"I guess there's just a meanness in this world"

Thinking about civility, cruelty, and (sigh) the Joe Biden discourse.

There’s been this question, heightening starting around the 2016 election, about civility. Civility is generally seen as a kind of weakness for many liberals and supporters of the Democratic Party. Michelle Obama’s refrain of “when they go low, we go high” uttered during the 2016 DNC was seen as a failure of imagination that allowed for Trump and MAGA to be ascendent in that election. It was our “go[ing] high” that kept us from mounting the right kind of campaign to secure the White House in 2016 that initiated this era of Trump/MAGA Republicanism.

I find myself thinking a lot about this in the wake of the 2024 election and former president Joe Biden’s decisions related to that as well as the news that he’d been recently diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer. The discourse around all of this has been… less than stellar.

I have my thoughts and feelings about what Biden should or should not have done heading into the 2024 election—they’re somewhat nuanced and I can understand the situation/problem from all sides. I’m going to try to outline some of those thoughts here:

• I think Biden’s record heading into 2024 said he should run—he’d had a successful presidency (yes, I know inflation was an albatross and a big one at that, but there had been a great deal of legislative success), the midterms went about as well as they could for the Democrats. I think that news somewhat blinded Biden, (and me as well), as to what the best course of action in 2024 was.

• There are three issues in play in the midst of all this—Biden’s physical state, his cognitive abilities/and decline, and his speaking style/demeanor—that get conflated.

  • Yes, Biden physically not the person he was a few years ago. His voice is a bit frailer and he’s not moving as quick as he did. On the one hand, being president isn’t like playing a sport/a physical thing (FDR was one of the greatest presidents while in a wheelchair due to polio). And your speaking voice shouldn’t be as important as what you’re standing for and what you and your administration is doing. But I can understand why physical diminishment can lead to questions about ability to manage the stress of the job.

  • I think some of the discourse regarding Biden’s “cognitive decline” is a bit overstated. There were lapses and gaffs in his speech, but that had always been the case (and will get to my third point). Also, many of those gaffs and errors are understandable and human (we all make gaffes or can’t think of the word we’re looking for, if that’s a sign of cognitive decline then I certainly suffer). I also think some of the discourse regarding pauses in Biden’s speech, taking time to collect thoughts, feels disingenuous and kind of cruel. I’ve talked about how I can stutter and stammer like Biden (and some people mistake that for a lack of knowledge). I also have a tendency to pause as I gather thoughts in a way that seems like a long time to others, so I’m inclined to think that some of this is just Biden’s way of thinking and communicating. It’s who he is. I also think of that quote incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain: “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.” Along with the point about his physical status… yes we are different as we age and in some ways we “diminish.” It’s what it means to age. But I don’t think that means one is automatically unsuited for jobs (even tough jobs) and it doesn’t mean one can’t function (the depiction of Biden as confused and not knowing where he is that people make in cruel jest… it just doesn’t sit right)

  • Now, we get to Biden’s speaking style, his demeanor, his tendency to lapse into the verbal gaffe or to go off on winding tangents, etc etc… I can see why, at this point in time with this campaign against this opponent, Biden’s approach might not work best. I think it’s a bit ridiculous (and, again, as one who stutters/stammers, it doesn’t feel great) but I can understand it. The way media is now, the way information is disseminated, and the kind of campaign Trump was going to run—it all just didn’t work to Biden’s qualities (especially as he’s older and there’s more variability and those qualities are more pronounced). The Biden administration’s legislative record, in their eyes at least, should have overcome that, but that’s the argument I’m most sensitive and amenable to. It was going to take a really modern, light campaign that a more traditional candidate like Biden just wasn’t going to be able to execute properly.

  • I also see how this issue of Biden’s age being an issue, and that there’s not really anything to do about it, essentially doomed him. I don’t necessarily think it’s fair he was put in the position to have to make that choice, but I also think there was a point of no return and to continue to fight against it was going to be a Sisyphean task. Thus, not running again and only serving the one term was what had to happen.

I think these discussions were fair and reasonable to have, but the way Biden is and was talked about by many keen observers seems… decidedly cruel. Saying that Biden has slowed a step or that perhaps he wasn’t going to be the right voice and an effective communicator for the 2024 election were both reasonable things to express (and that Kamala Harris’ campaign was able to push back against those anti-incumbent headwinds that were heading into as born out in Democrats being able to hang onto some Senate seats). But talking about Biden as though he’s some kind of senile, dottering old fool, someone who hadn’t put forth a good legislative agenda under channeling circumstances and tight majorities… it just felt cruel.¹

I think about this in conjunction with Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s book. There’s a line in how you talk about someone between noting a misstep they made (though trying to understand the rationale) and then engaging in… slanderous, mean-spirited snipes and ad hominem attacks. Perhaps I’m showing too much deference to one who was in power, perhaps I’m constrained by my normie sense of propriety and conduct, but it was lacking (startlingly so) when discussing President Biden.

I’ve been returning to this in the wake of the news about Biden’s cancer diagnosis. Quite a few voices in the MAGA/Republican orbit (including members of congress) are using this as an opportunity to speculate—Is it a coincidence that Biden released this news in the wake of so many questions about his ability? Did he know about it and cover it up? Does he even deserve our sympathy and care? How is this actually all about Donald Trump? It’s something that spans the political spectrum too and, to be certain, there are voices on the extreme other side of the aisle who have been less-than-civil.

Thus, I return to this idea of civility—we can’t just express sorrow and sympathy for someone who yes is older and yes might have made some missteps but is also facing a physically demanding illness and treatment at an advanced age. To bemoan this, to decry this, is somehow falling into a trap. I don’t say this to claim that Biden’s term as president was perfect or that he did not have missteps. There’s room for good-faith criticism and critique, I don’t think Biden would deny that. The quote Biden uses—”Don’t compare me to the Almighty. Compare me to the alternative”—makes sense, in that held up to the standard of what I think the absolute perfect president should do yeah he came up a little short. Compared to where we came from? He did a pretty good job, even for someone who’d lost a step.

But I think that, as we think about the values we want to really preserve and emphasize in our country going forward, civility should be one. Not a bland, naive civility that’s another name for giving in to those who would truly deny one’s existence, their rights, their dignity. But, at the very least, we ought not to knee-jerk to cruelty, to jokes, to snipes, to cynicism. Perhaps it’s naive, perhaps it's weak of me, but if we can all imagine a better world and strive for it, that’s one thing on my list.

This all makes me think of the end of a great short story by one of my favorite authors. Near the end of Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” the Misfit (an escaped convict haunting the roadsides) says:

"Jesus was the only One that ever raised the dead […] and He shouldn't have done it. He shown everything off balance. If He did what He said, then it's nothing for you to do but thow away everything and follow Him, and if He didn't, then it's nothing for you to do but enjoy the few minutes you got left the best way you can-by killing somebody or burning down his house or doing some other meanness to him. No pleasure but meanness."

That idea, “No pleasure but meanness,” seems to be where we’re at, and I do not like it nor do I think it’s right. I’ve seen it on display for a while now, and I hope we all can wake up from it.

1. I also think there’s a larger question about how we collectively see older people and how we treat aging—people did not want to be confronted with this older person, even as he had put together a pretty good administration. We don’t want to see what happens as people age, but we also can’t fathom that someone older might still have things to contribute.