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Wednesday
Having recently applied Lewis Carroll’s Alice books to Donald Trump’s legal woes (see yesterday’s post), today I apply one of Carroll’s Alice poems to his opponent. Much has been made of Joe Biden’s advanced age—as though Donald Trump isn’t just three years younger and unhealthier to boot—but the president has started pushing back. The Carroll poem I’ve chosen for today is about another elderly man responding similarly.
Biden began changing perceptions with his combative State of the Union address, where it became clear to most that he is not the doddering old fool many had claimed him to be. In fact, after Trump last week angrily blamed Biden for a case brought by a Manhattan prosecutor (in other words, not under Biden’s jurisdiction), the Biden camp turned the tables, replying
Donald Trump is weak and desperate—both as a man and a candidate for President…. His campaign can’t raise money, he is uninterested in campaigning outside his country club, and every time he opens his mouth, he pushes moderate and suburban voters away with his dangerous agenda.
America deserves better than a feeble, confused, and tired Donald Trump.
Some have opined that Biden’s superpower is that his foes underestimate him. Maybe it’s because of his stutter or his gaffes but, repeatedly, they are stunned when he turns their attacks against them. When “Fuck Joe Biden” became transmuted, with a nod and a wink, to “Let’s go Brandon”—an indirect way of insulting the president—he embraced the appellation with the meme of “Dark Brandon,” a superhero often sporting dark glasses or x-ray eyes. Biden has also embraced “Bidenomics”—once a term of derision—as a compliment. It’s not unlike how Barack Obama embraced “Obamacare,” which since its rocky start has become wildly popular.
So think of Biden as Carroll’s Father William, who self-deprecatingly fields questions from a judgmental young man until he’s finally had enough. In each case, he turns the criticisms into a strength:
“You are old, Father William,” the young man said,
“And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head—
Do you think, at your age, it is right?”
“In my youth,” Father William replied to his son,
“I feared it might injure the brain;
But now that I’m perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again.”
“You are old,” said the youth, “as I mentioned before,
And have grown most uncommonly fat;
Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door—
Pray, what is the reason of that?”
“In my youth,” said the sage, as he shook his grey locks,
“I kept all my limbs very supple
By the use of this ointment—one shilling the box—
Allow me to sell you a couple.”
“You are old,” said the youth, “and your jaws are too weak
For anything tougher than suet;
Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak—
Pray, how did you manage to do it?”
“In my youth,” said his father, “I took to the law,
And argued each case with my wife;
And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,
Has lasted the rest of my life.”
“You are old,” said the youth, “one would hardly suppose
That your eye was as steady as ever;
Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose—
What made you so awfully clever?”
“I have answered three questions, and that is enough,”
Said his father; “don’t give yourself airs!
Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
Be off, or I’ll kick you down stairs!”
This question-answer session reminds me of the time in February when a special counsel, tasked with deciding whether Biden should be charged for possession of governmental documents, claimed that he had forgotten when his son Beau died, when he was vice president, when his term ended, and when his term began. Pressed by reporters about these matters, the president replied, “I’m well-meaning and I’m an elderly man and I know what the hell I’m doing. I’ve been president, I put this country back on its feet.”
Later, resorting to sarcasm, he barked,
My memory’s fine. My memory’s — take a look at what I’ve done since I became president. … How did that happen? I guess I just forgot what was going on.
It was his version of, “Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff? Be off, or I’ll kick you downstairs!”
Further thought: Carroll’s poem is a parody of Robert Southey’s “The Old Man’s Comforts and How He Gained Them,” written at a time when our elders were more respected than they are today and which you can read here. I have two thoughts about the Southey poem. On the one hand, it actually describes Biden, who has indeed matured into a rich old age by (1) abusing not his health or vigor, (2) maintaining a humane perspective on life, and (3) remembering his God. Here are the final two stanzas:
You are old, Father William, the young man cried,
And life must be hastening away;
You are cheerful, and love to converse upon death!
Now tell me the reason I pray.
I am cheerful, young man, Father William replied,
Let the cause thy attention engage;
In the days of my youth I remember’d my God!
And He hath not forgotten my age.
Biden would sound as insufferably sanctimonious as Southey’s Father William if he talked this way. The self-satisfied preachiness is why the poem lends itself so readily to Carroll’s comic parody. Better for Biden to jerk the chains of the insistent young reporters before dismissing them.
Oh, and I suspect that Biden’s sense of humor, so much like that of Lewis Carroll, is another superpower against a rival who takes himself utterly seriously. There’s nothing like laughter to deflate a self-important authoritarian.
It’s as though the president has taken Carroll’s Father William as his model.
