Hey, beloved tribe.
After last night’s debate, I woke up thinking about a darkly funny Jewish social media post I saw in mid-October.
One thing I’ve always loved about Jews is our gallows humor. I don’t know if anyone does it better than we do. We’ve had millenia to hone this response to hardship, adversity and pain — to somehow find a way to step back from the ghastly and laugh at our own position on this narrowest of bridges we call the world.
At any rate, this post played on that cinematic device where a character on the screeen says or does something, and then there’s a voiceover from an unseen narrator, intoning some exlanation or commentary.
I wish I could remember who posted it. If that person happens to be a reader here, please tell me so I can add attribution!
Anyway, the post was clearly about October 7th, which happened less than two weeks after our High Holy Days ended. If memory serves, it said exactly this:
Me: “Shana tovah!”
Narrator: “BUT THE SHANA WAS NOT TOVAH.”
My friends, in too many ways to count, the shana has not been tovah and it seems to be testing our collective mettle in nearly every way imaginable.
Anyone who's been a reader here for a while will already know that I’m an ardent fan of President Biden. I consider him the finest president of my lifetime. I know beyond a doubt that he’s a wildly good man and a true public servant. And I also believe he’s a wise, seasoned, excellent statesman. He will never lose my vote for the presidency.
But I’ll admit that last night was the worst I’ve felt about our prospects here in the U.S. since the Trump presidency ended. It was a taste of the old, very sane and yet sanity-threatening obsession that ruled my days and nights back then. It all came flooding back: the peculiar rank sweat I have when I’m very frightened, the churning gut, the pounding heart, the pacing, the sleeplessness.
I went to sleep afraid. I woke up afraid.
But I knew I needed to move past that, and I have.
Friends, I am simply unwilling to go mad in my attic like that again, come what may. It did not stop me from acting, back then. I fought like a wildcat to get Trump out of office. I did more politically in those 4 years than ever before in my life. I worked tirelessly to flip the Senate. I hand-wrote upwards of a thousand letters to voters. I posted about the horror of Trump’s presidency incessantly. I talked about the mounting dangers incessantly. We asked for contributions to democracy in lieu of both our children’s b’nei mitzvah gifts and we donated the entirety of the sums sent in their honor. I made aligning against the evil that Trump represents a condition of continued intimacy with me.
But I was sleepless and strung out and angry and afraid all the time. I can’t sustain that emotional response.
Here’s something interesting about those years: as terrible as they were, and as depleted and despairing as I felt, I was also the best version of myself that I’ve ever been in my life, at least in some ways.
Not in all ways. Countless relationships were strained, some were ended, and I think it will take many more years to truly understand and unpack all the ways that damage was done, both to me and by me. I was tiresome. I was monomaniacal. I was a shrill, strident, relentless harpy. My family would beg me to give it a rest, to let an evening with friends be about something else for once. I was self-righteous. I was judgmental. I was blunt to the point of aggression. I was unable to compartmentalize, ever, with anyone anywhere.
But I was also so enraged at half this country that I felt I had to love the other half twice as hard just to hold onto my own humanity.
I donated a kidney to a total stranger during this time: a young Jewish woman in New York with a very young child. It was, in a way, one expression of my Zionism at a time when anti-Semitism was already mounting at an alarming rate on both sides of the aisle. A way to say that every Jewish life is immeasurably precious to me, and that I would go to almost any lengths to protect it.
A homeless man came to my door in mid-winter to ask if he could go through our recycling bin for cans to cash in, and that kicked off an episode in which I and countless other (incredible!) human beings joined forces to get him a real job and off the street.
I sent flowers to another stranger, an elderly Black cancer survivor who stood in the hot sun for hours and hours, defying voter suppression to cast her vote for Biden, and she and I remain friends to this day.
I spent those years learning some important skills. One was how to resist paralysis when threatened by despair, to dig deep and find ways to transcend my own fear and rage so that I could be loving and effective instead of curled in a fetal position on the floor.
I found ways to be good then, but my friends, I’m finding ways to be better now.
I never want to be guilty of toxic positivity. I never want to deny what’s plain to anyone with eyes and ears.
I have to admit that it’s nearly impossible to reconcile the version of Biden at last night’s debate with the man who delivered the State Of The Union address a scant few months ago.
Last night, he wasn’t well, and that was— is — undeniable.
But it doesn’t budge my loyalty to his candidacy by a millimeter.
One of two things is true, and we will know which one it is very soon.
The first possibility is that Biden had the worst night of his life, that he suffered a perfect storm of overpreparation, a glut of cold meds (which truly make me as inarticulate and unable to even think as I ever am when I myself am on them), severe laryngitis, the momentary cognitive fumbling that affects nearly every human being of advanced age, and exhaustion. In this scenario, he is as strong in the second and third debates as he was weak in this one. In this scenario, the terribly bleak version of him that emerged last night will fade in the rapid-fire news cycle and sound-byte circulation in the months to come.
