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Friday
It so happens that Beowulf directly deals with the Joe Biden dilemma currently facing Democrats. The 8th century Anglo-Saxon poem also offers us a very workable solution.
Before laying it out, however, allow me to take a detour through Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” and one of Aesop’s fables, which also weigh in on the question of whether Biden should keep running or step down. Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch recently applied Ginsberg’s most famous poem to what he sees as a pile-on by media and liberal columnists. “Over the course of a remarkable weekend,” he wrote,
I saw the best minds of my boomer generation destroyed by madness — newspaper columnists and other big shots convinced they were cosplayers in a real-world episode of The West Wing, saving America by giving chief of staff Leo McGarry the best words to convince an ailing President Bartlet that it’s time to step down.
Ginsberg’s famous poem, which deals with the drug-addled beat generation, begins,
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night…
I don’t know that Bunch’s characterization is entirely fair. A number of these columnists, who I have come to rely on over the years, simply want what is best for America and are terrified—as am I—of a Trump return. When I read and weigh the different arguments, however, I pay attention to what they are proposing as alternatives and to how well they understand the process of running for president. Too often, what I see puts me in mind of Aesop’s fable about the mice and the cat:
Long ago, the mice had a general council to consider what measures they could take to outwit their common enemy, the Cat. Some said this, and some said that; but at last a young mouse got up and said he had a proposal to make, which he thought would meet the case. “You will all agree,” said he, “that our chief danger consists in the sly and treacherous manner in which the enemy approaches us. Now, if we could receive some signal of her approach, we could easily escape from her. I venture, therefore, to propose that a small bell be procured, and attached by a ribbon round the neck of the Cat. By this means we should always know when she was about, and could easily retire while she was in the neighborhood.”
This proposal met with general applause, until an old mouse got up and said: “That is all very well, but who is to bell the Cat?” The mice looked at one another and nobody spoke. Then the old mouse said:
“It is easy to propose impossible remedies.”
With the possible exception of choosing Kamala Harris, which might address the complex money, organizational, and legal hurdles involved in swapping out a candidate, I haven’t encountered any plausible scenarios of how this particular cat would be belled—which is to say, scenarios that are less risky than staying with the president. Both Biden and Trump have lost a step but only one of them is a fascist and a threat to democracy.
On to Beowulf, which deals with the problem of dragons. Now, dragons in the poem are symbolic of kings who have become ineffective. But there are different kinds of ineffective kings. The worst are like Heremod, who is contrasted with the good king Sigemund, who slays dragons. Trump is our Heremod, a king who becomes increasingly paranoid and vindictive as he grows older:
His rise in the world brought little joy
to the Danish people, only death and destruction.
He vented his rage on men he caroused with,
killed his own comrades, a pariah king
who cut himself off from his own kind,
even though Almighty God had made him
eminent and powerful and marked him from the start
for a happy life. But a change happened,
he grew bloodthirsty, gave no more rings
to honor the Danes. He suffered in the end
for having plagued his people for so long:
his life lost happiness.
Other kings, rather than lash out, simply sink into passive depression, like Hrethel, who crawls into bed after losing a son and never gets up again. There’s also the Last Veteran, who having seen all around him die retreats into a funeral barrow, which becomes a dragon’s lair. (Which is to say, as I read the incident, that he becomes a human dragon.)
And then there is Beowulf in his last days, who is far superior to Heremod (because he is generous) and Hrethel and the Last Veteran (because he doesn’t sink into depression). Nevertheless, he still has a dragon dimension.
Beowulf has had a spectacularly successful 50-year reign, but when dragonhood begins to descend, he makes what some consider to have been Biden’s mistake. Instead of passing the kingdom along to a successor, he insists on remaining king, thinking that only he can defeat the foe. Biden, some of his critics have charged, thinks that only he can defeat Trump, while Beowulf thinks the same about the dragon. As he instructs his warriors,
Men at arms, remain here on the barrow,
safe in your armor, to see which one of us
is better in the end at bearing wounds
in a deadly fray. This fight is not yours,
nor is it up to any man except me
to measure his strength against the monster
or to prove his worth. I shall win the gold
by my courage, or else mortal combat,
doom of battle, will bear your lord away.
