The Confidence of the Governed

 So a lot of people are in a state of total anxiety over the state of President Joe Biden's health. At 81 years old and with very little done to staunch the bleeding from the Biden-Trump debate debacle, should Biden still be the nominee for the Democratic Party to be President again? 

Biden insists he's in it for the long haul, no one is forcing him out and that the fallout from that bad debate performance is an aberration and he's fit as a fiddle and ready to kick Donald Trump's ass a second time.  

Even as the poll numbers for Biden just keep getting worse along side a series of stories that Biden's mental and physical issues with advanced age extend beyond just one bad debate.  

Even if Biden can look in a mirror and convince himself he can in fact still do this, the question remains, should he?

There are two factor important for a leader, especially in a democracy:

• The ability to govern. 
• The confidence of the governed.

Which should be enough to knock Donald Trump out of contention.

• Trump is deficient in intelligence, morality, ethics and compassion, all necessary to an effective President. He proved over 4 years in office he does not have the ability to govern. 
• With his focus on his white Christian nationalist base, Trump alienates over half the country that are not white Christian nationalists so he lacks the confidence of the governed. 

But this is about Joe Biden, not Donald Trump.  

Biden has proven his bonafides at being able to govern.  His administration actually passed an infrastructure bill and took action to rein in drug prices.  

But does he have the confidence of the governed?   

Almost from day one of Biden's time in office, there has been a constant drum beat of stories from right wing media that Biden's too damn old and flunkies are doing his work for him behind the scenes and he is in cognitive decline.  

Never mind the other guy had his own very obvious problems with stringing together coherent sentences, slurring his words and losing his train of thought. 

Nope, it was Biden whose mind was riddled with holes caused by old age. 

Biden supporters comforted themselves with "it's just right wing propaganda" and "their guy is worse" and...

Then comes the debate and...

Holy shit! Is Biden OK? I don't think Biden's OK! We're not OK! Fucking Trump going to be fucking President again? Holy shit! FUCK!

The age issue has always been out there but Biden supporters made their peace with it as best they could. An age impaired Biden is still a damn sight better than the total fuckery that is Donald Trump. 

Except the night of the debate, over 48 million people did not see that. As I wrote last week, yeah, Trump was still lying and fear mongering but he was doing it coherently.  Whatever case Biden could make about the good he has done and can still do was lost in a wave of incoherence.  

Maybe the debate was an outlier. Maybe Joe Biden's still got this.

But it seems clear that whatever his ability to govern might be, Biden has lost the confidence of the governed. 

And there is too much at stake to ignore that.  

The driving mission above all else is not so much that Biden wins but that Donald Trump cannot, must NOT win! 

Right now there is a lot of buzz around Vice President Kamala Harris taking point on the ticket for President.  There's already a lot of speculation on who should join her on the ticket as her VP.  At the top of those lists is our very own North Carolina governor Roy Cooper. 

I think I could really get behind a Harris/Cooper ticket.   

But it's up to Joe Biden to make the decision to stay or go. 

Biden is a good man who deserves our respect for his long record of service to his country.

And I think he needs to go.