July 4, 2024: I’m Mad as Hell and I’m not Going to Shut Up!

The Wandering Geographer hasn’t done so much wandering lately, at least not internationally.  Since my ill-fated trip to Chile last November, I’ve been gun shy about getting on another plane to fly to an exotic destination.  Save for a few days in northwest Mexico in February, I’ve not ventured outside the border.

Yesterday, I finished a water resources and soil erosion report for our visit to the Heartland Ranch Wildlife Preserve (southeastern Colorado) in late April.  Now I’m ready to do a bit of personal writing.  Needless to say, I find myself despondent, angry, cynical, and in a state of defeatism following the Biden-Trump debate a week ago.  When Biden got to the inarticulate statement, “…we beat Medicare…,” I buried my head in my hands, shook my head, and exclaimed, “No, no”.  I’ve never seen such a fucking fiasco from a President of the U.S.  I wanted to cry but couldn’t find the tears.

At the end of this shit-show, CNN had a panel discussion.  I was half-expecting panel members to make excuses for Biden.  To my relief, veteran CNN News Anchor John King spoke first and lambasted Biden’s performance questioning his ability to beat Trump and lead the country for four more years.  As the rest of the panel of maybe eight journalists and politicians spoke one by one, I found most of them echoing my emotions and opinions.  Despite my horror at the disaster, at least I felt affirmed in my assessment.    

Pulitzer-winning cartoonist Nick Anderson draws a Democratic response to the presidential debate. © Nick Anderson/RA News Tribune

 

The next day, I sent an email to more than 150 American friends and acquaintances encouraging them to write to their congress people, governors, etc. asking that they work with their colleagues to push Biden to drop out of the race.  I categorically exclaimed that Biden could NOT beat Trump after what had happened in Atlanta putting his lack of mental acuity on full display.  I didn’t receive much feedback although a cousin tried to reassure me that Biden would still do well in the election and a former colleague told me he was supporting RFK Jr. and had donated to his campaign.  The rest of the feedback affirmed my concerns and a couple people told me they would write.

After that, I did what I’d asked the email recipients to do.  I went on the websites of Colorado Senators Hickenlooper and Bennet as well as my Congressional District’s representative, Diana DeGette and submitted short on-line comments asking that they work to get Biden to bow out.  The next day I got the email address for Colorado Governor Jared Polis and wrote him a short message with the same arguments.  All four are Democrats, by the way.  Yes, I know that these people are unlikely to see my message but I assume it will be tallied by staffers who provide constituent opinions to their bosses.

A couple days ago, after hearing that a Texas Democratic Congressman had publicly called for Biden to step aside, I left phone messages at the offices of Bennet, Hickenlooper, and DeGette asking that they follow suit and make Coloradans proud of them.      

Yesterday, I heard that the Democratic governors would be meeting with Biden in the evening to discuss the continuation of his campaign.  So, I emailed 100 Coloradans on my mailing list imploring them to write or phone Governor Polis asking that he encourage Biden to step aside.  A couple recipients wrote back saying they had.  I, myself, called his office and left a brief message to that effect with a staffer who assured me he would pass it on to the governor. 

I am now contemplating whether to go to the Denver offices of these four politicos and speak personally with staffers, if Biden doesn’t throw in the towel in the next few days.  Would it do any good to try to contact the local delegates to the August Democratic Convention?  I found their names on the party website, but how would I get their email addresses?

Yes, I realize that my couple of messages to these people won’t make much of an impact, but my hope was that more of the recipients of my email would join in the effort.  And maybe they would, in turn, encourage their friends and acquaintances to write or call.  Furthermore, I was hoping that there would be a groundswell of messages to congress people, governors, etc. from around the country.  Apparently, there was but so far, it doesn’t seem to have been enough.

Publicly at least, Biden refuses to budge, the governors who met with him last night have flipped into a rah rah Joe mode and other prominent Democrats are lining up in support.  I hold out some hope that their shticks are simply to reassure the public and providing cover for Biden to allow him to withdraw on his own terms without giving the impression that he was pushed out.  If so, do what you need to do, guys.  But I’m not optimistic that Biden will do the right thing which he should have done one to two years ago. 

Sadly, Biden’s fucking ego seems to have gotten in the way of his better angels.  I am very disappointed with him and his enabler wife with their “fight on” rhetoric.  Unless, Biden really does bow out in a timely manner, I will lose all the considerable respect and admiration I’ve had for them both.  Writing in the latest issue of the New York Review of Books, Fintan O’Toole accuses Biden of having a “savior complex”, which seems to me to parallel the lines of the book about Trump titled, I Alone Can Fix It.  In Joe’s case, it’s “I alone can beat Trump” as if any one of several qualified, articulate, and charismatic Democratic governors, senators, cabinet members, and representatives couldn’t cut the mendacious Mr. Trump to shreds in a debate, energize the electorate with a fresh face, and push The Donald off the front page by engaging in a spirited and captivating competition for the nomination between now and the August convention – but only, of course, if Biden were to head for the showers very soon. 

