There’s an important bit at the end of this piece. If you don’t feel like reading the rest of it, skip down to the part at the bottom after the bold capital letters.
I don’t like Joe Biden. I don’t like him on a personal level, and I don’t like him on a political level.
On the personal side, he’s a plagiarist, a liar, an opportunist and a panderer. He has repeatedly invaded women’s personal space to massage them (if you’re feeling generous) or fondle them (if you’re not.) He’s reportedly exposed himself to female Secret Service agents by swimming naked around them. He seems to have abused his authority by using his political power to enrich his family.
I don’t like him politically because he has policy positions I firmly disagree with. He’s on board with restricting the rights of Americans. He was second-in-command of a government that repeatedly intervened in American businesses, directing money to favored companies and fields while choking targeted companies with restrictions. He also occasionally rambles incoherently or says blatantly stupid things, not a feature I prefer to have in a leader.
None of this means I think he’s worse than Bernie, or Warren, or even Beto. He’s far better than them only because I believe their policies would gravely damage the country, while Biden’s would only render mild to moderate destruction.
This is also why I believe he’s better than Trump. Trump presents every negative trait I’ve described in Biden, then adds some more. Trump is gravely damaging the country already.
A few weeks in politics can change polling dramatically, but at this moment in time, Trump is overwhelmingly likely to lose in the next Presidential election. His approval is underwater in every battleground state and marginal in some states he won handily in 2016. The main tentpole of his re-election campaign is the strength of the economy at a time when a recession is expected and he can be directly attributed as the cause due to his trade wars. Ancillary issues like national security and immigration have little positive and great negatives to offer him. The wall, even if built, is unpopular with a majority of U.S. voters and ISIS is rebuilding.
Trump’s greatest chance is that the Democrats overestimate his vulnerability and go with someone whose policy is directly counter to that of basic American sensibilities, like Bernie Sanders. With Biden, or with a few of the other Democrat candidates whose policy I dislike, they should defeat Trump handily and possibly have a “wave” election.
Because Biden can beat Trump, it is a reason that some people who recognize Trump’s continued destruction to both the nation and to the history and reputation of conservatism will support him. Because he’s not as bad as Bernie or Warren is another. I can completely understand that. But it does not mean anyone should pretend he’s good.
THE IMPORTANT BIT AT THE END:
I made some public predictions back when I was commenting at The Right Scoop. They seemed obvious to me, but they were met with disbelief. I said that if Trump was elected, many who reluctantly voted for him would come to defend him because they wouldn’t want to admit they’d voted for a bad person. They’d tell themselves they hadn’t made a mistake, and because of that would back Trump’s decisions. I also said that TRS risked changing to become a pro-Trump site.
The same risk holds for Biden. Many of the people reading this are expecting to “hold their nose” and vote for Biden. They are, because of that, ready to promote Biden’s good traits (even when those good traits are merely “he’s better than X”) and ignore or downplay the bad ones. They will do that for months leading up to the election.
Immediately after the election, they need to stop. Completely, “cold turkey”. Because if they do not, every one of those reluctant Biden supporters will risk becoming exactly what we’ve seen with the “reluctant Trump voters”. As soon as the vote has been cast, the job has been done… they’ve worked to eliminate Trump from the political scene. At that point they will have one job to do, which is to promote the principles they have claimed are their guide.
It’s all in the framing of the vote. People who say they were “reluctantly for Biden” will attempt to justify that to themselves. They will come up with reasons to be for him, and they will slide into self-delusion. If they admit they were simply “against Trump” and never in any way “for Biden”, they are unlikely to feel the need for justification.
This site was built to promote Constitutionalism. That’s Reagan/Coolidge style policy and a healthy respect for reasoned debate from all perspectives. It was not, and is not, an anti-Trump site. I reject not just the cult of personality, but the seductive, emotionally-charged thinking that leads to such cults. I certainly have no desire to see it become a site that promotes a person who is directly counter to our foundation principles.
