Hand the baby to Fireman
Joe
Democrats agonizing over Joe Biden’s candidacy are
missing the point: Our national house is burning.
By Neil Steinberg Apr 16, 2020,
11:02am CDT
When the fire department shows
up, do you ask for resumes? Sun-Times file
You wake to the scream of a smoke alarm in a bedroom
filled with dense black smoke. Gasping, you roll onto the floor and belly crawl
to the baby’s room. There, you reach up, eyes stinging, and pluck the howling
tot from her crib.
Trying to leave, you are driven back by flames
sprouting in the hallway you had just left. At that moment, an ax crashes
through the window, a burst of broken glass, noise, light and air.
Through the shattered window frame steps a firefighter
in full mask, helmet and bunker gear. He reaches out his gloved hands. You:
A) Crawl as fast as you can toward the flames.
B) Ask him how he scored on his physical.
C) Hand him the baby.
If you answered “A,” you are a Trump Republican,
yearning for four more years of institution- and morality-scorching
conflagration that, in some fashion I’ve stopped trying to comprehend, makes
you feel good about yourself and your country.
You like the flames
of American freedoms and traditions burning to ash — they’re pretty — and you
don’t perceive any harm because, when you’re not oohing at the fire, you’re
gawping at Fox News, lost in the pyrotechnic fantasy display they’re putting
on.
If you picked “B,” quiz the firefighter, you are like
many automatic-pilot Democrats right now who, slow to accept the obvious
situation (house burning down), cling to past rituals of long-vanished
normality. (Exactly who is this fellow I’m handing my baby to?) They’re busy
kicking the tires of the fire truck, musing: “Fireman Joe . . . he’s not
exactly young, is he? How is he on ladders? Let’s pick apart
that assault accusation from 1993 . . .”
Parsing the details so closely they never bother to
look up at the guy he’s running against, someone accused of worse by dozens of
women. Ignoring the flames licking the doorframe, they focus on the carpet. It
could use a vacuuming!
Until recently, I was in the “B” camp. After reading
George Packer’s “The Unwinding,” I was left with the indelible image of Biden
as a vapid career political hack, all teeth and twinkle and self-interest.
Nothing in the debates — and I watched ’em all — changed that impression, not
with Biden’s get-off-my-lawn delivery, his near total lack of tone, nuance,
wit, spontaneity and, it seemed at times, understanding.
Doesn’t matter. The house is on fire. Three years of
near-constant Trump disaster wasn’t constant enough or disastrous enough for
smirking fate, which unleashed the full burn-the-place-to-the-foundation
COVID-19 debacle.
A double inferno, because we have the calamity of it
happening, plus the whirlwind of Fox America recasting the catastrophe as a
Trump Triumph. He blocked travel from China! He formed a committee! Alexander
Fleming, Jonas Salk and Donald Trump, heroes of medicine!
How can they do it? Dumb question. Remember, these are
the same people denying climate change. Shrugging off mass shootings of their
own children, again and again. Who won’t so much as require trigger locks, lest
that be a first step toward the black helicopters of their nightmares swooping
down and sucking up their vital bodily fluid with their awful governmental
straws. They’ve had practice. Ignoring COVID-19 is easy.
Last week — along with Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth
Warren and Barack Obama — I had my own “Go, Joe!” moment. I’m all in. Take the
baby, Joe.
Am I disappointed? Sure. And Mike Bloomberg wanted to
be president, blowing $600 million toward that end. But he can read a list of
figures and turned on a dime to support Joe Biden. So can I. So can you.
Don’t be swayed by all those madmen dancing around the
flames, declaring either that this isn’t happening, or that it IS happening but
it’s OK because, you know, the firebombing of Dresden was worse.
Those who would rather see this old, imperfect house
burn down so we can build a brand new one to their dream specifications, once
they get the cash. Who are happy to let the baby burn, too, because then she
won’t grow up to perhaps have an abortion someday.
Here, Joe, take the baby. Get her safely to the
ground, and I won’t care whether you can open a hydrant or run a line. When
we’re out of this, we can worry about what comes next. Because we can’t stay
here. The house is on fire.