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By Trygve Olson
This week, we learned that Joe Biden — the 46th President of the United States — is fighting an aggressive, advanced form of prostate cancer. He didn’t run in 2024. Kamala Harris did. And she lost to Donald Trump. The campaign is over.
But this isn’t about a campaign. It’s not even about politics of what Joe accomplished or didn’t over the course of his years of public service.
Because the game Joe is in now — the game of mortality, of diagnosis, of time measured in treatments and scans — is the one game every single one of us will eventually have to play.
My dad had prostate cancer. A friend I deer hunted with for decades — same thing. He went in for a routine check-up, came out with a terminal timeline. That’s how it happens. One minute you’re planning your fall hunt, the next you’re counting seasons.
So when I see people asking “When did Biden know?” or treating his diagnosis like some political angle to exploit — I see everything that’s broken in us. I see people so desperate to win something that they’ve forgotten what being human looks like.
Decency is supposed to be the point. It’s what America — and democracy — are supposed to be about. The idea that even when we disagree, we still see each other. Still care. Still show up.
Because you don’t have to agree with Joe Biden to say a prayer for him right now. In fact, if you don’t — if you voted against him, opposed him, criticized his policies — and you still pause to hope for his peace and strength? That says something good about you. That’s a sign you haven’t lost a thread of what matters.
The truth is: one day, it’ll be you. Or someone you love. A scan, a word, a shift in the doctor’s tone. And in that moment, you’ll want those around you — even the ones who disagree with you — to remember your humanity.
So maybe this is our test. Maybe how we talk about Joe Biden right now — not as a politician, not as some symbol of a past era — but as a man facing what we all will face — says everything about whether we still believe in something bigger than ourselves.
Play the game that matters.
Trygve Olson is a strategist, pro-democracy fighter and a founding Lincoln Project advisor. He writes the Searching for Hope [ [link removed] ] Substack. Read the original article here. [ [link removed] ]

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