One reason for Beowulf’s confidence, and for Biden’s, is his past record. And yes, there is some hubris involved. Thinking that one can defeat the dragon by oneself is itself a dragon trait:
Beowulf spoke, made a formal boast
for the last time: “I risked my life
often when I was young. Now I am old,
but as king of the people I shall pursue this fight
for the glory of winning, if the evil one will only
abandon his earth-fort and face me in the open.”
I promised you a workable solution for our current situation and here it is. I start with the premise that Biden is not suffering from dementia and that he’s doing an adequate job running the country. (In fact, more than adequate compared to his predecessor.) As I don’t hear anyone credible saying differently—and as replacing comes with risks no less than keeping—then I think all Democrats should be giving him a full-throated endorsement, regardless of any private reservations. Indeed, we are hearing such endorsements from such people as Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, California Governor Gavin Newsome, and Vice-President Harris, all names that one hears as possible replacements.
What does such an endorsement look like? In the poem, Wiglaf overlooks Beowulf’s egotism and comes to his aid. His words are not untinged with criticism—their leader should never have undertaken this task alone—but that is all irrelevant now. Wiglaf’s words to his fellows are inspiring and could function as a call to wavering Democrats:
And now, although
he wanted this challenge to be one he’d face
by himself alone—the shepherd of our land,
a man unequalled in the quest for glory
and a name for daring—now the day has come
when this lord we serve needs sound men
to give him their support. Let us go to him,
help our leader through the hot flame
and dread of the fire. As God is my witness,
I would rather my body were robed in the same
burning blaze as my gold-giver’s body
than go back home bearing arms.
That is unthinkable, unless we have first
slain the foe and defended the life
of the prince of the Weather-Geats. I well know
the things he has done for us deserve better.
Should he alone be left exposed
to fall in battle? We must bond together,
shield and helmet, mail-shirt and sword.
Then he wades into “the dangerous reek,” telling his leader,
Go on, dear Beowulf, do everything
you said you would when you were still young
and vowed you would never let your name and fame
be dimmed while you lived. Your deeds are famous,
so stay resolute, my lord, defend your life now
with the whole of your strength. I shall stand by you.
Here’s what awaits Geat society—and America–if followers fail to do everything in their power to support their leader:
So it is goodbye now to all you know and love
on your home ground, the open-handedness,
the giving of war-swords. Every one of you
with freeholds of land, our whole nation,
will be dispossessed, once princes from beyond
get tidings of how you turned and fled
and disgraced yourselves. A warrior will sooner
die than live a life of shame.
And here’s what awaits Beowulf’s society—and what awaits Democrats—if their leader is successful:
[Wiglaf] saw beyond the seat
a treasure-trove of astonishing richness,
wall-hangings that were a wonder to behold,
glittering gold spread across the ground,
the old dawn-scorching serpent’s den
packed with goblets and vessels from the past…
And he saw too a standard, entirely of gold,
hanging high over the hoard,
a masterpiece of filigree; it glowed with light
so he could make out the ground at his feet
and inspect the valuables.
Make no mistake, there will be no liberated treasure, no flowering of freedom, if the Republicans win. The last two GOP administrations, with their billionaire tax cuts and their botched responses to world crises, were disasters, unlike the last three Democratic administrations. Everything we hold dear about our country will be dragged through the mud, and worse, if Trump prevails.
And there’s a further lesson to be learned from Wiglaf, which starts with a contrast. Anglo-Saxon society in the 8th century was more heavily dependent upon a king than we are. Whether society thrived or whether everyone ended up dead or enslaved could all come down to the leadership of one man. But we’re not like that. We have Wiglafs running the major departments and agencies, Wiglafs in positions of authority in all 50 states, Wiglafs making sure that people get their Social Security checks and their Medicare payments and their essential services, Wiglafs scattered throughout the voting public. In other words, Biden isn’t governing all by himself. He has chosen good people to work under him, and his policies and leadership have, so far, led to significant improvements, not to mention electoral victories all around the country.
So if Biden needs to go to bed by 8 am, if he needs the aid of a teleprompter to communicate, if he walks more haltingly and talks a little slower and debates less sharply than he once did, big deal. The proof is in the pudding and the pudding is a record of good governance. And it’s not like his opponent is any healthier or more articulate or more on top of the issues than he is. In fact, his opponent is proving himself more unhinged and dangerous every time he gets up to speak.
Trump is an isolated Heremod while Biden is an aged Beowulf willing to allow Wiglafs to help him accomplish the nation’s mission. Keep that image in mind before, like Beowulf’s other followers, you run for the woods.
