Distinguished Dignitary or Demonised Democrat?

Herman Melville fashioned the tale and orchestrated demise of a handsome sailor, impressed into Naval service in the late nineteenth century, in his final, unfinished manuscript.

 

The pulchritudinous Billy Budd, propelled up the ranks by his charisma and popularity, gained rapid-fire admiration from all except the insoluble master-at-arms, Claggart.

 

In a fable of unbridled, irrational persecution, anguished by encumbered twists of moral turpitude, Billy finds his downfall in an iniquitous end, stumbling over the stuttered stammer that swings him into perdition. 

 

In the mirrored path of the incumbent President of the United States, the protagonists seem to have been plucked out of the wing-plumed inkwell of the late Romantic era of American literature; feathered, tarred and cemented into the annals of history. The only differences here being their age and narrow escape of both lives in the world stage reënactment.

 

Joseph R. Biden, through trials and tribulations and thorn-paved roads, reached the perilous plunge of the sacrificial plank on interchangeable, off-kilter terms. A once celebrated political pioneer, now precariously balanced beneath the blade of the guillotine, with the red-faced Claggart all but one flick of the rope away from mutiny. 

 

It was said of Budd, and can be said of Biden, “he had much prudence, much conscientiousness, and there were occasions when these virtues were the cause of overmuch disquietude in him.” 

 

With an unyielding sense of monarchical duty, Biden has served the country for over a fifty year reign, pained by personal loss, ascending through a steady, hardened climb to the summit. Through faltering splutters, and some artistic hyperboles as to his education, he surpassed the setbacks by means of trained, poetic recourse and speech therapy. Not dissimilar to our friends Billy Budd and King George VII, he managed to set foot on the culminated climax of a distinguished career.

 

“His duty he always faithfully did; but duty is sometimes a dry obligation, and he was for irrigating its aridity whensoever possible with a fertilising decoction of strong waters.”

 

More than a century on Biden learnt that a drought can be as deadly as navigating the turbulent waters of the high seas, morphing into the desiccated, demonised face of democracy. Unceremoniously drafted into the desolation of retirement, with no regality and without a backward glance for remorseful pomp and circumstance.

 

The compassion once felt for ageing statesmen evaporated, Biden was left to pull the final tug on the rope that came down on the lamb that would selflessly save the ushered in destruction of the West. Silently marionetted to exit stage left, Biden, like “Billy made no demur. But, indeed, any demur would have been as idle as the protest of a goldfinch popped into a cage.”

 

For democratic voters in the United States, that ushered in destruction is Trump and now, like a tri-racial coconut freshly cut from a tree, Kamala Harris has appeared to knock out the red-faced Claggart, levelling the odds on the plank once more.

 

From a tactical standpoint, the Republican party seem to have turned the barrel of the gun back onto themselves. A campaign run on the dwindling health and senility of the opponent, embarking on an unholy crusade to dismount the elected leader, Biden, who in all polls fared less favourably than Trump.

 

Vehemently battling for a stronger and more able President, the cards have been turned to face Trump with a younger, more able, agile and relatable opponent than he could have ever imagined. The gamble of tyranny not paying off, Trump has overplayed his hand and is now facing a forlorn, frail and fractured reflection; victory slipping into the distance of the rear view mirror and Harris, the Trojan horse, appearing closer than ever in his line of sight.

 

The Project 2025 manifesto, now drawn from the depths of a sullied sewer, alongside celebrity endorsements and rocket-fuelled fund-raising for Harris, have clinched a photo finish in every major national poll, with a slight majority in some key swing states. Harris who has been silently awaiting the fruition of her understudy role in the wings for the past four years, has now entered stage centre to a rapturous reception, quenching the muffled thirst of first-time voters.

 

As the world awaits the re-match of the Presidential debate, it remains to be seen whose voice of rhetoric echoes louder and farther with freshly re-written scripts, re-cast roles and re-tempered characters emerging. Two weeks prior to the Democratic National Convention, the belly of the Trojan horse has been opened to the dazzling, eighteen year junior lookalike of Trump. Harris and Walz thus far proving to be a formidable and tenacious force that were lying right under the agèd nose of our very own Claggart, seen here seductively sirening him to shipwreck, and who may just spare the legacy of Billy Budd Biden.