Jennifer Rubin - Trump vs. Biden
1 March 2024
From a recent column by Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post:
Voters in 2022 rebelled against Republican extremism, compulsive lying, chaos, hysteria and nihilism. House Democrats did quite well by historical standards; Senate Democrats actually added to their majority. And nearly all election deniers in swing states running for governor, attorney general or secretary of state lost.
What has happened since? House Republicans have cycled through speakers, tried to shut down the government several times and brought the United States to the brink of default. They spent months on bogus impeachment investigations and harassed local district attorneys prosecuting defeated former president Donald Trump. They also demanded, and then nixed, a border-control measure. To top it off, they refused even a vote on vital aid for Ukraine. It sure doesn’t appear as though they learned their lesson.
Some House Republicans are destructive, bordering on nihilistic, because they are following Trump’s lead. And sure enough, Republican primary voters are on the verge of handing the nomination to a man who threatens courts and the FBI, spews fascist “pure” blood language, vows to unleash the Justice Department on his enemies (“I am your vengeance!”) and sabotages bipartisanship when it suits his interests. He still refuses to admit he lost in 2020 — a sign he would not accept defeat this year, either. In a textbook case of toxic narcissism, Trump mentions the death of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny only in connection with his own (self-inflicted) legal problems.
He brags about removing the protection of abortion rights, which upended the lives of millions of women, their families and the medical community. He wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act with no replacement in sight. He wants to split NATO. Chaos, chaos and more chaos.
To top it off, he will be running while sitting through at least one criminal trial — and possibly two. Should he be convicted in one or more and then elected, we will have leaped into a constitutional dumpster fire in which either the will of the voters or the judgment of juries in criminal cases might be sacrificed to satisfy the other. If he loses in November, we can expect a rerun of Jan. 6, 2021. Violence and chaos.
Even Republicans acknowledge the former president’s destructive impulses. Former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley regularly calls Trump out for bringing on chaos. She also declared, “An unhinged president is an unsafe president.” Her audiences understand exactly what she means.
Trump’s maelstrom has yet to reach its apex. He will likely decompose further as his financial situation craters and his criminal cases go from bad to worse. With every temper tantrum on courtroom steps, flurry of insane posts on social media and outburst at a judge, he will remind voters of what they hate — and what they have to fear should he return to the White House.
President Biden gets harangued constantly about his age, but no one seriously thinks he is impulsive, destructive, chaotic, plundering, violent or bent on dismantling our constitutional system. We need not worry that he will try to pardon himself and hundreds of insurrectionists. We know he declines to interfere with the Justice Department, abides by court rulings and respects the military’s apolitical role. He is trying to bolster the international order, not upend it. With age and solid character come stability, calm, competence and, occasionally, wisdom. That is the real contrast between the two.
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At an opportune time in the final months of the campaign, Biden should simply quote the first five paragraphs, plus the final ‘graph, of Rubin’s piece. She sums it up simply and clearly.