This article was originally publisehd by Tyler Durden at ZeroHedge. 

Day one of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) kicked off with excitement as delegates and attendees listened to speeches from major lawmakers and leaders from the Democratic Party.

Amid embittered remarks from Hillary Clinton, protesters gathered outside the perimeter of the United Center to demonstrate against the Biden-Harris administration’s military support for Israel during the Israel–Hamas war.

But all eyes were really on the last speaker of the night – the outgoing president – who spoke late, very late (well past his prescribed bedtime) in a speech that attempted to revive Dark Brandon but just sounded like an angry old man yelling at the moon (of lies he has conjured in his mind about the ‘others’).

Prior to Biden’s speech at the convention, Harris made a surprise appearance on the convention stage on Monday night to honor Biden.

“Joe, thank you for your historic leadership, for your lifetime of service to our nation and for all you will continue to do. We are forever grateful to you,” she said in brief remarks.

As LibertyNation’s Tim Donner wrote:

Since Joe Biden was willing to accept the humiliation of being forced out of his campaign for reelection, perhaps it follows that he would be amenable to accepting the final indignity of delivering his farewell address at his party’s convention on a night usually reserved for second- and third-tier speakers.

Indeed, the unconventional decision to have the sitting president speak on the first night of the 2024 Democratic National Convention (DNC)  – as opposed to either not speaking at all or being placed in a prominent slot on a succeeding night – was undoubtedly the product of a tortured compromise.

To add to the indignity, the DNC ran so far behind schedule on its opening night that the president did not even appear until 36 minutes after his scheduled start time of 10:50 pm ET, which by itself was something of an insult, and led some to question if the delay was deliberate, or effectively an attempt to drive Biden out of view to the primetime audience.

Making the sitting president of the United States wait until after 11:30 P.M. Eastern – well after prime time – to give the final big speech after 52 years in public office was the final signal that they were done and dusted with old Joe.

“This is awful. He literally set up a campaign and handed it over to them — do they have to cut him out of prime time?” one longtime Biden aide texted Axios reporter Alex Thompson.

We’re 90 minutes behind schedule.

It’s unconscionable to have President Biden’s address occur at midnight ET.

We should postpone some upcoming folks and put the president up there soon.

— Christopher Hale (@chrisjollyhale) August 20, 2024

“The media is very East Coast focused though, you’ve gotta be pretty naive to think the prolonged DNC tonight is for any reason other than diminishing Biden’s visibility,” Silver tweeted.

The media is very East Coast focused though, you’ve gotta be pretty naive to think the prolonged DNC tonight is for any reason other than diminishing Biden’s visibility. https://t.co/LSd5DJzrON

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) August 20, 2024

Joe received the required ovation, and as PJMedia’s Victoria Taft details below, the party’s cheerleaders held signs reading “We (heart) Joe.”

The crowd chanted “We love Joe!” but nothing can quite make up for how Biden was treated by his party in the days leading up to night one of the Chicago convention.

An angry-looking and glassy-eyed Joe gave nothing more than a typical stump speech to the crowd with checklist State of the Union overtones.

Joe attempted to summon Dark Brandon but just looked like an angry old man.

And then came the whoppers.

Biden lied about his reason for getting into the 2020 race, claiming Donald Trump embraced neo-Nazis.

Obviously, that “nice people on both sides” trope has been obliterated by simply looking at the record, but Joe doesn’t care.

Ironically, Biden gave everyone a spit-take moment when he later said that “both sides” of the Gaza war protests, including pro-Hamas—literal pro-Nazi– protesters outside the convention hall, “have a point.”

You can’t make this up.

The president told the crowd that Donald Trump scuttled a border deal that would have legalized all the people Biden allowed into the country.

Even his own crowd wasn’t buying it.

He claimed billionaires pay fewer taxes than most taxpayers.

Embarrassing.

The man who tyrannically used COVID emergency powers to keep America shut down and businesses on ventilators claimed he stood for “freedom, democracy, and America.”

“Democracy must be preserved!” thundered glassy-eyed Joe to a crowd that was looking for a little inspiration.

Joe bungled a few lines of the speech when he lost his way on the teleprompter, and at one point the crowd guffawed at the bumbling.

Toward the end of his speech, a meandering President Sundowning began slurring and rushing his sentences and then told the biggest whopper of the night:

“And all this talk about how I’m angry at all those people that said I should step down—that’s not true.”

We “believe” you, angry guy.

He told the dwindling and less enthusiastic hangers-on in the room that he had given the country his best. Was anyone listening?

Joe got around to talking nicely about Kamala Harris and America after midnight Eastern time. And that’s not hyperbole! Not a joke. I give you my word as a Biden.

Reflecting on the farce that was last night, LibertyNation’s Tim Donner concludes, like the outsized stakes of this election itself, the outcome will be either a triumph or catastrophe for Joe Biden.

If Harris wins, it will affirm his presidency and his legacy as the man who saved the country from Trump.

But if Trump wins, Biden will forever be blamed for seeing the handwriting of his demise on the wall and stubbornly refusing to step aside until it was too late, ultimately handing the country back to the 45th president.

In a career marked by sustained power but constant disappointments –  two badly failed presidential campaigns, an unserious image, and rejection by Barack Obama in 2016 in favor of Hillary Clinton – the end is nigh for Joe Biden. He cashed in on extraordinary circumstances to finally reach the promised land, only to be betrayed by the irreversible indignity of his own cognitive decline. His half-century as the quintessential Washington insider was marked by bookends of success and failure, centrism and progressivism, and, in the end, youth and age.

“For the longest time, I was too damn young because I only was 29 when I got elected,” Biden playfully lamented at a recent rally for his VP in Maryland. “Now I’m too damn old.”

Was last night setting the scene for the ‘October Surprise’ we hinted at?