James Carville's "advice" helped give us Trump 2.0

[Ol Janx Spirit]

36. We desperately needed Joe Biden in 2020--a steady hand at the wheel to guide...

...and reassure us after the tragedy of the pandemic and Felonious Orange's handling of it. But what we also needed from Biden was the honest self-assessment of his ability to carry his leadership on into a second term.

While he did hold 14 solo press conferences in his first three years in office, it really did feel like we rarely heard from him in a setting that showed his mental acuity. It was concerning to me at the time, and when the first debate came around I really expected Biden to perform well against the obvious firehose of lies and hatred he would be facing.

The actual result made my heart sink. It seemed obvious why I didn't feel like he had been making as many appearances. And the excuses from the Administration felt like just that: excuses. The Biden team had demanded the time, place and format of the debate for some--what seemed to me at the time--odd reason, and this was the result.... It was over at that point in my mind....

I can't even imagine what being in Biden's position at the time was like. We all know our own limitations as we age, but we often refuse to believe them and carry on as if nothing has changed. Was Biden self-aware enough to know that debate performance was a possibility? Did he really want to be a one-term president but look around and not feel there was another Democrat that could do the job? Did the trappings of power after seeking the position for so long cloud his judgement?

At any rate, it seems very difficult to blame those on the outside looking in for expressing their honest opinion. And while Carville is not high on my list of people I listen to for advice, the Biden Administration would have done well to concentrate every day on the one simple piece of advice he was famous for: "It's the economy stupid."