The second possibility is that Biden has truly taken a turn that his handlers have hidden from us, in which case it proves that **a presidency is about much, much more than the figure of the president**. If a dazed, senile Biden has run the country these last four years, then his cabinet has knocked it out of the park and can continue to do do.
These four years have been a triumph of epic proportions. Jobs have exploded and more Americans are employed right now than in any other time in our country’s history. Biden’s administration averted a recession that absolutely everyone regarded as an inexorable given. He has the most diverse cabinet of any U.S. president, ever — including a Black woman as his VP and his Supreme Court appointment of the first Black woman to serve on America’s highest court.
He passed the most important infrastructure package in decades. He’s provided a whole range of new protections for veterans. He cemented marriage equality by signing it into federal law. Inflation is down, prescription drug prices are down, student debt is down. He led the world in support of Ukraine. He’s protected and bolstered the Affordable Care Act, allowing 80% of American citizens health coverage for less than $10 a month. He immediately rejoined the Paris Accords and is making unprecedented investments in clean energy.
And I will die on the hill that is my conviction that he has been an incredible friend to Israel in one of her darkest hours.
If time reveals that Biden is in fact a shell of himself, then we have incontrovertible proof that the Biden TEAM is knocking it out of the park and can continue to do so. That when democracy works as it should, a comprehensive panel of formidable experts surrounds the president and can act decisively and effectively on a vision of America that goes far beyond a single man.
In stark contrast to this, Trump put all his own cronies in his cabinet, choosing the ones least suited to, and most likely to exploit, their roles, the country and the world for their own — and his own — personal gain.
If the DNC replaces Biden at the last second, I will support the new candidate to the hilt. But I refuse to call for that myself.
I am just one person with a single person’s opinion — but speaking personally, I am irritated and impatient with the panic that’s set in. I’m furious at the moderators of last night’s debate for so thoroughly failing to moderate. I’m enraged at the media for treating this moment as anything other than it is: an imperative to defeat the sociopathic maniac who literally tried to murder half of Congress in order to seize the White House by force after he lost the last election. I’m beyond vexed at calls to replace our nominee four months before Game Day.
I align with Governor Gavin Newsom, who said it best last night when asked what he’d say to those clamoring for Biden to step down because he can’t win.
Interviewer: “Do you think it’s unfounded?”
Governor Newsom: “Well, I think it’s unhelpful. And I think it’s unnecessary. We’ve got to go in, we’ve got to keep our heads high, and we’ve got to have the back of this president. You don’t turn your back because of one performance! What kind of party does that? It’s been a master class: 15.6 million jobs — that’s 8 times more than the last 3 Republican presidents combined. The only thing the last 3 Republican presidents have in common is recessions.
Democrats deliver. This president has delivered. We need to deliver for him at this moment. With all due respect, the more time we start having these conversations go down these rabbit holes — it’s unhelpful to our democracy, the fate and future of this country, the world. They need us, right now, to step up — and that’s exactly what I intend to do.”
I don’t anticipate that a second Biden presidency will be any less competent than the first, but if we elect Biden, and we’re unhappy with his performance, we can choose someone else next time. If we elect Trump, we will never vote again. That is the literal truth.
My Jewish family, we cannot afford our own despair right now.
We need all hands on deck, because we unequivocally have to win.
I sent my highest-yet contribution to Biden’s campaign last night, and I also sent contributions to hopeful and/or incumbent Congressional representatives Wesley Bell, Mondaire Jones, and Marie Perez.
We absolutely must give Democrats in high-stakes races all the help we can muster.
Please don’t indulge right now in talk of leaving the country (go after the election! just don’t focus on that now!); in blame games toward Biden, the DNC or anyone else; or in posts that weaken Biden instead of strengthening his candidacy. This is not the time.
Every single one of us has power that we must not give away. Contribute. Speak. Act. Fight.
Israel needs us to be strong. America needs us to be strong. Our kids need us to be strong.
Dear G-d that I don’t believe in, protect the United States of America.
Please use our day of rest well, and come out of it ready to fight.
Love to you all and Shabbat shalom.
Am Yisrael Chai.
If Trump had a bad night the Republicans would stick together and rally around him, stronger than ever. We Democrats have a tendency to eat our own at signs of trouble -- Al Franken, anyone?
It was a bad night and unfortunately timed. In a sane world, that would be "so what, let's move on." I am tired of living in insanity. But this changes nothing (any more than it does when people go batshit nuts about the latest Israel thing). Back to work.