Abnormal: the new normal

It wasn’t until October that Commander, the president’s dog, was finally banished from the White House after more than two dozen attacks on staffers. The president’s dog pulling a Cujo is an abnormal situation, but it seems that in this White House, everyone just has to pretend that something that is obviously, glaringly, undeniably not right is totally unremarkable.

As in: Let’s act like the president is not impaired by his advanced years.

You can see Democrats sinking into that miserable spot that sane Republicans have been in with Donald Trump since 2016, where they have to pretend that a highly abnormal situation is perfectly normal.

The degree of pretending will be even more intense this election cycle because of Trump’s indictments and the more dangerous world we live in. Trump is a highly abnormal figure with a highly abnormal worldview, personality, agenda and set of priorities.

But the incumbent isn’t as normal as he and his allies wish everyone would believe. For the next eight months or so, Democrats will have to act as though it’s perfectly normal for an 81-yearold man, whose infirmities are increasingly apparent, to run for a second term as president, and that it’s entirely reasonable to believe that in the fall of 2028 a hale and hearty Biden, approaching age 86, will still be president.

It’s highly abnormal—unprecedented—for an octogenarian to run for another four years in one of the world’s toughest jobs. A Post headline from 1984 as President Ronald Reagan ran for re-election against Walter Mondale: “Age Emerges As New Issue In Campaign.” The paper reported that “Democrats, usually sensitive about raising the issue, openly suggested that Reagan, 73, was too old to serve another four years.” Wouldn’t you love to have a nominee this cycle who’s just 73?

Note that from the beginning of Biden’s presidency, he and first lady Jill Biden and the rest of the Biden inner circle have acted like it was absurd to even suggest that an 81-year-old president wouldn’t run for a second term. Never mind that in 2019, Biden aides debated whether the candidate should pledge to serve just one term, and that on the campaign trail in March 2020 Biden said he saw himself as “a bridge” to a younger generation.

Apparently that bridge is getting an extension.

Everyone notices that Abnormal Is the New Normal in American politics. A CNN poll conducted at the end of January found 63 percent of Americans find Trump “too extreme,” including 33 percent of self-identified Republicans. Fifty-three percent of Democrats said they thought Democrats have a better chance of winning the presidency if someone other than Biden was the party’s nominee. An ABC News/Ipsos poll this month found 73 percent of Democrats think Biden is too old to serve a second term. Yet both candidates are powering toward their parties’ nominations.

Nobody thinks there’s anything normal about having these two grouchy old men vie for the White House. But apparently both major parties think we will avert our eyes and pretend (the way Biden’s and Trump’s handlers do) that we don’t see it—even though the candidates’ flaws are as hard to ignore as a German shepherd attacking a Secret Service agent.