Good Cop/ Bad Cop

Sometimes You Have to Choose

What if you’re Joe Biden, a born middle-of-the-roader who’s never had to make a really tough decision and find yourself caught between a rock and hard place?

Play Good Cop/ Bad Cop.

You say things like: Israel has every right to protect itself.

You say: I’ve always been a strong, strong supporter of Israel.

You talk about the atrocities of October the Seventh.

You never say anything critical, you never say a critical word about Netanyahu.

You relegate Kamala Harris to the role of the bad cop.

You keep on resupplying Israel with more powerful ground-to-air missiles.

You talk about progress. You do not mention that in two months Israel has killed more civilians, (most of them women, children, and babies) than Russia has killed in two years in their bombing of the Ukraine.

You insist you’re doing a good job even though you are looking more and more unsteady on your feet, and confused.

You insist that you’re ready for five more years of being the president.

You never under any circumstances admit that you’ve made a mistake (even after the disastrous decision to abruptly pull out of Afghanistan, as a result of which twelve people immediately die.)

You say, “Israel has every right to protect itself,” (when you are referring to the estimated 2400 civilian casualties as a result of the relentless daily bombing in Israel {including women, children, and babies}).

You never say anything; never in any way acknowledge the genocide being brazenly perpetrated by Israel.

You never in any way criticize Netanyahu.

It is as though a vote for Joe Biden is a vote for Democracy (instead of a vote for his political agenda).

You act as if a vote for Biden is a vote for peace versus war; a vote for good versus evil! You deny that there is an infinite space between the needs of the voter and the needs of the candidate.

Nobody seems to be commenting on the fact that we’re asking the wrong questions. Not whose finger should be closest to the nuclear button, but why does there have to be a nuclear button in the first place.

The Rematch

Like most people, I groan at the prospect of the rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump for the presidency of The United States. Like most people, I was skeptical, but not amused, when Trump rode down the escalator in the lobby of the Trump hotel in Manhattan to announce his surprise candidacy. It had to be a stunt. But why was he proposing a fantastic forty-foot steel wall be built along the entire south-western portion of The United States to keep immigrants from continuing to cross our borders if he wasn’t planning to stick around and build it? It made no sense. It made even less sense when — out of a burgeoning field of 20 aspirants in the first televised debate, he shot instantly to the lead! Even more amazingly, he continued to not only hold the lead but to widen it! Alarmed that Trump might somehow be more than just a passing trend, and that he might, if unchecked, actually pose a threat to our Democracy; American journalists banded together and exposed his non-stop, non-factual boasting. To which Trump, flattered by the attention, responded, “I don’t tell lies; I tell truthful hyperboles.” Whatever he told the press, his ratings soared! Emboldened, he began making up demeaning nicknames for his closest rivals: Low Energy Jeb; and most famously: Pocahontas for Elizabeth Warren (my personal pick for the presidency.) Not surprisingly, conspiracy theories abounded. My own epiphany came about a month after Trump entered the presidential race, when he continued to boost his fantastical proposal for a continuous 40-foot steel wall, hundreds of miles long (“And Mexico will pay for it”). The explanation was so simple that it was hiding in plain sight: he was not in his right mind. There was no diabolically clever, Machiavellian, underlying conspiracy layed out one step after another, with exquisite precision, leading to an eventual right-wing take-over. The explanation was that what we were seeing — in a wonderful phrase by the psychoanalyst Christopher Bollas — was a prime example of id politics! We were seeing that Trump — having drunk for the first time the Kool-Aid of political superpower- was shooting from the hip! Note; as a licensed psychotherapist, I was not offering a DSM diagnosis. I think the Goldwater Rule, within limits, needs to be respected. Which is not a problem with a character disorder of Trump’s magnitude because the English language (in the time of Shakespeare and (to a considerable extent) thanks to Shakespear) has plenty of slings and arrows sufficient to the task:

Cassius to Brutus: Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world. Like a Colossus..! There was no method to his madness. Thus, in light of this, I immediately wrote an article (Alper. 2016, “The Mad King”.) “Every civilisation has its mad king at the end; Donald Trump is ours” (Bill Maher). In it, I (protectively) pointed out that I was not offering a clinical diagnosis. Instead, I was just highlighting what I consider to be a salient character trait: that he is a pathological liar, obsessed with power and power gain, and addicted to constant self gratification.

I was one of the first to take an unshakeable stance on his total unsuitability on just about every and any criteria to be president of the United states. That it was a dangerous mistake, to think that America could experiment with such a loose cannon and not pay a terrible price. And so it came to pass.

And now fast forward to 2022. I was flabbergasted when JB looked the country in the eye and said (paraphrase) “ I have always been a strong, strong supporter of the Jews…and…I think Israel has every right to defend itself!”

Was it possible? It was more than possible…it was true!

I understood that, under unceasing pressure from his team, alarmed at his continuingly low polling figures, who were putting increasing pressure on him to emerge from his bunker, put his foot on the pedal, and show them the kind of man they were being asked to vote for. They wanted him, needed him, to be more feisty, more like the old Joe Biden- not the doddering 81-year-old who increasingly has a hard time walking a straight line of more than a few feet.

