Gaslighting 101: Good Enough

 

"We're being duped."

~Matthew Leatherwood~

 

Let's get something straight here, right from the beginning. I like Joe Biden. He's been a great president, he was a great VP for Obama, and he's been a caring and affective politician for decades. Flawless? Not even close. But under his leadership, our economy is on the road to recovery, unemployment figures are the best they've been since the 60's and our country has been breathing a collective sigh of relief.  He's a good man and his heart is seemingly in the right place.

So, when you suggest I've somehow abandoned him because I've called out the entire party for a "bad night," then you're doing the same thing Republicans have been doing since Trump hit the scene. You're gaslighting. Calling out our party for dropping the ball while still accepting the fact I support our president and will vote for him in November, if that's our option, is a thing. It's not an either/or proposition, and frankly, if you're not calling out our party for dropping the ball, shame on you. Blindly following a candidate, no matter what, is exactly what the Republicans have been doing. 

Let me try to explain. The debate that started this wake-up call wasn't just a debate. This was an opportunity to put the doubts about Joe's health to rest and move our party forward in the struggle to make a maniac insignificant. Democrats had 8 years. Eight. Years. to put together a candidate or, at least, thoroughly prepare a candidate, for what needed to happen the night of the debate. 8 Years to have someone on that staff focus on one thing. They blew it. Joe, indeed, had a bad night. But in my book, you don't get to have a publicly bad night if you're running for leader of the free world. 

He isn't running for Student Council or School Board President. He is what stands between us and a Trump presidency; between us and dictatorship (Project 2025), and he and our party dropped the ball on seemingly the most important event of the entire campaign. But here's the thing. I don't blame Biden nearly as much as I blame our party for this fiasco. It's almost as if our party didn't want Joe to run and they set him up to fail. If that's the case, they succeeded. 

Do you care to know who I really blame? I blame you. And I blame myself. We have slipped into such an era of complacency that we're all willing to accept any ole candidate that we believe can defeat the orange idiot, even if it means following him into defeat. Everyone claims to give a shit on Facebook, yet the turnout for primary voting in Nebraska was barely a third of registered voters.  A third. Clearly, we don't really care who "leads" us and the 1% know that. 

It would be easy to fall into the mindset that your vote doesn't count. And maybe in the end, it doesn't. But right now it counts more than ever. Even if not for president, it counts for senators and congresswomen and men. It counts for state supreme court justices and hundreds upon hundreds of supporting cast. 

Speaking of which, many of you argue that if Biden is reelected, even if he couldn't complete his term, there's a great VP waiting. Even if he begins to suffer from worsening dementia, he has a solid cabinet to keep him in check. I'll give you that. BUT WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU BE OK ELECTING SOMEONE WHO IS STATISTICALLY INCAPABLE OF COMPLETING HIS TERM FOR ANY REASON?!?!  I know. I know. We have to vote blue no matter what and I solemnly swear to do just that. Joe has my vote if that's who we bring to the table, because, for now, he's good enough.

But this isn't the end. Every single one of us bears the responsibility for both parties offering us these ridiculous choices and there will (hopefully) be other elections to come. We have to do better. We have to do much better. We have to make ourselves heard. 

The United States of America has been a grand experiment for nearly 250 years. For 200 of that, it went pretty well. But now this grand experiment is on the verge of collapse, both as a government and as a capitalist economy. Some may call me a pessimist or downright cynical. Maybe that's true, but not being critical and letting things go without playing a part is exactly what got us in this mess. And you may call it pessimism, but I call it realism. If we don't step up as a nation, this experiment will end soon. Will it be in civil war? I don't know. I certainly hope not.

Here's what I do know. I'll be voting blue across the board in November, because I simply don't have a choice. And ironically, I hear that same sentiment from conservatives all the time. I love what Joe has done for us, but I'm only interested in how he can lead moving forward. That's simply where we are right now.

Good enough is no longer good enough. Not for me, it isn't.