Pundits and political leaders alike are still reeling from watching President Biden’s disastrous debate performance last week with many calling for him to be removed through the 25th Amendment or at least be dropped from the Democratic ticket for 2024.
Pundits on both sides are claiming, “This is the first time in American history that we have had an incapacitated president.”
Well, that is not true.
In 1919, just one year into his second term, President Woodrow Wilson suffered a massive stroke that left him pretty much incapacitated. Americans were unaware that it was Wilson’s wife Edith who was actually running the government until his term ended in 1921.
President Ronald Reagan made jokes about his age while running for the nation’s top job; however, as early as 1983, Reagan’s advanced age began to show. Reagan’s own son, Ron, has admitted his father began suffering from Alzhiemers long before he was diagnosed.
Rather than debate endlessly about Biden’s current state of health or acting shocked every time his opponent former President Donald Trump shows his age and makes a mental slip up, perhaps we should be asking, in a country of 365 million people, why are these two men the best that the national parties can offer up for the nation’s top job?
The voters in Augusta have proven that each vote does count and that there is power at the polls. Augusta’s establishment has changed dramatically with the election of a new mayor and sheriff.
It is totally possible for the electorate to stand up to the elite and win.
But we must do more than just vote. Since the education system has abandoned teaching civics in high school, then we, as parents, need to practice what was once called “civic virtue;” that is educate ourselves in our responsibilities as citizens, not just our rights, and then pass that knowledge on to our children.
We should be watching the debates and conventions with our kids, and, when the opportunity arises, encourage our kids to participate as student pages at the state capitals and let them see the government in action first hand. Anything to show them politics matter, our kids matter, and they can have a hand in changing our political system and our public life.
For the longest time, nasty, self-serving politics have caused the best and brightest among us to demure from getting involved by running for office, leaving the public with no choice to pick the “lesser of two evils” on Election Day, but if we recommit ourselves as engaged citizens, we can turn things around.
Then, the taxpayers will put an end to elections in which we have to accept the “evil of two lessers.”
It is incumbent upon “we” the people to foster good citizens who will become quality candidates at all levels in the hopes that they will break out nationally and become political stars within their respective parties long before they reach near centenarian status.
