KNAPP COLUMN: Election 2024: Did The First Presidential Debate Tell Us Anything We Didn’t Already Know?
Published 9:00 am Thursday, July 4, 2024
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Joe Biden and Donald Trump are both old men. We already knew that.
Neither’s brain can be honestly characterized as hitting on all the
key cognitive cylinders. We already knew that.
They’re both compulsive liars. We already knew that.
Did listening to the two geezers argue about their golf handicaps in
CNN’s June 27 “presidential debate” tell us anything we didn’t already
know about them? Nah.
On the particular night in question, Biden came off as more
dazed/confused and Trump as more fever-dreamy/hallucinatory but in any
given week we can expect each of them to display characteristics of
both mental status sets.
They’re both decrepit. They’re both deranged. They’re both demented.
They’re both dishonest. Neither adds up (or seems to have ever
previously added up) to much beyond the sum of those characteristics.
Even if someone, anyone, could plausibly be “qualified” to “serve” as
President of the United States, neither of these two would come close
to making the list. If sanity, competence, and morals were the
criteria, we’d be safer picking a random name from the Elizabeth
Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane’s patient roster than choosing
between Joe Biden and Donald Trump.
Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how one looks at it, we
don’t have to worry about “qualifications” — because it’s impossible
for anyone to be “qualified.”
If you don’t believe me, maybe you’ll believe Abraham Lincoln: “No man
is good enough to govern another man without that other’s consent.”
In 2020, only about 47% of Americans voted for president of the United States.
About 90 million weren’t allowed to vote. How can they have been said
to have “consented” to be ruled by the winner?
Another 82 million chose not to vote. How can they be said to have
“consented” to be ruled by the winner?
As for the 158.5 million Americans who DID vote, they hardly displayed
unanimity. Can those who voted for Donald Trump, Jo Jorgensen, Howie
Hawkins, et al. really be said to have “consented” to be ruled by Joe
Biden?
Biden only knocked down 51.31% of votes actually cast … and because
so many Americans chose not to vote or were forbidden to vote, fewer
than one in four Americans could plausibly be said to have “consented”
to his rule.
This time around, instead of arguing over which incompetent liar
should rule us, let’s start thinking about how to do away with a
system that allows anyone to rule us at all.