I’ve spent the last few days hiding under my bed with mint ice cream, Xanax, my L1A1 and some full clips. Between the debate and the supreme court’s ridiculous decision, I have been feeling helpless, and I don’t like that feeling in the least little bit. But I can’t help trying to think, even when not much happens. This afternoon, while I was filing out the mekugi hole on a dagger named “Beast Mode” it all clicked into place. I’m not sure how to write it – whether I should fictionalize, or be sarcastic (e.g.: “ask the strategic genius”) so I am just going to wing it and see if it works.

President Biden walked slowly up to the microphone, with Vice President Harris on his arm. They unfolded and stood behind the podium and looked around the room, silently, until they were met with dead silence in response.

Biden started slowly, sounding a bit nervous or tired, “I made a big mistake the other day, and forgot for a moment what the presidency of the United States is. My ego got in my way and I found myself down in the gutter trying to respond to an outrageous stream of lies that were coming out faster than I could even think to respond to them. As Mark Twain, a great American, once said, “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.” It only takes a few words to tell a lie, like that Democrats favor post-natal abortion – a ridiculous absurdity – but if I was going to argue about that I’d have to move past a half dozen other lies. I respect you all enough to imagine that you’re not going to fall for bald-faced bafflegab like that, but all I see in the press and elsewhere is a sort of “well, Trump just lies a lot,” shrug. As if nobody wants to come to grips with the fact that the stump speeches and debate performance of the nominee for one of the US’ political parties does very little but blow smoke, and everyone just smiles and nods as if that is somehow acceptable. Seriously, people, do you want a President who you cannot believe anything that they say? I know I was shocked during my predecessor’s response to COVID, that he wound up repeating lies and quack medicine, so that over 200,000 unnecessary American lives were lost. Nobody with any powers of observation can possibly not see that this guy lies constantly, and it’s mostly because he’s so ignorant he doesn’t even know what the truth actually is. Journalists: you need to ask him real questions like, “where is the evidence you have said several times that you’d present, regarding election fraud in 2020?” Some judges have asked that – and not gotten it – and some journalists, who then seem to shrug it off. Journalists accepted his story that he wasn’t going to release his taxes because of some audit, and of course we eventually found out because this pretend billionaire had cheated so ruthlessly on his taxes that he only paid $750 one year.”

He sighed audibly, and looked over at Vice President Harris, who nodded encouragingly. “My ego told me that I could clobber a blowhard like that in a debate, but the truth is that I’m slower and less energetic and I couldn’t keep up with it. It was like watching a train-wreck, you don’t know where to start. And, now, there are many people calling for me to step aside as the Democrat nominee, because I’m too old, or I didn’t prepare right, or any of a host of other things. And I’ve taken all of this pretty hard. It’s hard to hear these things, but I realized that probably the biggest job of the President is to listen.” A long pause. “And I had to listen and think, and now I want to tell you how I think we will proceed going forward.”

Vice President Harris stepped forward a little bit. She was now even with and standing next to Biden. He nodded to her, “I started to realize that America is putting a whole lot behind this choice of a single person, to act as the front-piece for the United States. I’m just a guy. So’s my opponent. But one of the things that really makes a presidency is the team that they surround themselves with, and who they collaborate with in mutual support. You can tell a lot about a person by who they surround themselves with.”

“There was a series HBO did called “Veep” that was quite good and took some real digs at what it’s like to be Vice President: it’s an important role but it’s overshadowed. I know how that feels, I was Barack Obama’s Vice President for two terms, and I felt like I could have contributed more, but he was pursuing that single person model of Presidency. Vice President Harris and I, and my cabinet and staff, the Attorney General, the Chiefs of Staff, Secretary of State, Director of the CIA, NSA, etc., the whole team that makes up the Presidency – we are going to do things a bit differently. If you’re worried about my age, now you can relax, because Vice President Harris is going to be much more involved in operations. We can’t have a co-Presidency but we’re going to operate in close step, on the assumption that she’s going to be doing half of my job, with me, and she’ll be learning the ropes so that if anything does happen to me there will be a smooth, orderly transition of power. I’m going to delegate, more. If Donald Trump wants to do another debate, he can debate my Press Secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, who can handle that kind of noise. If it looks like things are going well, and I’m tired of the rough and tumble, I’ll step aside part way through my term, so I can work on my golf, again. By the way, I don’t cheat. Kamala?”

