Joe Biden‘s big farewell address happens tomorrow night (Monday, 8.19) at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. He’s going be showered by loyalist love and cheer, but never forget what a deranged, unhinged sonuvabitch he sounded like between that catastrophic debate performance on 6.27.24 and his blessed withdrawal from the race on 7.19.24. For 24 days Joe Biden showed the civilized world that he’d become one of the most selfish and obstinate Oval Office pricks in the country’s 250-year history.

For three and a half weeks doddering Joe insisted on a fantasy that everyone knew was hopeless — that he could beat Donald Trump on 11.5.24. Don’t buy the lie. Biden didn’t withdraw because he saw the light and decided to put his country’s welfare above his own political ambition…bullshit. He withdrew his candidacy because he was heavily pressured to do so. Otherwise this egoist would be running today and taking the country to doom and ruin. He’s a bastard.

— from Maureen Dowd‘s “The Dems Are Delighted, But a Coup Is Still a Coup,” posted on 8.17.24.

If the last 36 hours are any indication, doddering Joe Biden is apparently committed to ushering in a second Donald Trump term.

He’s no longer a sensible and decent man with practical inclinations. Barring an electoral miracle, he’s becoming the circumstantial, cliff’s-edge architect of our democracy’s demise. He’s the decrepit gatekeeper who could, if so inclined, at least try to orchestrate a scenario that might marshall our best resources and with God’s help hold back the yokel barbarian hordes…but he won’t do it.

He knows he’s too old and doesn’t give a shit. Post-debate Joe knows the chances of defeating Trump are almost nil, and he doesn’t want to hear it. He’s determined to charge forward atop his Old Paint and somehow muddle through.

His primary offense is (switching from horse-riding to sea-faring or Cincinnati Kid metaphors!) not so much that he’s doggedly determined to hold the course and perhaps go down with the ship. It’s that he’s determined to gamble on a hand that almost everyone (excepting he and Lady Macbeth and a handful of reality-denying, inner-circle loyalists) knows is weak and Jimmy Carter-ish and almost certainly doomed.

It’s that his Irish, mule-headed tenacity has bullied the shrewd or at least seasoned card player aspect of his nature into submission.

God help us but the post-debate, “what, me worry?”, damn-the-torpedoes Joe Biden has, by all apparent appearances, become a kind of delusional banshee. This wretched bastard has determined that tens of millions who believe in sanity and decency — the blue or blue-purple flock, the fair-minded, non-MAGA faithful — may have to suffer for his hubris, and so be it. Four years of hell (1.20.25 to 1.20.29) and perhaps longer than that.

Joe is showing his true colors, and they are not the colors of a patriot. He’s no longer the proverbial good guy.

If the worst happens on 11.5.24 and The Beast takes back the reins, it will be small comfort knowing that Joe’s ignominious and reprehensible place in the annals of American history will be locked in and branded deep like the Red River D. Damn this obstinate great grandpa…damn his old-coot, drooling sponge brain all to hell.