I’ve finally realized what the 2024 race reminds me of. It’s Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman brought to life.
The play is a bore, because Willy Loman is a bore. Miller meant him to be a bore. It’s a ply about being a bore.
The election is even worse than the play because having two Willies on stage at the same time is beyond endurance.
Loman spends most of the play either fantasizing about the great accomplishments of his imagined past or denying his own bad behavior and the destruction it wrought.
The first debate consisted mostly of each candidate saying, “he hurt America” and the other responding “did not, did not, did not.” Occasionally this was broken up by some variation of “I’m rubber, you’re glue, bounces off me and sticks to you.”
All Trump’s and Biden’s talk is about the past. And it’s not even America’s past. It’s their past. Their self-obsession is rivaled only by their obsession with each other.
Like most bores, Willy is not only self-obsessed he is a liar. Lies are boring. They are especially boring when they are obvious and don’t advance the plot because no one believes them.
This idea did not crystallize for me during the debate. It was really the big boy press conference that did it. Biden’s endless and incredible self-praise. But also his inability to update.
The NATO talk was unnerving because Biden reiterated and endorsed the most disastrous error of U.S. foreign policy in our lifetimes, refusing to recognize the end of the Cold War.
That’s a topic for another day, but during the presser it became emblematic of an election driven by aging memories and devoid of future prospects.
Syncing up with the tired cold war talk was Biden’s attempt to revive the Roosevelt coalition, 40 years after Ronald Reagan rendered it obsolete. Unions? Really?
Biden’s obsession with imagined past glories does not do Trump any favors. Some praised Trump for his restraint during the debate. I did not see it. I saw an angry man pivoting back and forth between self-praise for his first term and calling Biden a liar for disputing how wonderful Trump’s first term had been.
Maybe it was inevitable that if two Presidents ran against each other the race would be all about them. Doesn’t keep it from being a bore.
Love your work Richard. Always surprising and thought provoking
Brilliant and devastating.