I had a different newsletter planned for today, something light and non-topical that seemed appropriate for the silly season. It was about 80 percent complete when I learned that President Biden had dropped out of the presidential race. Suddenly “silly” seemed unseasonal and uncharitable.
The announcement wasn’t entirely a surprise, of course. Even my local movie theater had been urging the 81-year-old president to step aside.
Still, it’s quite the twist this late in the plot.1
I briefly considered writing about my one close(ish) encounter with Biden’s choice to succeed him, Vice President Kamala Harris. It took place in August 2019, when I was a Harris volunteer at the Democratic National Committee’s summer meeting, at the San Francisco Hilton. I was there under slightly false pretenses (I was in fact an Elizabeth Warren supporter), and I was naively unaware that my duties would include a lot of rah-rah in support of the hometown favorite, then-Senator Harris. I mean, literal cheers, like at a football game. (I’ve managed to forget the words, thankfully.) As Sam Goldwyn is said to have said, include me out. I slunk away to have some nice chats with the volunteers for other candidates and to dodge the climate protesters staging a sit-in in the hallway.
Anyway, Harris dropped out of the presidential race four months later, and the rest is history.
But I didn’t have time to develop this recollection into an actual story, because I had a ticket to see Citizen Weiner at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.2
Those of you who live in New York City, and in particular on the Upper West Side, may remember Zack Weiner as a candidate in the 2021 race for City Council District 6. He was 26 and looked about 14, and his underdog campaign was filmed from start to predictable finish (dead last in the Democratic primary) by his loyal friends and staffers. Weiner — whose surname rhymes with “greener” but is no relation to disgraced congressman Anthony Weiner — flirted with scandal himself when video of him submitting to a dominatrix began circulating on social media. The story was picked up by the New York Post, the Daily Beast, and even the Jerusalem Post. “I didn’t want anyone to see that, but here we are,” Weiner responded.
The joke is on all those publications, and on us. The film qualifies for the “narrative” award at the film festival, which means it isn’t quite a documentary. Its director, Daniel Robbins, calls it a “reality movie,” analogous to “reality TV.” No spoilers from me!
I hadn’t heard of Zack Weiner or his campaign, or of his previous acting experience, in a little horror flick from 2018 called Pledge (“Few get in. None get out”), before I watched Citizen Weiner, which is just as well. I was happily gulled — well, up to a point — and thoroughly charmed. And although I laughed a lot, the movie makes some serious points about elections and the press. “Thank God for the New York Post,” Zack Weiner said in a post-screening Q&A. “They don’t care about their sources!”
I wish I could tell you where to watch Citizen Weiner, but this was its only showing at the festival, and its producers don’t yet have a distribution deal. Try another film festival, maybe. Film festivals are the best.
Looking for some smart, thoughtful writing about Biden’s decision?
: “I think any fair-minded assessment of Biden’s time as president will say that he was been one of the most effective in that office, ever. Major legislative achievements, despite thin (or no) margins in the Congress. Record-setting job-creation plans and economic-recovery figures. Dramatic new infrastructure and investment projects. Expanded networks of global alliances. Virtually no scandals or in-house feuds, by modern White House standards. A getting-things-done record to match that of any president since World War II.” Read the rest.: “As I reviewed why Biden definitely had to go, I had a flashback this afternoon that might be relevant. My thoughts turned to when Biden was vice president and got out ahead of President Obama on marriage equality, thereby hastening a change in policy.” Read the rest.Adam Gopnik with a literary angle in The New Yorker: “So, yes, let us go there: of all the Shakespearean figures whom Biden’s fall recalls, it is Lear. Lear in his sense of self-loss; Lear in his inability to understand, at least at first, the nature of his precipitous descent; and, yes, Lear in the wild rage, as people sometimes forget, that he directs at his circumstances.”
“Late” in U.S. electoral timelines, that is. In most other democracies, elections are begun and concluded within about two months. Ours go on endlessly: The primary cycle began in January 2024; Election Day is November 5. You may recall that Donald J. Trump announced his first presidential run in June 2015, nearly 18 months before the election.
As of this writing, the SFJFF home page has Sneak Peak [sic] as one of its rotating headlines. I may weep.
Or weap? The peek/peak mistake mystifies me. Are we just too lazy for homonyms any more?