Welcome, Democrats, to the ‘abnormal is the new normal’ charade

The news that Commander, President Biden’s German shepherd, was involved in at least 25 biting incidents in less than a year isn’t the biggest news of the week, but it does illuminate a deeper problem around the president and his team.

USA Today reported that newly unsealed Secret Service records “showed bites to agents’ arms, hands, thighs, back, wrists, elbows, waist, chest and an agent’s ammunition magazine pouch. At least 11 of the incidents required medical attention. … In one case last summer, surveillance footage ... showed the dog racing at the agent and tackling him to the ground. He received a deep laceration that required stitches. East Wing tours were suspended that June day while maintenance crews mopped up the puddles of blood near the Booksellers Room.”

If you worked in the White House, how many times would you need to see the president’s dog bite a Secret Service agent or other staffer before you concluded there was a major problem and that a large, aggressive dog shouldn’t be stuck in the White House?

Because 25 times [ital] feels[end ital] like a lot.

But it wasn’t until October that Commander, after more than two dozen attacks, was finally banished. 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. Barring some miraculous comeback by Nikki Haley, Republicans will have to act like it’s perfectly normal for a 78-year-old nominee to boast that he would encourage Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to any NATO country he felt hadn’t made sufficient financial contributions to the organization, or for him to compare his legal problems to Alexei Navalny’s dying in a Russian prison or to be talking up militarized mass deportations and detention camps.

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-year-old 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 — actually, 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 reelection 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 of Democratic leaders. 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.

It’s highly abnormal — actually, 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 reelection 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?