What a great choice America is being given for the 2024 election. On the one hand, we have Joe Biden, an octogenarian who was portrayed in the report released yesterday by, Robert Hur, the special counsel appointed to investigate Biden’s handling of classified information, as a forgetful old man. On the other hand, we have Donald Trump who is in his late seventies, has been charged with 91 felonies in four different jurisdictions and whose own mental competence is being called more and more into question. Is this really the best America can do?
The report from Special Counsel Hur is certainly a gift to Trump and the Republicans. The Republicans never really believed that Biden would be charged with any crimes, but the fact that the report talks about Biden’s memory and mental acuity is more than enough to have the MAGA world popping the champaign corks. They will gleefully ignore the mental lapses and off the rails ranting of Trump, while making full use of the verbiage in the report to saturate all the right-wing media outlets about Joe Biden’s alleged mental state.
They will also ignore the crucial differences between how Biden handled the investigation into his handling of classified documents and how Trump handled the investigation into the same issue. They are clearly apples and oranges but that fact, like so many other facts in Trump world, will be ignored.
Biden cooperated with the investigation and returned all the documents to the National Archives. And if Trump had done exactly the same thing, Jack Smith would not have charged him. However, Trump initially refused to return documents to the National Archives despite repeated requests. He refused to comply with a subpoena for those documents. He apparently had documents moved to hide them from investigators and his own legal counsel. And most recently, it has come to light that a secret room might not have been searched at all so there may be more documents outstanding. Trump alleged worked extremely hard to obstruct the investigation. Cooperating and obstructing are not synonymous.
Biden might be a forgetful old man but there is zero evidence he engaged in criminal activity. Trump, on the other hand, is facing overwhelming evidence that he committed crimes. No matter how the Republicans try to say these are the same things and Trump is being unfairly prosecuted, they are clearly two different situations.
I think Biden has done some good things for this country. He has rebuilt our alliances. The economy is booming, and inflation is coming down. Unemployment is at a record low. Wages are rising and manufacturing jobs are coming back to America. And serious money is being invested in America’s infrastructure. Those are all good things but there is no question, Biden’s age will be a major campaign issue for Trump and the Republicans, and, in fact, it is a major concern for many Democrats as well. On the other hand, a second Trump presidency is already viewed by a large segment of the population as a train wreck waiting to happen.
The American electorate will once again be put in the position of choosing between the lesser of two evils. I have a potential solution that I believe would prove to be a much more interesting and entertaining race. I think we should have a race between Kamala Harris and Nikki Haley! Wouldn’t that be fun!
First, it’s about time this country had a female president. Most of the rest of the world has figured out that women are eminently capable of being president or prime minister, but it seems the United States is still too wedded to its patriarchal past. Secondly, wouldn’t it be fun if the only choice voters had was between two women of color. Many of the right-wing media and Christian Nationalists would be going apoplectic if they had to choose between two non-white women!!! That would be a presidential debate not to be missed!! The right-wing media would be on fire!
Unfortunately, it appears we will be stuck with a choice between an octogenarian who absent mindedly walked out of the grocery store with a case of soda on the bottom shelf of the cart without paying for it and a serial grifter, shoplifter and liar who knowingly walked out of the store with his pockets stuffed with merchandise he had no intention of paying for. What a choice!
