Last month Nikki Haley said that she considered President Biden to be more dangerous than Donald Trump. She listed illegal immigration, “corporate welfare” and a move “more towards socialism than any president we’ve seen in history,” plus concerns about President Biden’s mental competency.
Let’s examine this.
First off, Biden supported a bipartisan border/immigration bill full of things many on the left hated, and missing things many on the right wanted. That’s called compromise.
But because the presumptive GOP presidential nominee didn’t like it, presumably because he does not want Biden to get credit for “fixing” the border and wanted to campaign on the issue, it was voted down on a mostly party line vote.
Regarding Corporate Welfare, Biden is in favor of increasing corporate taxes and modifying the Trump tax cuts to increase revenue and correct inequities. He is also one of the most pro-union presidents ever. Doesn’t sound like Corporate Welfare to me.
If making the social safety net stronger and attempting to raise up the working poor, possibly at the (minimal) expense of those who are making millions or billions of dollars is socialism, then I guess she’s right about that. But I see attempting to eliminate poverty as a Good Thing.
The biggest reason folks are afraid that Biden may be slipping mentally is his age, 81 as of November 20, 2023. But Trump is almost as old as Biden. Trump was born on June 14, 1946, so he’s just about 3.5 years younger. Not much of a difference.
Biden tends to speak slowly and slur his words. That’s because he has a life-long speech impediment. It’s nothing to be ashamed of and has no bearing on intelligence or mental acuity. Winston Churchill, James Earl Jones, and Mel Tillis are part of a long list of bright, successful stutterers.
Yes, he’s the oldest president we’ve ever had, and tends to speak slowly and thoughtfully. In my humble opinion there’s nothing wrong with that.
President Obama also had a slow and thoughtful speech pattern. I found it refreshing. He appeared to be trying to be as clear as possible in his communication, even though I sometimes wondered if he’d ever get to the end of a sentence.
Trump has his own issues with slurred speech.
But I’m not concerned with how people speak. I’m more interested in what they say.
For instance, here is how President Biden interacts with a young boy who stutters. Notice how empathetic he is to the young man, offering to work with him to help him overcome his stutter.
Compare this to Donald Trump mocking Biden’s stutter. This isn’t the first time Trump mocked someone with a disability. Inexcusable.
I know that Mr. Trump has a lot of support from the Christian right. Mocking another’s disability doesn’t seem very Jesus-like to me. Maybe someone can explain that to me.
Also, notice Trump’s use of polarizing adjectives when he speaks. In the video I linked to above he says, “Two nights ago, we all heard Crooked Joe’s angry, dark, hate filled rant of a State Of The Union address, wasn’t it?” This is the way someone appealing to our “darker angels” speaks. It’s calculated to induce anger and hatred, along with dehumanizing opponents and perceived enemies.
As a country I think we’re better than that.
In that rally Trump goes on to say, "He’s a threat to democracy. I will tell you. He’s a threat to democracy.” This is sheer projection and right out of a dictator’s handbook.
Joe Biden has not, and I strongly believe would never, attempt to overthrow the results of a free and fair election.
In my humble opinion, Trump did. I watched on TV as he riled up a crowd to march on the US Capitol to try to stop the counting of electoral votes using violence. Then he sat in his White House dining room for three hours, watching his supporters beat up police, physically break into the Capitol building and attempt to use violence to stop the count.
He was impeached for the second time for his actions and inactions on that day. It’s likely that the reason he wasn’t found guilty by the Senate was a combination of self-serving political calculus by Mitch McConnell and others and fear for their and their families safety by other senators.
Even so 57 out of 100 Senators, including seven Republicans, voted to for a guilty verdict. That’s 10 less than required, but the fact that 7 Republicans had the courage to vote Guilty is damning to the former President.
In the meantime, the State and Federal Justice Departments and State and Federal Courts have been giving citizen Donald Trump way more leeway than any other citizen would be likely to receive.
First, the Biden justice department waited about two years to even begin an investigation, apparently because there was a concern that an investigation would be perceived as political persecution.
It wouldn’t have been. Trump was now a private citizen and from where I sit it appears there was ample evidence to open multiple investigations.
But that didn’t happen. So now we’re in a situation where Trump’s legal teams are attempting to run out the clock so any trials won’t occur until after the November election this year.
It may not be true, but it certainly appears that some judges are purposely dragging their heels, allowing the Trump legal team to make motions that would be laughed out of court if the defendant was anyone else.
I’ll finish up by talking about context. In what I consider to be way more detail than needed, A. R Moxon made the case that everything Donald Trump says must be taken in the context of everything else he’s said over the last decade or so.
Trump and his followers have shown repeatedly that they are in favor of eliminationist violence. He starts off his column with these words:
Say somebody gave a rally, and a lot of people came. Say that the person who was the focus of the rally was a politician, a man who had once been president of the United States, had stopped being president of the United States, and now was running to be president of the United States again. Say the person was going to use the rally to talk about all the violence he thought should happen, and who he thought the violence ought to happen to. Say all the people who came to the rally came because they liked to cheer at suggestions of violence, because the idea of violence being done to other people cheered and comforted them, and the politician was their favorite violence-suggester, in no small part because of how successful the politician had been at enacting his suggestions and turning them into real violence.
This made the rally a violence-instigating event.
I believe incitement to violence is a crime in most jurisdictions. Maybe law enforcement should look into these rallys.
Moxon’s eventual point is that folks who complain that Trump’s bloodbath comment was taken out of context are limiting the context to the paragraph of the speech where it could be said that Trump was using the word “bloodbath” metaphorically while talking about the auto industry. Instead, Moxon says that Trump’s comments need to be measured in the context of everything he’s done and said for the last ten years. I’m paraphrasing, but that’s the gist.
I will admit that I’ve never been to a Trump rally, nor have I been able to make myself sit through a streaming video of an entire Trump rally, but from clips I’ve seen the above description looks accurate. (That’s three different clips)
And, as I mentioned before, not particularly Christian. Especially this clip where Trump declares that some immigrants are “not people”. News flash, they are all human beings, and must be treated as such.
Compare that to President Biden, who limits his insulting adjectives and tends to call for less violence when he speaks. (Four clips)
Then there’s this clip, where Trump’s brain seems to just freeze up.
Again, I’m amazed that ANYONE is still supporting Donald Trump. He’s crude. He’s been legally found to be liable for sexual assault. He is credibly accused of fraud, theft of government property, major security violations, attempting to overthrow the legal results of an election, adultery, housing discrimination, wage theft and who knows what else.
He thinks “2 Corinthians” is pronounced “Two Corinthians”.
Since it does not appear likely that he will be tried for any of his [alleged] crimes between now and November, it’s up to us to make sure that he never holds public office again.
If you don’t feel that you can vote for Joe Biden for president, I invite you to take another look at him with fresh eyes. If you can step back from the current team-sport political environment, you may see that he is actually a good guy.
If you have questions, let me know.
I fear that if Donald Trump gets his hands on the levers of power again, the country as we know it will never be the same.
Peace.
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