“I get knocked down, but I get up again
You are never gonna keep me down
I get knocked down, but I get up again
You are never gonna keep me down” - “Tubthumping,” Chumbawamba, 1997
“I know when you get knocked down, you get back up” - Joe Biden, 2024
Well the US President did get back up again in North Carolina on Friday, June 28, the day after his awful, really bad, not good debate performance versus a certain Mister (dictator from day one) Trump. This species of ‘debate’ are always performances be they US Presidential debates or leaders’ debates in Canada, the UK or elsewhere. That substance gets in through the margins is often a happy accident.
Infamously, Richard Nixon was supposed to have lost to John F. Kennedy because a shaky debate performance in 1960. However, it remains an open question if that was such a turning point. Still it was seen as such in popular memory. And here we are 64 years later and President Biden has been called on to quit by the New Yorker, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and The Atlantic, and on CNN and MSNBC et al.
Would that Chumbawamba’s mantra were the magic elixir, though perhaps a one-hit-wonder by that cruelly underrated communitarian anarchist folk-pop-punk band is not really a good fit for a progressive centrist born during World War II. But of course is age is just a number, except when it ain’t. It’s one thing to be vital in one’s 80s or 90s, writing, painting, contributing to the culture, but on one’s time and schedule and at one’s own pace. Not being a on-call 24/7 as the various crises that the world and the USA are prone to just happen, in their chaotic, unscheduled way. Not indeed to be a half-step from the nuclear football.
This past Monday was Canada Day. We had a quiet convivial day. The sun shone bright and warm but the recent heat wave having subsided, it was just an old-school-climate pleasant first of July. We had friends visit in the afternoon for cake, coffee, and fresh Ontario strawberries. We went out to a BBQ with other friends in the evening. As we shared small talk and quiet gratitude for our lives, which despite a range of travails, are by any global standard, lucky, comfortable and privileged. Still our conversation came around and round again to US politics. That one of our afternoon guests was the American husband of my wife’s oldest friend, certainly provided a particular focus to our chat. But Canadians are always affected by the ‘great republic’ to our south. And none of us could really imagine a second Trump presidency with anything but grisly dread.
The hills (ok, mountains) around Biden’s birthplace in Scranton PA, are hundreds of millions of years old, being a subset of the Poconos, and therefore the Appalachians. Mountains are allowed their geological time. Presidents, Kings, Queens and Prime Ministers, mortal humans as they all, have no such temporal luxury. So yes, we lucky, middle-aged Canadians, and our American friend, are all bloody worried. Inconclusive polling data. Pundit platitudes. Well-crafted ‘chill out’ messages from surrogates. Our shared respect for Joe Biden’s return to normalcy and measured progress. None of these quiet our minds.
As a Canadian, my first criteria for a US President, is someone who is sane, committed to maintaining a semblance of global peace, order and good government: a President who won’t launch WW III. As a social liberal and democrat, my second criteria is a US President who moves, no matter how partially, his or her country, and the world toward less cruelty, more prosperity, and more social justice. And tiny, wee things, such as embracing the reality of the clear and present danger of climate change. Not so much really. Yet all things a Trump 2.0 would trample over or recklessly ignore.
Should the US Democrats revolt and demand Biden quit? Should instead the key leaders of their party rally, and take a collective leadership role in the campaign? Should we relax and take comfort from a sage such as Allan Lichtman, with his Keys to the Whitehouse?
Allan Lichtman, a historian who has successfully predicted the outcome of nine of the last 10 presidential elections, dismissed the calls to boot Biden from the ballot, telling CNN’s Abby Phillip it would be a “huge mistake” to replace Biden on the ballot. - The Hill
It is not our call after all. We sit with our own conflicts and challenges, possibilities and hopes, on the north side of Lake Ontario. The USA is close, familiar but it remains a foreign country. My sense is that the current fervid debate among our American friends ain’t gonna fix the problems. Either the Democratic leadership gets with the program and ‘gets back up’ or President Biden needs his own walk in the Rose Garden, followed by declaring victory and departing with grace. Today, I would be tempted to hope the latter course prevails. Yesterday, on that glorious Canada Day, I was hoping for the former, the comfort of what’s been settled and decided (all those delegates committed, money raised, momentum, etc.). What I do know, is that Trump must be resisted by any democratic means. Americans, and all who live beside them, wish them well, depend on it.
I wish US elections (or elections anywhere were not so much about cult of personality.
Democracies are about collection decision-making. The US has bounced back from COVID and Trump not because Joe Biden was awake every minute of the day for the past four years but because teams of legislators and bureaucrats were pulling together.
I wish people would think about voting for that team, not which candidate's a better pro wrestler.
Trump is 100 percent about cult of personality, and if he implements the Project 2025 agenda, legions of government staff will be fired (tried and executed?) and replaced with sycophants. Watch that team try getting anything done.
My message for voters (which I expect no-one to listen to) is vote like a grown-up or get ready for the administrative clown show.
Biden is a career politician of rhetoric and bureaucracy over action. A Chamberlain, not a Churchill. It's unlikely he will deploy his freshly affirmed immunity to any consequential effect. His successor most certainly will.