The Big Picture can be scary and distracting

When you’re a weekly newspaper, even one with the reputation and history of this one, sometimes it’s difficult to keep from casting an eye toward The Big Picture.

So, although, by heart and by mandate, it’s the goal of this space to examine and opine with respect to things much closer to home, it feels, at least for this week, fair, maybe even necessary, to stop and look beyond the borders of greater Riverdale.

In fact, let’s look not only over space, but through time, all the way to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. in Washington D.C. on Jan. 21, 2025.

Right now, there are two possibilities for who will occupy the oval-shaped office at that address on that date, though some folks are saying maybe there should be at least one more.

President Joe Biden, should he be re-elected, will be 82 on the above date. And, while that’s not, in and of itself, disqualifying, the president’s performance at the June 27 debate was not remotely encouraging to his supporters, some of whom have called in the days since for Biden to step aside and let someone else — Vice President Kamala Harris or California Gov. Gavin Newsom, perhaps — run on the Democratic ticket in November.

It’s difficult to argue that option shouldn’t at least be considered, although the logistics of such a move would appear to be, at a minimum, challenging.

Biden’s opponent on debate night was former president Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president for the third consecutive election.

If Biden represents the uncertainty of age combined with the certainty of an occasional lost train of thought or misstatement, another four years of Trump — 78 on Jan. 21, 2025 — raises the specter of autocratic ambition, hero worship of men like Russian President Vladamir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, and more restrictive shifts in domestic social policy.

Probably a good time to add the next president will likely get at least one Supreme Court pick, too.

Another thing to consider: Assuming the next president is Biden or Trump, neither man will be able to run again.

Or rather, should be able to run again.

Trump has already tried to subvert American democracy once. Is it reasonable to think he’ll simply recede into the gilded mists of Mar-A-Lago once his second term is complete? Or can a rational reader of The Riverdale Press anticipate, if not assume, Trump will do whatever it takes to remain president for life.

If he does, those efforts will be official acts, at that point. Think of that.

So, the question of the day is whether Biden, who probably should have promised he’d only serve one term in 2020, should make that announcement now and make way for a Democratic candidate more likely to beat Trump, whose followers have proven unshakeable in their devotion.

Regardless of the answer to that question — which, even if it’s yes, doesn’t guarantee a Democrat victory — the question for this space until Nov. 5, 2024, is: How best to do the business of a community newspaper, in a great community, without being distracted and dismayed by what may loom thereafter?

This publication was once firebombed; we’ll find a way.

And so will you.

But for this week, just this week, it felt appropriate to ponder whether there will be a reason to run the Declaration of Independence in this space next year, and, if so, will it be the celebration it’s always been or a clarion call for what used to be.

Because the presidential election of 2024 does feel that important, and the sooner we start thinking and living that way, the better.