We all knew he was running, of course, and he may well get the nomination, but nobody is passionate about him. Bernie and Warren and Beto and Mayor Pete all have enthusiastic supporters, but Biden? He’s just good old Joe. In a race against Trump, his only strong advantage is that he’s a decent human being and Trump is not.
That has never been enough.
In the early days of our republic, John Quincy Adams, one of the men responsible for the idealism of our early republic, lost an election to Andrew Jackson, who was arguably the worst human being ever to attain our presidency, even to this day.
About a century and a half later, Richard Nixon defeated George McGovern in a landslide, despite (to quote the gonzo legend Dr. Hunter Thompson), “The tragedy of all this is that George McGovern, for all his mistakes and all his imprecise talk about ‘new polities’ and ‘honesty in government’ is one of the few men who’ve run for president of the United States in this century who really understands what a fantastic monument to all the best instincts of the human race this country might have been, if we could have kept it out of the hands of greedy little hustlers like Richard Nixon.”
Thompson continued, “McGovern made some stupid mistakes, but in context they seem almost frivolous compared to the things Richard Nixon does every day of his life, on purpose… Jesus! Where will it end? How low do you have to stoop in this country to be President?”
Well, Doc, I am sorry you have to hear this from across the endless expanse of the ethereal plane, but we haven’t hit rock bottom yet.
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