The national political conventions, such as they were, are over.  The sixty day sprint to the national election is now underway and the disinterested and peripheral voters will start to pay attention.  The election of 2020 for the presidency of the United States is essentially like no other in history, driven by the bizarre effects of a pandemic.  The resultant virtual presentations of the national conventions accentuated the trend of the last few decades , exposing the concept of parties and their platforms  progressively as a relic of the past, replaced by a celebrity cage match between the party standard bearers, the Presidential candidates.  The candidates now embody the entire essence of the parties to the greater population. A defeat implies the death of any compromise, so divergent have we become of our perception of our country, its history, and its purpose, so deaf to each others’ arguments.  The election of 2020 is the poster child for a survival election.  Amazingly, both parties have placed their survival on the shoulders of the oldest two presidential candidates in history.  Trump and Biden will soon face off like to very old bulls, marginally in contact with their former vigor,  but looking to destroy the other at the first chance.  The future of the world’s oldest continuous democratic tradition hangs in the balance.  Let’s look at the comparison through some prisms that underlie the choice.

The Age Factor – How could there possibly be an age factor when both candidates are well beyond what used to be considered the age at which candidates were “too old” for the rigors of the office.  Donald Trump at 74 years and Joe Biden at 78 on inauguration day are an indication of how hard the baby boomer generation is willing to fight to retain relevant power in the United States.  The extension of life spans through the health care revolution and the boomers incredible doggedness regarding power has left us with these two Presidential candidates, a Speaker of the House who is 80, and a Senate Majority Leader who is 78, and three Supreme Court Justices age 72, 82, and 87.  The consideration that all three branches of government are theoretically reliant on individuals born in the shadow of World War II reflect how poorly the subsequent generations have been in organizing their influence through the democratic process.  Donald Trump in 2016, at the tender age of 73, crushed his sixteen other competitors for the nomination based upon the force of his personality and conviction, and the relative absence of theirs.  In almost mirror image terms, the enfeebled Biden easily fought off 23 other candidates for the Democratic nomination of 2020, with the even older 78 year old Bernie Sanders his only viable competition.  No single other factor explains more fully the unraveling of the politics of compromise and vetted policy than the abject failure of younger generations to successfully stand for mature values and ideas that would make this older generation with all its flaws appropriately obsolete.

The second age factor conundrum is the visibly different capabilities of the two candidates in essentially the same decade of life .  Joe Biden, who entered Washington through the Senate in 1972 and first ran for President over 30 years ago in  1988, shows the corroded, enfeebled persona of someone who’s mental stamina and tolerance for stress has long since passed him by.  He has shown little energy for the fight, holding court in the basement of his home, accepted no challenging questions, and on multiple occasions shown little residual capacity to frame a thought or link two sentences together coherently.  In previous efforts at the office, he was considered even by his party as a dullard.  Today he stands as a pale shadow of even that low standard. There is no compelling evidence whatsoever that he is up to the rigors of the office.  Yet, there he is…currently leading the race.  In opposition is the President, only 4 years younger yet a veritable whirlwind of energy and vitality, never shutting up, pugilistic, and confrontational, continuing the undisciplined tsunami of action that many find abhorrent and gross, and others a breath of fresh energy in a Washington that has lost all energy.  It is fascinating that the politically savvy five decade practitioner of the Washington DC ruling elite finds himself pathetically wanting compared to the vitality of a similarly aged individual who has been the epitome of an outsider, an emblematic representative of the competitive real world his entire adult life.

Inversion of the Core – The 2020 election is framing up on a rather profound inversion of what has been the traditional power bases of the Democrat and Republican Parties over the years.  The amazing reality is that the parties have almost entirely switched places.  The Democrat Party always painted its core philosophy as the “party of the working man”.   Buttressed by unions, traditionally looking to support the stability of middle class pensions and health care on the backs of the rich through tax policy, and traditionally supportive of local political machines and their patronage systems, the party sought to define itself as looking out for the majority of Americans who relied on others to be entrepreneurial and accepting of risk.  The Republican Party oriented itself on the foundation of old Whiggism, patching together country club classic successful liberals, business leaders, fiscal conservatives, entrepreneurs, and evangelicals in a polyglot approach that celebrated an international presence and “adult” foreign policy, that required perfect electoral structures. The recent conventions have shown that this tradition power structure has, mostly through the stunning impact of Trumpism, nearly completely inverted.  The Republican candidacy was framed at the convention by example after example of support for the common man and woman against the ruthless effects of modern society, an America first and inward focus, based on job preservation, protection against external invasion and corruption of traditional American themes, and protection against the radical forces that would throw it all away for internationally accepted ideals.  The Democrat Party has promoted decades of progressive enhancement of dominant government structures injected with elite “experts” seeking to control the great center no longer felt capable of making “good” decisions without life long direction. It now finds itself the party of the “educated” elite, derisive of the class of people who work in mundane physical labor and without advanced degrees.  The party is increasingly reliant on the barbell effect of the massive group of Americans that rely almost exclusively on government largess , and young people, who see the government as the only viable alternative to the crushing costs of individual risk, education, health care, with an increasingly absent desire and confidence in nuclear family structure.  This spectacular inversion, propagated unwittingly by the clinging to power of the baby boomer generation, yet held in abeyance by that same power generation, showed the first inflections in the 2016 election bringing the stunning election of Trump, and may likely fully mature with the 2020 election, completely upending the traditional perceptions as to voters behaviors.

