ONE GUY IS DANGEROUSLY DEMAGOGIC, THE OTHER IS DANGEROUSLY DELUSIONAL

I’m in a musical mood. Cue Joni Mitchell:

All the news of home you read
Just gives you the blues
Just gives you the blues

Having taken a short vacation from the news, I’m tanned, rested, and ready to report that the fundamentals of our nightmarish and unwanted presidential tourney haven’t changed much since Saturday night, when a registered Republican white boy armed with an AR-15 wreaked havoc at a MAGA hate rally. (Easy access to AR-15s is an all-American staple, thanks to MAGA Republicans. But I digress.)

The state of play basically remains the same:

1. The guy who got another GOP nomination is the same fascist threat to our teetering democracy as he was before the kid shot at him. I’m relieved that Trump wasn’t killed – the national trauma, from every angle, would’ve been so much worse had that happened. But whereas many members of the mainstream media (having still learned apparently nothing) have been sucking up to his brush with blood martyrdom by suggesting that he has been “humbled” and “changed,” certain facts remain stubbornly self-evident.

He’s still a convicted felon. He’s still under indictment for plotting to violently overthrow the peaceful transfer of power. He’s still on record using Nazi rhetoric, railing that undocumented immigrants are “poisoning the blood of the country.” He’s still thirsting to use unchecked power, granted to him by the MAGA Supreme Court, to prosecute political opponents. He’s still the guy who boasts about restricting women’s bodily autonomy. He’s still a pathological liar at war with factual reality. He’s still the vehicle for Project 2025, the right-wing blueprint (crafted by scores of his allies) that intends to erase anti-discrimination protects for women and gays. He’s all that and much more, and no ear bandage can retroactively beautify him.

Only a fervently unified Democratic party, led by a fervently energetic presidential candidate, can dispel the dark clouds looming on the horizon. Which brings me to what else hasn’t changed.

2. Joe Biden, whom I’ve long boosted and supported, is still sucking us toward the abyss. With each precious passing day, with each new release of dire poll numbers (a new sampling shows him sliding ever further in seven swing states, while another new sampling says that nearly two-third of grassroots Democrats want him to withdraw), he nevertheless grows more delusional.

Earlier this week on his I’m-not-too-old tour, he told a cable TV interviewer: “When I originally ran…I said I was gonna be a transitional candidate, and I thought that I’d be able to move from this, just pass it on to someone else. But I didn’t anticipate things getting so, so, so divided. And quite frankly, I think the only thing age brings a little bit of wisdom.”

Hang on. He didn’t anticipate “things getting so, so, so divided”? If memory serves, he took the oath of office only 14 days after MAGA goons stormed the Capitol, killed some people, and smeared feces on the hallowed walls – stark evidence that things were already so, so, so divided. Now he’s claiming that he’s running again because he “didn’t anticipate” what he already knew to be true. That rationale running again is thinner than dental floss.

And, as painful as it is for me to say this, wisdom is not “the only thing age brings.” Cognitive issues are common, too. One of my fiercely anti-MAGA friends, an eldercare specialist based in Atlanta, publicly posted some worthy thoughts on July 6:

“I had been thinking for months that (Biden’s) apparent frailty would repel voters. But I wasn’t worried about his actual cognition. I was mainly worried about his ability to beat Trump. But now I’m thinking geez, this lovely man really does have cognitive deficits. I’m not a doctor, but for many years I worked with neurologists and neuropsychologists to assess older adults suspected of having cognitive decline. Many patients who were diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment or early dementia had anosognosia, the inability to recognize their own deficits. It’s not denial – it’s different. They had no insight into their problems and so they’d become very offended and angry when concerned others told them otherwise… I hate being so negative but I just don’t think this gentleman is fit to have the hardest job in the world.”

I too hate being so negative, but unless Democratic leaders and delegates see fit to stop the party’s death spiral…well, I said at the outset that I was in a musical mood. Take it away, Paul Simon:

Slip slidin’ away
Slip slidin’ away
You know the nearer your destination
The more you’re slip slidin’ away

Copyright 2024 Dick Polman, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. Dick Polman, a veteran national political columnist based in Philadelphia and a Writer in Residence at the University of Pennsylvania, writes at DickPolman.net. Email him at dickpolman7@gmail.com

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