I know it's pointless to add my voice to the cacophony of hot takes and bedwetting, hand wringing, fear, and despair. And if it wasn't so important I would have stayed in hibernation. But it is important, important to slap a little sanity into my fellow Democrats. We're professional pessimists, the weight of the world is on our shoulders, and by extension on President Joe Biden's shoulders. So when a professional liar and convicted felon was given carte blanche by CNN to rhetorically punch our president in the face for 90 minutes, we feel the same hurt. A hell of a lot of Democrats feel disappointed. Professional havers-of-opinions fret and rend their garments because it feels at this moment in time that we blew it, we backed the wrong horse, and now democracy is going to fall to the most monstrous scumbag ever to crawl onto the political stage.
But it won't. Tell me, who changed their minds last night? Who is suddenly now excited at the prospect of a return and doubling down of the corruption and debasement of society? Who now longs for Project 2025? Who actually watched that farce last night where Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, who were probably under threat of career suicide if they disobeyed orders from on high, seemed completely indifferent to Doughface Donny's firehose of lies and disregard of the questions asked, even thanking him for lying to them? Of those, who actually watched the debacle and changed their minds? Who, of those, will even remember anything about it a month from now?
No, Democrats, through the performance of President Joe Biden, looked bad for 90 minutes. He had a cold, he wasn't on top of his game. The guardrails we thought could contain Doughface Donny's delusions and yelling, no audience and muted mics when not his turn, were not enough. Donny said whatever he felt like saying, I didn't hear one thing that even partially aligned with truth or the real world but that is the art of the con. Just lie with conviction and authority and the marks will fall in line. The beauty of having no responsibility, of acting in bad faith with impunity, having no morals or shame, is that you always have the advantage over those who do have responsibility. Being president is an incredible responsibility and it weighs on any decent individual occupying that office. It is the first and foremost reason we don't want an irresponsible, vicious liar to have that office.
Which is why being a grown up is hard. And why being a responsible statesman is so difficult, when you care about something you are vulnerable to evil men who only care about hurting you. President Biden cares deeply about this country and the American people, he has shown that he will do his best to defend us from evil men like Doughface Donny. That is why, cold or no cold, he was at a disadvantage. CNN's executives care about tax cuts and scoring enough points to survive to get those tax cuts. They care about ratings, not journalism; spectacle, not truth. So those executives pushed Tapper and Bash onto the firing line and tied their hands behind their backs as a sacrifice. We aren't allowed to see behind the curtain of motivations at CNN or any giant corporation. Noam Chomsky used to say that media is a self-selecting chain of filtration, if you internalize the values you rise in the profession. If you maintain some standards and conscience, you do not get on screen.
We, all of us who feel some responsibility and care about the full litany of democracy and rule of law, have to persevere despite all of these handicaps. It was 90 minutes of looking bad, that's all. We can recover. President Biden can get this done, he's the only one who can at this time.