As expected, there was a front page New York TImes article (Biden Gambles on Trump’s Fear)…In other words there is increasing concern that- because Joe Biden is so uninspiring as a sitting president, their best hope at winning the reelection would be to try to frame the upcoming 2024 race as a rematch of almost the exact crisis that was facing them in the original face-off — even though Trump has been out of office for over three years! (how sad!) I did not want Trump to win in 2016, I did not want Biden to win in 2020. I felt both of them were radically unsuited (for different reasons) to be president of the United States. I think the same thing now, if there is a re-run, but more so. But if there was a gun to my head and I had to choose, I would pick Joe Biden 10 times in a row if he were running against Donald Trump, but there is not a gun to my head, which is why I am once again

not voting for either of them.

I am aware, even though I keep saying that Trump is unelectable — that unelectable people get elected all the time. The things one deems possible happen anyway (just not when you expect them). So I realized that Trump, if he wins his party’s nomination (as certainly he appears to be doing) can be elected. But what are the chances? No more than one percent (in my view) if he wins the nomination.

Why so low? Because as has been pointed out, it is one thing to say to a pollster when there’s absolutely nothing at stake, when it is more like a guessing game, than a real life event, with genuine if unthinkable effect- why yes, right now “the way things are going, (they couldn’t possibly be worse) I might very well vote for Trump. It is another thing entirely, when the whole world — including everything, everyone we value — is at stake. At such times, pollsters say voters tend to shun charisma and vote for kitchen table values (i.e. supposedly represented by Joe Biden). In other words, in times of sturm und drang, voters go for safety over charisma.

Which brings me to the known point: I do not think our Democracy is in danger from Trump (because I think it is just so unlikely that he could win.) For Trump to win it would take something like at least 80 million Americans to be collectively delusional at the same point in time. We are living in an insane world if that were true. I am aware that there are an increasing number of political crazies in America but I can not conceive of 80 million Americans drinking the kool aid. But I do think our country is in danger if Biden wins (as I think is likely).

Why? Not just because he is old, doddering, and increasingly out of touch, but because of his present statements which sound to me almost delusional. Is it possible he equates the systematic daily bombing of civilian Palestinians for over nearly three months — 6 thousand buildings struck, 2 thousand buildings leveled, 26 thousand civilian casualties (women, children teenagers young men, babies) almost none of whom had anything to do with October the seventh — with what happened on a single horrific day? If that were true, it would represent, in my view, the most egregious false equivalence of the past 100 years!

I cannot believe Biden believes that! I believe Biden, a life-long, habitual middle of the roader, is paralyzed with indecision. His instinct is always to equivocate, to talk out of both sides of his mouth, to stall for time. He wants everyone to like him, he wants everyone to go home happy. He has boundless confidence in his ability to lower the temperature in the room, to mediate, to charm, to bamboozle if he has to. He is fiesty. If you push him he will push back. He does not lack courage. However he would rather fraternize than fight. He does not question what he has done. When things go wrong it was never his fault. He believes he has always been underestimated. He’s at his best, when he has to come from behind; when he has to prove someone wrong. He relies on the disarming strategy of announcing his plans (i.e. Russia is about to invade the Ukraine). It makes him look like he’s ahead of the curve without having to do anything. He relies on the fact that — the bar for political accomplishment has been set so low (in the wake of enduring four years of Trump’s bizarrely inappropriate presidential behavior) that it is almost impossible not to look good by comparison.

That said, I think that Biden’s reaffirmation — “Israel had every right to defend itself” — is the absolute low point in Biden’s 50 year political career. It is a stain on his legacy that cannot be forgotten. His decision to endorse a proxy war between Israel and Hammas — with absolutely nothing to gain for America — is mindblowing! The only possible explanation that I can think of is that Biden is paralyzed with fear. Afraid of what? Afraid that if he is forced to act in such a fraught volatile situation he may make a terrible mistake that will cost him to lose his reelection bid. But what is so terrible about that? I doubt if Biden could answer that, but it is unthinkable he could lose something it took him 50 years to get.

Forgotten is that Biden waged (in 2016) perhaps the most desultory, passionless campaign for presidency within recent memory. That early on (before he drank the kool aid) he announced himself to be only a transitional leader that changed quickly once he won the upset election.

Biden is famous for wanting to be president of the united states since he was a little boy. it is doubtful at that age, Biden knew what the word political meant. He just knew he wanted to be “where the action was, in the center of the river of power that runs through life.”

Becoming President, for Biden, was a case of answered prayers. But he hadn’t anticipated what being president was like. On some level he must have known that he was in over his head (everyone who’s ever been president knows that) but I do not think he’s capable of admitting to himself: To admit that he made a mistake would be like admitting he is in some way responsible for the deaths of 26,000 Palestinians (which of course he is — how could he not be?)

That said, in some weird way, he wants the credit for having Israel’s back, for being humanistic by publicly encouraging Israel to be more “discriminant” in their bombing; for issuing numerous “warnings and sanctions” that seem to have no effect; for clenching his teeth and saing, “we will defend every inch of American territory” without ever telling us which inch he is talking about).

