As always happens when the United States is at war, now on three fronts, women disappear. They are still in Congress, nationally and locally, but their faces and voices are seldom viewed. The exception to the rule is Jill Biden in the role of loving wife, kissing the President after his disappointing performance last week with Donald Trump.
The reasons for that disappointing performance are many. I think the President’s staff failed to exercise good judgement, approving this confrontation when Biden was sick and tired. It would have been wiser not to agree to it at all, since a thoughtful, soft-spoken man will never be able to make a strong showing against a man who rants and raves.
The format was wrong, too. Ninety minutes is too long for even someone in good health and rested. The format, with no fact-checking of Donald Trump’s many lies, may have led a lot of viewers to believe what he said, including the monstrous misstatement about refugees at our southern border.
But this leads me back to my original question: why do both parties still fail to put a woman at the top of the ticket? Is Hillary Clinton the only candidate for the presidency I’ll see in my lifetime?
A woman might have been able to make a stronger stand against Donald Trump. Why?
Because he acted like an angry little boy. A lot of us have experience with that kind of behavior: the toddler who throws himself on the floor, flailing, kicking, refusing to go to bed; the toddler who makes a scene in a restaurant because they don’t have the kind of pancakes he wants; the toddler who has learned that screaming when he’s in a group of easily embarrassed grownups will probably get him what he wants.
How have we learned to respond?
First, nicely: “Please calm down. Tell me what you want without screaming. I don’t like to listen to screams.”
Of course the answer would be more screams and “I want it all!!!! All the money! All the attention! All the babes! All the power!”
Then we’d try distraction: “Why don’t we talk about your trip to Florida. You’re going to have so much fun down there!”
This might work, leading to bragging about golf scores. (An aside: would any woman candidate brag about her golf scores—or her tennis scores, or her expertise at Pickleball?)
Now things are calming down. So we can go on being nice: “I really want to hear your answer to what that nice man just said. Do you think you could tell me calmly?”
Probably not.
Now comes our iron fist: “If you go on screaming, I’m going to take you upstairs for a nap.”
You can see the limits of the approach, but it is better than the heart-breaking sight of a wise, principled and exhausted older man trying to deal with a tantrum.
That’s the moment when the wife/mother knows to intervene, saying, “That’s OK, Honey. I’ll handle it.” But there was no one present in that dismal scenario to intervene.
Of course if there were two women candidates at the top of both parties, this disgrace would never have happened.
The clip of Jill Biden that sticks with me is her praising Joe, as if he were a kindergartener, for “answering all the questions.” Joe’s staff have done a remarkable job of disguising his feebleness, but since the debate, it’s no longer possible to cover up his limitations. I don’t like suggesting this, but if Joe and Jill can gracefully exit, and turn it over to the convention in Chicago (gulp), the Democrats might win in November. I agree that a woman, say Kamala Harris, might be the best route to defeating Trump.
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