I realize the technical answer is Joe Biden, but the question I am asking is somewhat different. I’m asking: who is making the decisions, who is running the place? When the media reports on U.S. efforts to get a ceasefire in Gaza, who is doing that? Who is deciding the policy on that? After the failed debate with Donald Trump in June and the interview with George Stephanopoulos that lasted only 22 minutes, it seems pretty clear it is not President Biden.
I don’t know when this happened, or started to happen. President Biden’s staff has been limiting his public exposure for quite a while and much of the media was not talking about it or trying to figure out why.1 His condition may have been getting worse for some time. But regardless of how long it has been, what do we do now?
This is serious. When Woodrow Wilson was incapacitated, the Senate rejected his bid for the United States to join the League of Nations. Would it have made a difference if we had joined? Could President Wilson have rallied the country and convinced the Senate to join the League if he hadn’t been incapacitated?
That may be where we are today. There may be an inflection point around the corner that we can’t see right now. How would it be handled? Who would make the decisions? Or is the answer that we just have to hope it doesn’t happen.2
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1 It is amazing that so many of these people supported Biden for “four more years”, but that is a different point and not what I am talking about here.
2 This is not to say that Donald Trump is up to these questions, either. He isn’t. But that is not the point. The question is what do we do with Joe Biden in the state he is in.
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UPDATE (8/16/24 8:10 am): A version of this post appeared in the Chicago Tribune's "Voice of the People" today. See here (it is the third letter).
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