Biden seems to want it all. He does not see — cannot admit any glaring contradictions in his ever changing views. He cannot admit any weakness or fear. He can barely stand up straight but he must never admit indecisiveness. He must never acknowledge fatigue. He has never been an inspiring figure (I.e. hence the nickname one percent Joe) but now he must carry a fractious wounded world on his back. He is clearly exhausted, but somehow- especially in as much as this is a reelection campaign year — he must rally himself and at least try to project an indomitable figure who is a tower of strength.

His go-to strategy has been to be a political chameleon; a human weathervane who is always ready to go whichever way the votes are blowing. He does not lack goals, he just doesn’t know which one to fight for. It is not that he loves America less, but that he loves his legacy more. Like just about all politicians he does not have a philosophy — just a game plan du jour. So he wears many hats depending upon the political climate — so far he has been:

whistleblower in chief

(“the Russians are coming, the Russians are coming”)

A Contemporary Paul Revere

(“we are closer to a nuclear war than at any time since the Cuban Missile Blockade”)

And finally, A secular Messiah:

(“this race is for the soul of America”)

Finally, since I do not want to be a complete buzz-kill, I should present the scant realistic hope I do see: (Disclosure: although I do have a happy few followers, I have zero impact as an influencer, which to my mind gives me many degrees of freedom to express my mind as a truth-teller politically). So here is what I think: I stand with NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman (winner of three pulitzer prizes in journalism and a world renowned expert on Israel and the mideast): I could only agree with him when he says, “I think Benjamin Netanyahu is the worst prime minister Israel has ever had — ready to sell Israel down the river if he has to in order to hold onto his power and stay out of jail”…”there should be an immediate cease-fire…Israel should withdraw from Gaza and declare victory and should then work toward a two-state solution (even if it takes decades) in which Israel and Palestine become productive thriving partners.”

As for Joe Biden, there is still time, if he wants to accept the fact that his moment has passed and that the best thing that he can do for America would be to step aside and to pave the way for his successor.

Unanswered Questions

As politicians go, I think Biden is a decent man. So I keep asking myself, what is Biden afraid of? Why — when it was perfectly clear that Netenyahu’s cynical game plan was to intensify and prolong the Israeli Hamas War as much as he could, primarily as a way to stay in power and stay out of prison — didn’t Biden stand up to him and say (in effect): “Absolutely not on my watch. Unless you immediately initiate a cease fire; withdraw from Gaza; work towards a two-state solution; a partnership where both countries can live in peace and mutually help one another — then you can say goodbye to billions of dollars of United States Aid.”

What harm would have come to Biden — what could he lose? Nothing. Except of course losing the presidency of the United States. How so?

He might so enrage progressive pro-israel pro-Jewish donors and their votes, that it would be the tipping point in an upset loss in his bid for reelection.

Well, so what? I think 99.999% of Americans couldn’t care less about Biden’s legacy. They care about kitchen table issues — but when it comes to elections, to Biden, winning is everything.

Am I saying that he doesn’t care about America? No. I am saying Biden like just about every politician cares more about the health, viability and longevity of his political career than he does about the future of America (of which, like everyone else, he knows nothing.)

Why can’t Biden cash in his chips, afterall he has been able to stop Donald Trump in his tracks — and rest on his laurels? Because, among other things — he would have to answer the question — he would have to face the ghosts and the survivors of those 27,000 dead civilians — some of whom must have reminded him of his beloved son, Beau; of his young wife and daughter who long ago died tragically (and alone); of his wayward troubled son, Hunter, who, despite his best efforts. He would have to explain to all of them why he didn’t do a better job when it came to protecting them. And he would have no answer to their question. He would have no answer for why he withdrew from his family, and tried to solve the problems of the world. He had no answer for why he chose to curry the favor of a malevolent narcissist like Netanyahu rather than to stand up for Gaza. And he would have no answer than to flex his muscles, play good cop/ bad cop, clench his fists, and scowl like James Cagney in White Heat, and talk about “punishing” those Iranian terrorists in proxy countries who are responsible for three dead Americans. So he throws himself in a “eleventh hour hail mary” Biden Plan to protect America from the middle east, from a ‘wider war’ involving Iran and a lot of other countries. He seeks to ascend even greater heights of political glory as a distraction from his denialism so he does not remember the sins of his first term. So once again Biden democrats seek to replay the narrative of their first contest; that a secular messiah (Biden) has returned to save the soul of America. (Only something as glorious as saving the soul of America can ease his pain about the fate of his own troubled soul.

Coda

There’s time for Biden. If for once in his life, he completely ignores his legacy, takes the road less traveled, and accepts that the greatest thing he can now do to help his country is to find a truly worthy successor. Otherwise, if there is a rematch of Trump versus Biden, regardless of who wins, it would be a loss loss for America.

- Gerald Alper is the author of Portrait of the Artist as a Young Patient (Psychodynamic Studies of the Creative Personality). His new book is God and Therapy (What We Believe When No One is Watching).