I spend a lot of time on social media. Not just paying attention to the news of the days, the hot takes of the pundits, and the mindless nonsense that Twitter warriors post day in and day out. In fact, I’ve cut back on a lot of it because it’s enough to drive one insane.
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I do, however, have a guilty habit of scrolling through Instagram’s “Reels” feature, which (like TikTok) is a series of short videos that get tossed your way in a never-ending scroll based on what the algorithm thinks you like. And the algorithm knows me well, because I get cooking videos, stand-up comedy, and videos mocking Joe Biden’s debate performance.
Sometimes, technology is good.
Of course, there are AI-generated videos that come creeping into the algorithm, too, and some of them are quite good. For example, here’s a video of Joe Biden talking about his anime preferences, because of course the nerds of the Internet would make that.
To be fair, he’s absolutely right about Dragonball Z. But that is entirely beside the point.
When I saw that Reel this morning though, it made me realize that we have the technology to get Joe Biden out of the race. We have the content creators. We have the AI tools. And we have politicians who are willing to lie to get their way. Why wouldn’t we use these to our advantage?
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Joe Biden is struggling mentally. He is struggling to recall names and events, and he is slowly losing more and more of his grasp. There are people all through the White House and in the Democratic Party who want Joe Biden to step aside for the good of the country. The solution to their problem is simple: Make him think he already has.
It would not be difficult for the White House to reach out to some of these content creators and get them to come up with a video of Joe Biden saying he’s going to finish out his term, but he’s handing over the campaign to Kamala Harris. Then start circulating it around the White House. And then, while everyone is whispering about it, approach the president and ask him his timeline for stepping down from the campaign.
When he looks at them incredulously, they show him the video. He’s 81. He doesn’t know technology. He probably can’t see some of the weird little things in the video that give it away as artificially generated.
“Sir,” the staffers will tell him, “you already said you would. Don’t you remember?”
They can convince him that he’s losing it. They can convince him to step aside for the good of the country. He won’t step down because he’s sure he can win. But if he sees a video of himself convinced he can’t, then it means he is convinced he can’t. He’ll break, and you can push him aside.
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Come on, Democrats. What have you got to lose at this point? It’s not like any of your other alternatives are better. Biden is too stubborn to step down unless he is suddenly made aware that he’s already agreed to step down. So just fake it. Get yourself the first black, Indian-American female presidential nominee and, who knows, maybe you’ll get yourself the first black, Indian-American female president.
You’ve got nothing to lose.