Anyone with sense knows that the upcoming Presidential Election pitting President Donald Trump against former Vice-President Joe Biden is going to be a nightmare. We knew that a year ago, long before we knew that all of 2020 was actually going to be beyond miserable and a never-ending barrage of horribleness piled upon despair.
The country is more divided than at anytime in modern history, dating back to the 1960’s, when total discord ruled the United States. Our nation’s cities were on fire and riots were commonplace as we fought over political corruption, tension with foreign countries, and racial injustice. Thank God we solved those issues and have moved on to more civilized disagreements and behaviors.
We’re still on the heels of the last election, when the least liked candidates in history faced off in a battle of the best of the worst; or as I always referred to it; puke versus poop, 2016. Resentment and distrust has only grown on both sides since Trump was inaugurated, and we now face a choice between two candidates that a majority of Americans agree are both mentally unfit for the job. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/10/2020-election-news-voters-see-trump-biden-as-mentally-unfit-to-be-president.html
The fact that voters, regardless of who they support, recognize that the winner, whoever it will be, isn’t qualified to do the job, should be the most terrifying thing about this election. However, it’s not even in the top 5.
On a partisan basis, Trump voters are convinced a Biden presidency will turn America into a Socialist disaster. Biden voters are convinced that there won’t be an America in four years if Trump gets a second term, and neither of those things are the most terrifying things about this election.
It is almost inevitable that the results of the election will be both unknown for days if not weeks, and that they will be endlessly contested in courtrooms across America. All of that angst will lead to more rage, more riots, and more 2020. And yet, none of those are the most terrifying things about this election.
The most terrifying aspect of this election is the one that no one is talking about. This country, as a result of its’ binary choice election style, is about to choose between two elderly men, both with varying degrees of accusations against them of physical and mental challenges. Trump, despite what we’re told is his endless amount of energy, is clearly overweight, has a horrific diet that he doesn’t attempt in any way to hide, has been oddly mysterious about many medical questions, has been unable to patently deny rumors of nearly having to relinquish Presidential control due to medical issues last year, and has had innumerable moments of oratory and verbal gaffes, and inexplicable slurring of speech. https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/02/politics/mike-pence-donald-trump-walter-reed-health/index.html
Biden, meanwhile, to anyone with eyes and a memory of just 4 years ago, is a mere shell of the human he once was. The once vibrant, energetic, chatterbox has become visibly frail, slow, and beyond confused. While he’s always been known for comical verbal gaffes akin to not remembering the name of the world leader standing next to him, it has gone light years beyond that. Deer in headlights are insulted that he is being compared to them anytime he doesn’t have a teleprompter in front of him; and even when he does, he makes outlandish mistakes like stating that “200 million” (instead of the correct number of 200,000) Americans have died of Covid-19. https://www.sctimes.com/story/opinion/2020/09/21/joe-biden-no-longer-fit-hold-office/5855830002/
While “70 is the new 60” and there are plenty of healthy, vibrant, alert seniors in the world, these two are neither of them. In addition to all of the circumstantial evidence presented above, we all must be cognizant of the toll 2020 has taken on all of us. Years from now, endless studies will explore exactly how many years have been taken off each of our lives as a result of this mess, and when you’re already in your 70’s, you don’t have many years to give up. Trump will be 74 and Biden 78 on inauguration day; but they may well be closer to 85-90 both mentally and physically. And that brings us to the most terrifying aspect of this election that no one is talking about. We are about to choose between two elderly and seemingly unwell men who have the two most horrifying replacements possible.
The endless joke never told as Democrats have spent four years calling for the impeachment and removal of Trump has been the delusional rage they have for the president while forgetting that such a thing would lead to President Mike Pence, an administration that, based on his career as a congressman and Governor of Indiana, would lead to the most radical far-right Christian rule in the modern history of the country. All strides forward by the LGBTQ community would be erased and an actual war-on-women (not the fake one people have been screaming about for the last decade) would be launched in America. Pence spent his entire political career being owned by powerful donors and would be a lap-dog to the most extreme views of “traditional” America which sounds great until you remember that America wasn’t exactly a joy ride for people that weren’t white men back in the 1950’s, the very decade Pence most likely views as “the good ‘ol days,” given his history vis a vie not only women and LGTBQ people, but also African Americans and immigrants of color.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/23/the-danger-of-president-pence
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/19/president-pence-women-week-in-patriarchy
Meanwhile, there’s a reason the little known Kamala Harris, senator from, and former Attorney General of California, has been so little seen and heard during this campaign; as the Senator with the most liberal voting record as of 2019, Harris not only supports the most radical ideas of the far left, she also has spent her career flip-flopping endlessly in whichever direction her donors and the most extreme of her party demand that she go. In addition to rampant wild rumors about her willingness to do “anything” to get ahead, much of unscrupulous, is her vocal support for universal health care for all, the Green New Deal, reparations for African Americans, a decriminalization of illegal border crossings, abortion on demand into the final month, and use of executive orders to declare guns a national emergency, opening the theoretical door for non-legislative restrictions, bans, and even confiscations. Other than that, she’s very moderate and mainstream.
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/kamala_harris/412678/report-card/2019
https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2020-53770654
https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/517325-kamala-harris-from-historic-to-invisible
Sure, this is all hypothetical…until it isn’t. There’s a reason the most-repeated phrase every four years is “a heartbeat away from the presidency.” A vice-president hasn’t found himself thrust into the big chair in 46 years. That can be spun in two ways:
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- C’mon, why are we even thinking about this? It’s been half a century since it even happened!
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- The longer it’s been since something “happened,” the more likely that very thing is to occur.
All it takes is a tragic moment; a life-ending heart attack, the first successful assassination of a president since 1963, or even the first ever crash of Air Force One. With these two candidates, literal mental incapacity also must be considered as time takes its’ toll, and all of us should be spending a lot more time thinking about the ramifications of either a Harris or Pence presidency.
