[NY Times] Marilynne Robinson Considers Biden a Gift of God

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Marilynne Robinson Considers Biden a Gift of God

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive...e_code=1.YU0.AOnR._euYyFQqwMrf&smid=url-share

excerpt:

I have no remotely smooth segue to the next question: I have a theory about the lapsing of your relationship with Obama. You said that you felt as though you didn’t know how to speak to him anymore. It suggested to me that you saw him as a kind of avatar of American democracy. Then when he left office and was in the world of multimillion-dollar book deals and Hollywood deals, that wasn’t something that you could connect with symbolically, and that’s why you felt like you couldn’t talk to him. Does that seem plausible as a theory of a relationship between two people I know nothing about?

I think it’s pretty descriptive actually. My admiration for him is very great, and I’m sure that he’s doing things of real value. And my not finding an imaginative way into that — it’s certainly no less-than-positive judgment. I think he has stepped back because he does not want to be seen as a competitor with President Biden. Because Obama’s signature quality was youth, and Biden’s is age. Frankly, I’m less than a year younger than Joe Biden, so I believe utterly in his competence, his brilliance, his worldview. I really do. You have to live to be 80 to find this out: Anybody under 50 feels they’re in a position to condescend to you. You get boxed into this position where people who deal with you are making assumptions about your intellect. It’s very disturbing. Most people my age are just fine. What can I say? It’s a kind of good fortune that America is categorically incapable of accepting: that someone with a strong institutional memory, who knows how things are supposed to work, who was habituated to their appropriate functioning is president. I consider him a gift of God. All 81 years of him.
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