The Ghosting of American Exceptionalism- The third rail of American politics was always considered the perspective on the founding of the country.  Through bitter squabbles and even civil war, the argument of each side was who reflected more fervently the American founders’ hard won  principles.  Such principles were once considered both foundational and exceptional – Equality, Freedom, Pursuit of Happiness, Rule of Law.  All Men are Created Equal fueled the Civil War and civil rights struggles.  Property and States rights led the South to feel it was the more apostolic side in the Civil War.  Freedom and Pursuit of Happiness drove the economic behemoth that has dominated the world for the past 80 years.  The Rule of Law led to a massive immigrant wave that has never wavered in hopes of finding a fair shake like no other on earth.  Patriotism was universal and simply nuanced on interpretation.  The progressive wing of the Democrat Party has now however leapt beyond the third rail and is leading a re-envisioning of the concept of American exceptionalism as a myth flawed to its very core and deserving of rebuke.   Nationalism brings to these progressives the stench of a “corrupt” founding based upon subjugation, glass ceilings, racial overlording and outright theft.  Borders serve no purpose when they exist to deny others access to the riches held by a select few, earned through exploitation.  Joe Biden has had to absorb this steadily growing marxist influence on his projection of a “fairer” America.  The violent and roughened edges of this projection are difficult to suppress when he has no core ideals any longer to fall back upon in making his case.

President Trump made his entire reason for running in 2016 this argument about American Exceptionalism.  Despite his bombast, he’s been surprisingly respectful of the founding principles.  He has avoided executive over-reach, massively shrunk the regulatory arm of government, respected state’s rights, and despite being savagely pummeled by a three and one half year effort to remove him from office through nefarious deep state and media driven assaults, he has maintained the rule of law.  The larger question relates, in a massively changing electorate progressively propagandized on the ghosting of the past,  as to how many voters are left that recognize, much less respect, the basis for his approach to governing and the core of his agenda.

The Politics of Anarchy –  Even prior to President Trump winning the 2016 election, progressives turned steadily toward the lessons of radicals like Alinsky to protect and grow their power.  Throughout the Obama administration massive money from radical elites poured into anarchistic groups like Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, and Antifa to stir an environment of constant disobedience and chaos projecting ever more radical solutions into the American blood stream.  Obama, trained in the tactics of community activism, was comfortable playing the role of interpreter for America, insisting that the awkward militancy and occasional violence was a healthy release valve for a country that had been oppressive and unfair, and needed to “Change”.   Behind the scenes, as Trump began to take flight and threatened his legacy of permanent progressivism, Obama worked to install internal and external mechanisms to protect his progressive gains and simultaneously destroy Trump’s threat.  The external weapon was the organized “Resistance”, forever imploding the long nurtured idea of a loyal opposition and the legislative compromise.  Internally, dramatic efforts committed to a veritable coup of Trump, were planted to stir intolerable pressure and chaos in hopes of frankly eliminating any capacity of the Trump administration to function.

Amazingly, despite chaos, media hysteria, an adversarial prosecution, and even impeachment, trump was left standing.  It took an even more explosive chaos to ignite the final resistance desperation against Trump, the COVID pandemic, allowing the historically strong economy to shutter, the streets to empty, and  the populous to grow restless. The perfect spark was the imperfect and superficial vehicle of video to explode a perceived great injustice to George Floyd, a perfect representation of a perceived collective injustice, that allowed the empty streets to be overtaken by radical anarchists, with no intent to let go.

Now Joseph Biden is left with the difficult dance of  somehow hijacking the massive chaos and associated violence birthed, nurtured and excused by Democrat leaders and pinning it on Trump, while defending the continuing shutdown of the American domestic economy at least until the election predicated upon the increasingly flimsy excuse of the pandemic.  Donald Trump’s style is pugilistic and undisciplined – a perfect foil to under react to the virus and over react to the violence – yet so far he has managed to walk that difficult tightrope.  The idea that either candidate can survive the continuance of violence while controlling it is ridiculous at its core.  Violence knows no rules of engagement, and both candidates are bound to be damaged and potentially, terminally so.  The great majority of the electorate may determine to punish whichever candidate remains tied to the chaotic present,  regardless of who is responsible, just to try to return to normalcy.

The Most Important Election Ever-  Every four years a moniker is placed upon our national election as pivotal to the nation’s future.  Time and again, the electorate tended to return to the middle from whatever unstable direction it perceive the country veering.  The perceived presence of checks and balances contributed to  the over-riding comfort American voters comforted themselves with in making their decision.  The intensely unstable grounds of this election however makes it seem perhaps more important than most.  The Democrat Biden is thought by even his own voters incapable of the rigors of the office, and positioned to be a “transitional” figure to a younger, more aggressive progressive agenda and leadership.  The Republican Trump is thought by many intolerable, undisciplined and self absorbed, unworthy of extending his philosophy beyond the temporary damage of his first four years.  The two candidates, like old bulls, push for a final dominance, profoundly unaware that there would be no winners in a country that may have lost its way and its mission.

Two old bulls, consumed with victory, heading potentially for slaughter, not the green pasture of tranquility.  An American future, or lack thereof, hangs in the balance.

If you want that American future, step up to the Ramparts, and make sure you vote.