miracle, or to put it in sports lingo, some sort of “Hail Mary.”
The only choice, in my opinion, is Kamala Harris.
Sure, Vice President Harris has baggage of her own, but she also checks a lot of the boxes that a winning candidate needs:
She is the highest-ranking female government official in U.S. history.
She is both African-American and Asian-American.
An attorney, she was both Attorney General and a U.S. Senator from the state of California.
She is a skilled debater who is vigorously on the “correct” side of critically important issues that include civil rights, freedom of choice, and a host of similar subjects that matter to so many of us.
She is faring better than Biden in test polls against Trump, though she has work to do.
There are millions of Americans, including moderate Republicans and Independents, waiting to be JOLTED into enthusiastic support for someone other than Trump AND someone other than Biden. We need a shock to the system of our body politic, and Harris will be the logical person to provide it.
This is a very stressful time, and certainly like no other in our nation’s long history.
Don’t listen to me if you don’t choose to, but perhaps listen to late-night host Seth Myers:
“The guy staged a month-long coup attempt and violent insurrection, got impeached twice, bungled a deadly pandemic so badly that the nation’s top scientists tried to hide their faces, tried to take health care away from 20 million Americans, called the CEO of Apple Tim Apple, said he would use his presidency to get revenge on his enemies and be a dictator on day one, threw paper towels at hurricane victims and defaced a weather map, asked his audience if they’d rather die by shark bite or electrocution, got convicted of 34 felony counts for paying hush money during a presidential campaign to a porn star who testified in court that she spanked him with a magazine with his face on it,” etc.
While we wait for the next development, everyone needs to step back, take a deep breath, and meditate. To help you, darken the lights in whatever room you are in, turn off all extraneous sound, close your eyes, and play this wonderful mantra from Deva Premal, as I do periodically: