Hello critical thinkers! This is writer Ann Bauer, filling in for Trish this week. This morning, I’m feeling solidarity with Sen. Sherrod Brown. I’ve always liked the man. Back in 2012 he used the word “niggardly,” correctly, on MSNBC—to mean “stingy” or “miserly”—when referring to the government’s spending on veterans. And his whole world imploded. He was attacked by purposeful misunderstanders on both sides, largely Republicans who claimed even if the word wasn’t racist the senator should have ‘spoken more carefully.’ For an entire news cycle it looked—crazily—like Brown might have to resign over his proper use of a word that dates back to Middle English. Luckily, media stepped in and righted the furor, probably because Sen. Brown was on ‘their’ side. God help us if Mitt Romney had said such a thing.
Today, Sen. Sherrod Brown is [once again, correctly] asking his president and the name leader of the Democrat party to step aside for the good of the country. And Joe Biden, the ailing 81-year-old Lear who’s tilting at NATO, student loan debt, and nuclear codes, is saying: Nope. You can’t make me! Nyah, nyah. I’ll do what I want. My wife says I’m fit to serve. And also, I hate you. You’re a traitor and if I could, I’d put you to death by guillotine! That’s what we did back in my day but people have gotten soft and it’s no longer allowed. So let the record show that I’m in control and you’re a poopyhead and I’m going to hang out with AOC and all my real friends.
It just so happens that this comes during the week when my mother, about to turn 87, is in the hospital recovering from surgery on a broken hip that she sustained exiting her own shower—which she and my father have staunchly refused to modify because to do so would mean they’re getting old. This is not a matter of money. They have four bathrooms, in a stately three-story home with winding staircases leading both up and down. This is where she and my 88-year-old father, a former VP of Honeywell who has advanced Parkinson’s, reside.
OK, it’s not the same. I get it. They’re not running the free world or meeting with French president Macron. But they are both driving, despite my best efforts to stop them (turns out when you call the DMV and report an incapacitated elder drive they do… nothing). I’m not going to go into the litany of who has what but just know that between them there’s narcolepsy, seizure disorder, legal blindness, diabetes that often veers to insulin shock and lymphedema of the feet. Doesn’t matter. They’ve consulted one another and each swears the other is PERFECTLY FINE to drive. They’ll let us know if that changes.
When my mother is released from the hospital next week, she is returning to their home with no modifications except possibly a shower chair from Target that she has agreed to use if necessary. There are 18 steps between the kitchen and any functional bathroom. Laundry is in the basement. My father moves at the rate of roughly six paces per minute, pausing at doorways and thresholds, gripping the banister hand over hand as he ascends. Oh, and they don’t want ‘outsiders’ in their house. The only person they’ll allow to help—me.
Forgive me if I draw a parallel here. I’m not alone. I’ve seen others on X talking about this: https://x.com/NancyRomm/status/1806500611946410350
I’m sad. Truth to tell, I’m frustrated. I am 58; my husband is 62. My own parents were cruising to Alaska and strolling through Paris at our stage of life. But they insist we should wait for all that until after they’re gone. In other words, they’re staying put, no matter what the cost to anyone else and they will not discuss it. The lives of their children and grandchildren, the dozen or so ambulance rides and multiple hospital stays (they both have bags packed and waiting by the door because they go so often)—these do not register. Their singular goal is to hang on. They believe it is their right in America. They’ve earned it.
That’s really all I see in Joe Biden, and especially in his wife—Dr. Jill. They were born into a golden age for the upper class where tax policies were friendly, opportunities were plentiful, and buffet tables were long. They don’t want it all to end and they will use any means to stay in control. Sherrod, you have my sympathies, man. Because that president is not leaving the podium without some serious bloodletting. And if people are mean and make him, my mother will beat them with her shower chair.
The good news is that the generation to come, the one after mine (Gen X - which clearly has no place in politics), is wicked smart and I think they’re going to figure all this out. To wit, I want you to meet Drew Holden, a 32-year-old media historian and critic who’s developed a unique and canny method of archiving mainstream media’s most egregious missteps, tall tales and mistakes.
For more than four years, Drew has been keeping the receipts on every outrageous news story and chronicling the errors, reversals and the corrections that in most cases were never made. In a 10-breaking-headlines-per-minute world, he’s calmly collecting the evidence of what was said when, by whom, and where it went wrong. Please visit his Substack, Holden Court. And follow him @drewholden360 on X.
But most important, please join me for a fascinating conversation with Drew Holden, as I guest host for Trish Wood. We talk about how the media “ran artillery fire” for Joe Biden for years, whenever talk of his mental fitness came up — putting Sen. Sherrod Brown squarely in the sorry position where he finds himself today.
It was my privilege to fill in for Trish this week and speak to Drew Holden—whose name I guarantee you will hear more and more in the coming months and years.
Now I have to run and scrub my parents’ floors. Stay critical, folks.
Love,
Ann
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