NEW NORMALS: It's hard to know how this story will end!

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2024

The world awaits news normals: We've been recalling what Viktor Laszlo says at one point in Casablanca.

Lazslo is an important, world-renowned freedom fighter. On the run from the Third Reich, he has landed in Casablanca—and, by happenstance, he has walked into a gin joint run by the sardonic man his beloved wife secretly loves.

The details of a complex love story slowly unfold from there. Midway through the film, Lazslo speaks frankly to the Bogart character, the man his beloved wife loves. 

Lazslo speaks to Mister Rick. When he does, he tells him this:

LAZSLO (1942): I know a good deal more about you than you suspect. I know, for instance, that you are in love with a woman.  It is perhaps a strange circumstance that we both should be in love with the same woman. 

The first evening I came into this cafe, I knew there was something between you and Ilsa. Since no one is to blame, I demand no explanation.

So says the freedom fighter, midway through the film 

By now, Lazslo has discerned the basic outline of what happened in Paris. He has asked his wife if she wants to tell him the story, but he hasn't insisted.

"No one is to blame," he now correctly says.

Casablanca places one of film's greatest love stories within the vastly larger context of a fight to save the world. The heroic Lazslo demands no explanation from the Bogart character. 

The brilliantly insightful story, leavened with spectacular uses of humor, continues on from there. With the help of the Bogart character, Lazslo escapes from Nazi-held Casablanca, still determined to save the world.

This very morning, we thought of what Lazslo said as we watched the Morning Joe gang giving voice to tribal regularity with respect to President Biden. 

President Biden has come under criticism for what happened this Tuesday. Early in Morning Joe's first hour, Mika demanded regularity from the Washington Post's Gene Robinson. 

We jotted down this part of their exchange:

MIKA (11/7/24): Was his presidency a failure?

ROBINSON: No. He was a very successful president.

In fairness to Robinson, Mika was plainly demanding that me make some such declaration.  Under the circumstances, Robinson may have felt that he pretty much had to comply.

That said, as in Casablanca, so too possibly here! In Casablanca, people like Lazslo (and his wife) were trying to save an existing world order as a slouching beast drew near. 

Imaginably, so too today, as the nation—and the world—await the highly likely unfolding of a whole new set of new normals.

What will President Trump do in this second term? There is no way to answer that question, Imaginably, though, prospects are remarkably dour.

In our view, major elements of President Biden's behavior helped bring us to this precarious place. That said, it seems to us that there's no one to blame—or at least, it seems to us that we can't blame President Biden himself, who seems to us to have undergone a loss of cognitive power.

Other people disagree with that assessment. To date, there has been virtually no attempt, within the mainstream press, to examine the question of President Biden's possible cognitive state.

Has the president been the victim of some sort of cognitive shortfall during his term in office? Is it possible that there was some attempt to hide some such state of affairs from the American public?

If you live in Red America, you've seen such assertions being made all through the past several years. If you live in Blue America, you've seen no attempt to address any such possible point of concern.

At some point, someone will probably venture forth with some reporting about this matter. We'll guess that Bob Woodward may be gathering information even as we speak—statements offered under embargo, awaiting some later release.

At present, some are saying that President Biden should have announced, after the 2022 midterm elections, that he wouldn't seek re-election. 

Our own frustration with the president's conduct is somewhat different. It involves his remarkable failure to confront the two basic issues which made it so hard for Candidate Harris to prevail as his replacement, once he'd been persuaded to step aside after his debate debacle in late June of this very year.

We refer again to President Biden's remarkable silence. To wit:

What explains President Biden's feckless behavior with respect to the southern border during the first three years of his term? As far as we know, the president has never made any attempt to explain.

(We'll be offering our own speculation within the next week.)

Also, what explained the economic situation which was confronting many voters as this year's election drew near? President Biden never made any serious attempt to address that situation either. In our view, the sitting president had virtually disappeared.

We're inclined to assume that President Biden was struggling with cognitive issues. (Others disagree.) This may explain why he made so little effort to speak about these major topics.

In that sense, there may be no one to blame for his failure to speak. No one to blame except, perhaps, the people around him.

That said, those of us in Blue America now face a dangerous state of affairs. We were sorry to see the way the Morning Joe gang seemed to feel they had to persist with the mandated statement about what a remarkably successful presidency this president has performed. 

Was President Biden a remarkably successful president? There may be no one to blame, but the extremely strange fourth year of his presidency has left the nation and the world in a perilous state,

In the past twenty-four hours, we've heard a lot of insightful assessments of how those of us in Blue America managed to get to this place. We'll start to review those assessments next week. 

Right now, on this very day, we'll merely offer this:

There may be no one to blame for the mess which finally became impossible to deny during that June 27 debate. There may be no one to blame for what may have happened to President Biden. 

Beyond that, no one knows where Tuesday's result will in fact lead the nation and the world. That said:

In our view, the nation is now in the hands of a badly disordered group of people. An obvious question remains in search of an answer:

"How did it [ever] get this far?" How did we ever get to this place?

This is a story without an ending, the Bogart character says at one point, midway through Casablanca. 

It was a story without an ending. So too today, as the nation, and the world, await an array of new normals.

This afternoon: Landslide elections v. this