A lot has happened the past week. I could stretch it out over several posts but chose to let it meander where it may in the following discourse.
Let's start with Boris. We all knew he had nine lives but it seems he finally played out his last one, unable to hold onto the top seat of his party after another stinging set of revelations. This was an administration spinning wildly out of control to begin with, and I'm not convinced having a new person at No. 10 Downing is going to make anything better for the Tories. Boris wasn't the root of the problems, just the most visible example. Still, he had his bright spots. The guy could connect with the people, as we saw in the special election. He steadfastly supported Ukraine, even to the point of making surprise visits to Kjiv, where he became a hero. Even in defeat, he still holds his chin up as if daring anyone to hit him again. If nothing else, you have to admire his pluck.
On the other hand, Elon Musk hasn't fared so well. We all knew he would bail on Twitter. This was never anything more than a publicity stunt. I'm not sure what Elon's game plan was here. I don't think even he knows. It just seemed like the thing to do at the time as everyone was complaining about Twitter and he felt he was the guy to clean it up. But, he got sticker shock almost immediately, calling on friends to come up with the $44 billion he promised, driving the share prices of both Tesla and Twitter way down in the process. He immediately started looking for a way out, but this only made him look weak, so he tried to make twitter look weaker by claiming most of its users were fake and it was an unfair deal. No wonder the Twitter board so quickly approved his offer after previously trying to block him. Beyond the fact it is utterly absurd to think a social media site is worth so much, why would Elon care to begin with? After all, this is a guy with dreams of flying to Mars. How would acquiring Twitter benefit him in this regard? Even still, he will have to pay a hefty penalty. For a tightwad like him that's a pretty bitter pill to swallow.
It seems that Biden, aka Brandon, can't do anything right in the eyes of the American audience. It doesn't matter that he got a great jobs report in June or that gas prices are tumbling or that inflation appears to be maxed out, his approval rating continues to fall. He's now down to 33 percent in the latest polls. It seems a lot of this angst swirls around his age and what many perceive to be his decaying cognitive abilities. He will soon be 80, an age when most persons start to suffer a certain amount of dementia, but for the most part Joe has held it together. Quite well in fact. Yet, the media is giving him no end of grief, especially when it came to misreading his teleprompter. Of course that's debatabe, as politifact pointed out, but in a world where any gaffe is amplified ten fold, Biden is now viewed as a demented old man.
Quite a few persons are calling for age limits on the presidency. David Gergen believes it is "inappropriate" for someone to run for president past 80. Trump would just miss the cut off. Gergen was a speechwriter and director of communications for Gerald Ford, and an advisor to Pere Bush. So, you see where his criticism is coming from. Biden may indeed be too old, as he would be 82 if reelected, but compared to Trump, his mind is in far better shape. In fact, I would say Biden's mind is in far better shape than some of the younger Republicans running for national office.
This brings up Herschel Walker, who is running for the Senate seat from Georgia. This guy has been all over the place in recent weeks, leading many to speculate about his mental health. Knowing what we know about the high rate of concussions suffered in professional football, it would not be a stretch to think that Herschel is exhibiting symptoms of CTE, or chronic traumatic encephalopathy. Should he be allowed to run for high office?
This is a pretty slippery slope. One could argue that many Republicans in office and running for office display striking cognitive disorders. However, it seems the politicians that get the most media attention are Democrats like Dianne Feinstein, who does indeed appear to be slipping. Almost 90, it probably would behoove Dianne to retire, but then she is no more out of touch with reality than Marjorie Taylor Greene, half her age, who spouts all sorts of nonsense on a daily basis. A level of craziness unsurpassed, except maybe by Trump, yet she will most likely stroll to a second term in office as US Representative from the great state of Georgia.
I don't know how you hold persons accountable. The January 6 committee has made what I consider to be an ironclad case against Trump for not only inciting but orchestrating the insurrection attempt that ill-fated day in 2021. Yet, most Republicans want Americans to look the other way, with some of those who testified against Trump saying they would vote for him if he were the Republican nominee in 2024. This is a guy who clearly should not be allowed to run for any office ever again.
There is clearly a cognitive dissonance here that is very hard to understand. No matter the writing on the wall, many persons are determined to look the other way or try to find some false equivalence to justify their belief in some truly demented folks out there. I too would like to see Joe Biden step down after this term and a younger competent Democrat the next president. However, Biden is displaying a remarkable sangfroid with all the unrest in this world, and that is exactly what we need at the moment.
It brings to mind Abbey Lincoln's wonderful rendition of When the World is Falling Down.
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