Without moving much, Vice President Harris briefly leaned toward the microphone, “I think the President has made all of the important points we had decided upon. I am tremendously honored and enthusiastic about being able to a collaborative understudy with this great man. I look forward to sharing more of the load, and working with all of the cabinet members who, after all, I already know. The message we want you to take away from this is that you are voting for a team. We are already a functioning group who have worked together, and we all share President Biden’s view of what needs to be done, and his morals. Steve Bannon, Michael Flynn, George Papadopolous, Peter Navarro, Michael Cohen, Paul Manafort, Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis, Mark Meadows, Roger Stone – variously convicted, pled guilty, served time, got pardoned, have been disbarred, or bankrupted for defamation. This is not anything that President Biden or I have had anything to do with, all these court cases against our predecessor were because he surrounded himself with a team of criminals, liars, fraudulent accountants and dishonored lawyers. The various indictments against convicted felon Trump, civilly liable for sexual abuse and defamation, tax fraud, financial fraud, and election interference – those indictments were voted for by grand juries of ordinary Americans, picked at random. Those juries were made up of ordinary Americans, picked at random. And all of them have returned unanimous guilty verdicts, multiple times. I’m a former attorney general, myself, and a district attorney, and I have a great deal of confidence in the United States Justice System and our judges, who have been navigating uncharted legal waters; we have never had a President in the history of this country who has such a busy criminal history. This does not bring me joy. It leaves me puzzled that someone so corrupt, who tried to overthrow the government of his country by tampering with an election that he and all his advisors and flock of now-disbarred lawyers knew he had lost. I’m puzzled and amazed that such a person could be the nominee of one of this country’s biggest political parties. I’ll stop beating a dead horse, and let Joe finish his remarks.”

“Thank you, Kamala.” He took a long breath and smiled ruefully and looked around the room, “this old dog is going to learn some new tricks. We are going to restructure the Presidency to be more responsive, more open, and deeper. That means I’m not going to be the ball hog in front of the team, I’ll be one of the players. I won’t be the sole decider, I’ll even consult with the Republicans, if they want to play fair. We have seen that putting egotistical people front and center of the United States is not a great idea – what matters, what you are voting for, is a team. There are some people from my team in the room, today, and I’d like to recognize them. Merrick Garland, Attorney General. Let’s give him a hand…” The applause were long and loud.

Ok, I’m sure that by now you’ve been able to figure out the meta-strategy I am recommending. Acknowledge that the debate was not a good performance and acknowledge and recognize people’s fears that the candidate is too old. Redirect their fears from the not-particularly-reasonable “is he too old?” to “is he surrounded by a bunch of crooks, dick pill salesmen, and Qanoners?” That’s basic interpersonal dynamics 101: if someone has a concern, answer it. And it had better be an honest and testable answer. I think one of the things that made Biden’s debate performance so terrible was that he did a few rounds of smack-talking “any time, any place” with Trump before the debates, and maybe he really should have said “any time, any place, but not after my bedtime.” I look at the calendar in horror every so often and realize that I will be 62 on November 5th this year. [And all I want for my birthday is for Donald Trump and Republicans up and down the ballots to be conclusively crushed.] I used to make my living as a consultant, and teacher, thinking fast on my feet, speaking and planning what I was going to say, and – I’m not as good at it as I was when I was 40. A bit smoother in some ways, but definitely less energy and a bit less flourish in the language. I think that the Democrat operatives who are frantically trying to convince us that Biden had a cold, or something, are just screaming “we think you are stupid” when, in fact, they’re the stupid ones. I found out today that one of Biden’s strategy advisors who apparently has been “helping” him weather this crisis is some 85 year-old guy who’s possibly in touch with politics before the Civil War, but almost certainly will not effectively message to the TikTok generation.

Also, my strategy recommendation above would leave Biden a perfect “off ramp” for some of the corners he has painted himself into. He could say, “I have my own strong feelings about Gaza and Israel and so do many on my team. Maybe the United States’ foreign policy should not be based mostly on what I think – we’re going to get together and review our national policy about this, and talk to some of the protesters on both sides, and we may have to adjust some things, quickly, because I am in a bad position where we are supporting both Israel and genocide, and that’s not a tenable position.” Another thing he should do – absolutely should do – is actually meet with representatives and senators, and get their opinions about things. Of course he should ignore MTG and Lauren Boebert, etc., but he could further marginalize them by pretending to interact more closely with the non-batshit-crazy wing of the republican party. Divide and conquer, as basically everyone says.

My other strategic recommendation would be, as I said, to avoid debating Trump. Joe turns out to be a shitty debater. He can read from a teleprompter OK. But, if you think about it, the idea of presidential debates really is kind of silly. Who cares if the lies were spouted out of a certain mouth. Trump could have been replaced by John Lithgow in his character of Lord John Whorfin, and that performance would be compelling. Biden should, seriously, send someone who really knows how to debate, and then sit in the audience and listen with dignity. What he should do is start practicing golf right now, and challenge Trump to a golf game. Then make sure there are lots of cameras there. But only if the practicing works out. And ask someone like Taylor Swift’s new boyfriend to carry his golf bag. The point there is that Trump is playing down to his audience and is treating them as complete idiots. Biden and his people are doing a really shitty job of getting people to realize that. There ought to be articles in the New York Times dissecting Trump’s campaign whistle stop lies. Heck, Biden could easily get some comedian to do it. In my diseased imagination that would be Frankie Boyle but that might be too much. But only because George Carlin can’t. I’m afraid that one thing that is going on is that the machine around Biden is protecting him and keeping him away from people. That just amplifies their legitimate concerns. Biden should do sit downs with Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert. Just don’t do it after his bedtime.