So why do I even bother given my lack of confidence that my voice, and the voices of those I’m trying to motivate, will make any difference?  Well, five, ten, or twenty years from now as I lay on my deathbed, I want to at least have the satisfaction of knowing that I tried.  And frankly, I’m very disappointed that more people aren’t taking action.  I’m surprised that people haven’t been marching in the streets.  Don’t they recognize that Trump and his people are ruining this country?  Don’t they recognize that Joe Biden is in mental decline and doesn’t have a chance in hell of beating Trump in November?  Maybe they’re too busy with their own little lives.  Maybe they figure it has nothing to do with them. Maybe they figure nothing can be done.  Maybe they’ve already given up.  Or maybe they just don’t give a shit!  (And obviously, there are millions who would disagree with my assessment.)

But I’m convinced I’m right.  Just like I was right about the Monica Lewinsky scandal 26 years ago.  After the story broke, I had several conversations with a colleague in my office about this big political crisis.  He is a Republican but a rational and reasonable kind of guy.  I became convinced that Clinton had disgraced the Presidency by having oral sex with an intern in the Oval Office.  Not that I am a prude, mind you.  Any of you who have known me for more that 30 years, may remember that I was a very naughty boy between my early 20s and mid-40s.  But Jezus, the Oval Office?

So, I wrote a letter to my new, at the time, Democratic Congresswoman, Diana DeGette, asking her to encourage her colleagues to push Clinton to resign.  I never even got a response.  Just think if Clinton had resigned:  Al Gore would have served out the rest of Clinton’s term, and assuming he did a respectable job, he would have beat W’s ass in the 2000 election (remember that some voters in 2000 chose Bush because they were pissed off at the Democrats and Clinton’s V.P. Gore for defending Clinton and saving his presidency).  Had Gore become President, there may have never been a 9/11, the stupid Iraq War (Just where were those weapons of mass destruction, Georgie, Dickie, and Donny?), and certainly we would be further along now in battling climate change.  But, of course, “if only” scenarios don’t count for shit.

What happens now?  Like most who might read this, I feel powerless to have any effect on this crisis.  If, by some miracle, Biden steps back from the election or gets pushed out and another Democratic candidate is chosen that I am enthusiastic about, I will be tempted to head for Arizona or Nevada (where the vote will be close) to spend time in the fall working on the election as a volunteer.  However, if the Democrats “stay the course” with Biden as the nominee, I’m done.  I don’t see how he can win and even if he did, do you think this tired old man can go toe to toe with Putin? 

I have friends who are planning to leave the country until our fellow citizens come to their senses, if ever.  However, I’ll probably stay for a variety of reasons one of which is that I’m 78-years-old and feel it’s a bit late to start over somewhere else.  Furthermore, both my partner, Judy, and I have health concerns that make relocating more challenging (Yes, I know that a number of countries have as good or better health care than the U.S.)  

So, at this point, I plan to stay [Warning, this is where it gets vindictive, cruel, and ugly] and bear witness to the destruction of this country or at least of what we understand it to be.  I’m going to sit smugly in our house and say “I told you so” as the effects of climate change get worse and worse with monster hurricanes destroying coastal communities, killer heat waves wreak havoc and death, devastating floods and fires force mass migrations of people who have stuck it out in all the wrong places, thousands of people selling off their homes and businesses at bargain basement prices when they are no longer able to get property insurance.  I will watch in wonder as the greedy uber-wealthy take advantage of tax cuts and loopholes to amass more wealth while increasing numbers of “little people” become poor and homeless.  I will not be surprised when a corrupt president is able to act with impunity thanks to a packed Supreme Court – like maybe sending the army to the Mexican border with shoot-to-kill orders applying to any suspect brown people.  I will observe the religious and not-so religious right make it into higher positions of authority including a takeover of the court system.  I will see the public education system decimated as private schools get public funding at the expense of public schools.  I will watch the religious right celebrate with glee as women’s rights to birth control and abortion become more and more limited.  The gun industry will increase their obscene profits as the paranoid citizenry arms themselves to the teeth, with the natural outcome of more mass shootings and suicides.  Who cares about threatened and endangered species of animals and plants - we humans come first, especially us white guys, goddamnit!  And if you’re non-white, gay, or otherwise “different”, better head for the closet!   

   

©Arthur Daniel, REUTERS

Coming soon to a coastal community near you.  Scattered debris clutters the waterfront after Hurricane Beryl passed the island of Carriacou, Grenada on July 2, 2024.

 

You think I’m paranoid or exaggerating?  Let’s revisit my scenarios in a few years to see how it’s all turning out.  In the meantime, I plan to push more vitriol and pessimism through my keyboard, especially with regard to the environment and climate change.  If no one reads this stuff, I’ll keep writing anyway.  And my last words as I lie on my deathbed will be, “I told you so!”