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There is something to be said about ignoring actors. They assume roles, quite literally, camouflage themselves in scripts where personalities are created, and behave accordingly. Given that they are paid liars, their political promptings should be treated with caution. It is no accident that much the same thing can be said about the members of Congress.
Given that the US President is now not so much functioning in twilight as in rapidly descending darkness, the recent intervention by Hollywood grandee and Democrat benefactor George Clooney has prompted ever more tittering about the electoral prospects of Joe Biden.
Choosing the New York Times to make his point, Clooney spoke of his love for Biden mixed with anguish about political realities. “We are not going to win in November with this president.” He wished the Democratic party operators “to stop telling us that 51 million people didn’t see what we just saw”, referring to Biden’s calamitous showing in the first debate against Donald Trump. “We’re so terrified by the prospect of a second Trump term that we’ve opted to ignore every warning sign.”
Personal reflections about Biden’s recent behaviour flowed. At a co-hosted Hollywood fundraiser held over three weeks ago at the Peacock Theatre, Clooney found “not the Joe ‘big F-king deal’ Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020.”
Reflections about the Democratic establishment are also plentiful. Having spoken to Democratic lawmakers – Clooney does not say how many – the broad consensus was clear: Biden’s candidacy was a liability across all political races. “We won’t win the House, and we’re going to lose the Senate.”
The grim assessment is inevitable:
“Most of our members of Congress are opting to wait and see if the dam breaks. But the dam has broken. We can put our heads in the sand and pray for a miracle in November, or we can speak the truth.”
Others in the movie business are also offering their “love you but exit” suggestions. This is director Robert Reiner’s unimpressive gobbet on social media:
“We love and respect Joe Biden. We acknowledge all he has done for our country. But Democracy is facing an existential threat. We need someone younger to fight back. Joe Biden must step aside.”
Predictably, given their profession, there were also suggestions from the thespian community about how Biden could do better from a purely superficial perspective, satisfying the spectators and viewers transfixed by the blood sport of a US presidential race. Michael Douglas, for instance, had his own morsel on The View about how the debate with Trump should have gone.
“First of all they should have just told the president to stand up, put a little makeup on for the debate and then where to look.”
Biden should – and here, the jaw drops – have not dealt with his own facts – “just deal with [Trump’s] lies.” Now that’s acting.
With all that out of the way, Douglas still had to concede feeling “deeply, deeply concerned” while gazing at the “big bench” of “heavy hitters, a lot of talent” on the Democratic side. (Names, please.) Clooney, in making his case for a replacement, had made “a valid point.”
Not that we should assume all such figures feel the same way. Perennial cause seeking activist Jane Fonda, in views expressed last month, thought that age could actually play to Biden’s advantage. In remarks made to Wolf Blitzer on CNN, Fonda noted how she was
“older than he is. And I’m all for age. I can tell you that you do get wise and you do learn things you learn from your mistakes. And I have seen him close and personal and he’s fine.” The incumbent was accordingly “perfectly suited to be president of the United States I don’t know of or in spite of the age he’s just fine.”
With such supremely skewed analysis, we know that anybody can be president, whatever their mental infirmities. Appropriately, Whoopi Goldberg was full of candour in declaring that she would still vote for the president even “if he’s pooped his pants. I don’t care if he can’t put a sentence together. Show me he can’t do the job and then I’ll say, okay, maybe it’s time to go.” Presidential politics really has struck a low bar.
Clooney’s scribble has laid bare the knotty state the Democrats have created for themselves. The issue of Biden’s condition was already well inked last year, but the machine men and women would not have a bar of considering his replacement. This late in the day, the Democrats have been shown, by virtue of such mildly condescending notes from Clooney (the “love you Joe” sort), to have abused their elderly relative by initially supporting them, only to publicly withdraw their blessing as the show is wearing thin. You were good for the laughs; time to go home.
Through this, Biden has become a victim of wide scale elder abuse, be it in the form of prolonging his agony as a candidate – disingenuously or otherwise – or calling for his prompt exit. Whether he soils his pants or not, he certainly is proving on the international stage that his cerebral functions are blunted beyond repair.
His latest addition to the cabinet of gaffes and mental enfeeblement: confusing, at the NATO summit in Washington, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky with Russia’s Vladimir Putin. In another slip, he also referred to Vice-President Kamala Harris as “Vice-President Trump”.
Those in the dream factory of Hollywood can take some comfort in these displays. A CNN report, citing an unnamed White House source, makes the delicious point that the president’s “entire display is a kind of an act”. Unfortunately, even for those in thespian land, it’s not even a good one.
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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). Email: [email protected]
Featured image: U.S. President Joe Biden preparing to disembark Marine One, July 2021. (White House, Adam Schultz)
