Crosswinds of fate change presidential election in an instant

Violent local thunderstorms an indication we are not immune from climate change

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Like everything about President Joe Biden, his message Sunday was understated.

We call it burying the lead in the newspaper business. It wasn't until the fourth paragraph of his letter to the American people where he mentioned he was dropping out of the 2024 race for president.

"I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term," Biden wrote in the letter.

There were no attacks.

No name calling.

No animosity

Just the simple reasoning it was in the best interest of the country.

The decision was historic and rivals Lyndon Johnson's decision not to run for a second term in April 1968.

"The crosswinds of fate sometimes whip up to such an intensity that politics are upended and the direction of the country reversed in an instant," was how historian and author Doris Kearns Goodwin later described the moment.

Those crosswinds were evident on Sunday.

We can only hope that the direction of the country will be reversed, saved from any threat to democracy in November and perhaps bring us together.

In an instant, the presidential election became competitive again, not because President Biden is incompetent, but because it removes the doubts about Biden's age. The voters already know who Trump is and what he stands for.

Sadly, it says something about us as a people and our inability to put character above all else when selecting a leader. While voters and the media focused on how Biden lost his train of thought and struggled to complete sentences during the debate, too many seemed unconcerned with Donald Trump's inability to tell the truth about anything.

Trump is now the candidate that is too old and his rambling will be noticed.

It was a remarkable decision by the current president.

President Biden is yielding the reins of power of the most powerful country in the world at a time of great division.

Ultimately, he understood the stakes were too high.

He put his ego aside because he believes Donald Trump poses an existential threat to our democracy.

It was the type of decision that only a person of character makes.

Without ego or remorse.

That has always been true about Biden and why so many voters voted for him over Trump in 2020.

Unlike his rival, he put his country first Sunday.

Faced with the loss of power in 2020, Donald Trump tried to steal the election and incited a mob to storm the Capitol and disrupt making the election official. We should never forget that.

Trump has promised to be even more authoritarian in a second term.

He has promised to weaponize the Justice Department to go after his enemies.

Project 2025 has laid out a roadmap that will dramatically change the type of country we are today.

President Biden saw that, too.

And at age 81, he finally conceded there were too many questions about an octogenarian leading the country.

It was the right decision.

It was a brave decision.

And he may have saved our democracy.

This ain't Kansas, but...

My son and I were talking in the living room last Tuesday. It was only 5 o'clock, but the skies had darkened and it felt like sunset.

There was a flash and clap of thunder almost instantaneously that rattled the house, sent expletives across our lips and us scrambling to assess the damage to the house and the area around it.

Almost immediately, the heavens opened up with a Noah-like monsoon that included hail.

We found no damage, although my wife was pretty rattled. It was part of a wave of thunderstorms around the region that downed trees, left thousands without power and included a tornado in Warrensburg.

We are lucky here. We don't have to worry about wild fires, drought and tornadoes like other parts of the country, but the severity of this storm showed we are also affected by climate change.

On Friday, PBS Newshour did a report on storm chasers - to tie in with the release of the new movie Twisters - and I was startled to learn there had been almost nonstop storm activity around the country since April. There have been over 100 tornadoes in Oklahoma alone and more than 1,200 across the country.

And yet, we didn't hear anything from the Republican Party this week about addressing climate change.

Instead, we heard about plans to "drill, baby, drill."

Hating the U.S.A.

I just finished reading war correspondent Jane Ferguson's memoir No Ordinary Assignment.

I've followed Ferguson's career as a foreign correspondent for PBS Newshour over the years. Like my mother, she is from Northern Ireland.

The memoir is a combination of personal experience, the dream to be a foreign correspondent and the difficulty of getting major broadcast networks to pay much attention to the world beyond our borders. Apparently, it doesn't drive ratings.

What I always respected about Ferguson, besides her guts in visiting war zones from Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia, was her ability to tell the story from perspective of everyday people who live there.

Even today, we do not hear much about the humanitarian crisis that are continuing in places like Somalia and Yemen.

What stays with me from Ferguson's book is why so many people in these countries hate the United States.

Ferguson described finding unexploded American-made bombs in Yemen that were dropped by the Saudis - our allies. For the people of Yemen, that made Americans party to this atrocity.

As the Americans were pulling out of Afghanistan, one man told Ferguson in no uncertain terms that the Americans had to leave.

"We thought the partnership with the United States would be long-term," a man told Ferguson.  Another man told Ferguson: "We feel left behind by the Americans. They abandoned us in the middle of the road."

Perhaps, the worst part about those 20 years in Afghanistan, we gave those people hope. One wonders if the people in Ukraine will feel that way if certain politicians have their way.

Relief from bad news

There has been so much bad news this past week, it is impossible to know where to begin.

Mary Ellen Collins donated some Christmas decorations to our project at the Chapman Museum this week. She also reads this newsletter. She said he keeps meaning to pick up my three books, but said she was going to do that only at Kendall McKernon's store in Hudson Falls because she wants to support small local businesses.

If you need a little uplifting commentary about the people and events that shaped our region, I urge you to pick up a copy of my two collections of columns - The Last American Editor and The Last American Editor, Vol. 2.

There is also my memoir on the great journalism we did at The Post-Star, The Last American Newspaper, soon to be a play.

You can pick up the books at Ace Hardware, Warren County Historical Society (Queensbury); McKernon Gallery (Hudson Falls); Chapman Museum (Glens Falls); Battenkill Books (Cambridge); Lake George Steam Boat Co., Fort William Henry (Lake George).

Kinder, gentler Trump

After the attempt on his life, there were rumblings Donald Trump would make a less confrontational speech on Thursday night.

While there was some of that, there was also many, many lies that he has repeated for years now.

Politifact does a great job of sorting through the reality and fantasy. Every good citizen should be fact-checking regularly.

Brooks on convention

David Brooks, the great columnist for The New York Times, has a way of cutting right to the heart of the matter.

After spending a week in Milwaukee at the GOP National Convention, Brooks summed it up this way in his Thursday column:

"In Milwaukee, I have heard a lot of patriotism, but it was the patriotism of nostalgia, not the patriotism of hope. That leaves an opening for the folks who gather in Chicago next month."

We all could use a little hope.

Ken Tingley spent more than four decades working in small community newspapers in upstate New York. Since retirement in 2020 he has written three books and is currently adapting his second book "The Last American Newspaper" into a play. He currently lives in Queensbury, N.Y.