I'm not sure how many Americans have managed the combo parlay of not having seen director James Cameron's Titanic AND not having seen his Avatar. Very, very few Americans have evaded seeing either. I'm one of those few. I've seen Cameron's Terminator half a dozen times, so perhaps that makes up for it. Maybe, maybe not.
My point is, it's possible that NOT seeing something culturally ubiquitous is a good thing. Keeps one out of the groupthink a tad. Might even save you from a mad public dash over a cliffside.
Biden as Avatar
Whether it's a show like The View or a network like MSNBC, we Americans are being hammered with a theme. We are supposed to put aside the fact that none of us would trust a solo President Joe Biden to babysit our children or drive us around the block without our seatbelts firmly in place, and we are supposed to vote back into the office of U.S. President a man who is clearly mentally degraded.
We are being coached to vote for, not a man and his actual abilities, but for a man as a symbol, a representative of a set of values. We are being asked to vote for Biden as an avatar. Why should American citizens do such a thing? Once we step over that line, voting for a representation instead of the human being, we have crossed into the territory of pretend leadership. We're voting for goals largely untethered to the skills of the person for whom we are voting. If we simply cast a ballot for symbols, why have primaries at all? Why have debates? Why not just stick cardboard cutouts of Trump and Biden behind lecterns for 90 minutes and see which impresses us most?
Mental Acuity
I don't much care how old a candidate is. I don't much care if he or she is ambulatory. I don't much care about incontinence. I'd have no issues with the late Stephen Hawking running for president. My mother, aunt, and uncle all spent the last decade of life at home as quadriplegics, still running their households. Physical disability is not a disqualifier for me. Mental disability, however, is.
Mental acuity is a must. A heavy problem with Alzheimer's sundowner syndrome is a disqualifier. We cannot have a mentally debilitated version of a great politician running for office simply because at one time he was a great politician. That is madness. That's substituting a memory and hope for an actual person. Voting for a mentally unfit person is devotion to narcissism. You think you know the path forward, and the competence of who you're voting for is irrelevant.
Wimpy the Gerbil
In 1981, Penn State's Monty Python Society ran Wimpy the Gerbil for student president. Penn State's administration said Wimpy could not officially be on the ballot. Students would have to write him in. Wimpy agreed to run anyway. Wimpy made public appearances for months, at fund-raising showings of Monty Python and the Holy Grail and for student debates, each time in his bulletproof transport aquarium. Ray-Ban-wearing agents accompanied Wimpy everywhere.
When the election was held, Wimpy's write-in votes garnered 1432 of the 5802 total votes cast. He finished a strong second out of five candidates.
My point is that Wimpy was an avatar. If you recognize this and want to vote for Biden anyway, then cast your vote accordingly. But understand the implications. Joe Biden has become not a person to you, but your personal avatar.
Bob Dietz
July 11, 2024
