#WTH More on that Biden post

Last week I wrote about growing perceptions that President Biden’s failing cognitive abilities were starting to interfere with his management of presidential duties. My friends over at Powerline blog reposted the substack (thank you), and #WTH gained lots of new followers (thank you). On the other hand, some of my friends on the other side of the political divide were angry with me, and off they went. 

This weekend’s New York Times polling makes clear that I’m not the only one in America who thinks eighty-year-old Joe Biden is no longer up to the task of shouldering the burdens of the world’s hardest job. Here’s Sunday morning’s NYT landing page.

The most devastating part of the poll was among voters who pulled the lever for Biden in 2020. Again, here’s what the Grey Lady herself published:

The survey pointed to a fundamental shift in how voters who backed Mr. Biden four years ago have come to see him. A striking 61 percent said they thought he was “just too old” to be an effective president.

A sizable share was even more worried: Nineteen percent of those who voted for Mr. Biden in 2020, and 13 percent of those who said they would back him in November, said the 81-year-old president’s age was such a problem that he was no longer capable of handling the job.

The misgivings about Mr. Biden’s age cut across generations, gender, race and education…

Perhaps these views are a product of a media that leans right…. Hahahahahaha, jk. Perhaps they’re a product of GOP propaganda. Um, no. People simply believe their own eyes and ears. And given the growing political compartmentalization in America, it seems highly unlikely that Democrats who voted for Biden are burying themselves in the right-wing ecosphere. Which brings me back to that Biden post. 

I’ve never made a secret of my conservatism, nor of my preference for the GOP. I’m a free market internationalist. I believe the U.S. is the world’s most indispensable power, and that our values are not simply better, they are the best. I like civil rights, women’s rights, democracy, free trade, freedom of speech and religion, our constitution and all that good stuff. Sure, those things mean different things to different people, but hopefully we can all agree that they are intrinsically good. I also believe in comity, decency, and bipartisanship, which is why I value my friends who disagree with me so much. I want to know what they think, want to hear their views, want to understand where they’re coming from. As my late boss, Jesse Helms, was wont to say, we can agree to disagree agreeably. 

These protestations are not a way of extolling my own virtues, but a preamble to a lament about the growing absolutism in political commentary, even on our little substack. I have made no secret of my dislike of Donald Trump. For me, he has disqualified himself from the nation’s highest office. You can disagree, and the beauty of our democracy is that you’re free to do that. But it is unclear to me why I should be able to judge one candidate, and not another. Unclear to me why I can write that Biden’s Ukraine policy is a disgrace, but I am not permitted to notice his growing disability. Unclear to me why I can recognize grift among GOPers and Trump’s own family, but am forbidden to notice that the President’s kin have been attempting to live off the “Biden” name for years.

I suspect that my equivocation will be unimpressive to some of our new subscribers. I’m sorry for that. But I don’t believe that political office or all the government adjacent jobs that exist in Washington should be towards the end of “owning the libs”, de-platforming conservative “fascists”, or any of the other troll-like activities that too many believe are their political purposes in Congress, or elsewhere in government, the media, or academia. I like winning. Getting shit done. Helping our allies. Crushing our enemies. Spreading our values. Protecting the weak. Aiding the needy. That’s what power is for, and we have more power together than apart. Of course, no one is obligated to read this substack. Feel free to depart. But, to me, the better option is to read on, disagree politely if you’re so inclined, but to keep ties with “the other side” in the hopes of being able to accomplish things together.