Biden's Age is No Reason to End Democracy
We ignore Trump's insanity at our own peril.
“We are a failing nation. We are a nation in serious decline. The real threat is not from the radical right. The real threat is from the radical left, and it’s growing every day — every single day. The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave than the threat from within.”
Who said this?
A) Adolf Hitler
B) Benito Mussolini
C) Hungarian president Viktor Orban
D) None of the above.
The answer is D.
Know who said it?
Donald Trump.
During a Veterans’ Day speech last week in Claremont, New Hampshire, the twice-impeached, quadruply indicted sexual assaulting slumlord former host of Celebrity Apprentice channeled his inner Hitler when he announced that, if re-elected next year, he would “root out the Communists, Marxists, fascists, and radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country, lie, steal, and cheat on elections, and will do anything possible, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America, and the American dream.”
The Washington Post even ran a story Monday admitting Trump’s rhetoric is identical to Hitler and Mussolini’s.
The Intelligencer headlined a piece “Trump Goes Full Hitler by Calling Political Foes ‘Vermin’”.
The New York Times published a piece titled, “After Calling Foes ‘Vermin,’ Trump Campaign Warns Its Critics Will Be ‘Crushed’”.
Of course, we can get a chuckle out of the word salad Trump spewed, especially since he vows to root out fascists, which would mean himself.
But this really is no laughing matter.
We have a former president running for re-election sounding like the most vile, hateful, destructive, dangerous fascist in at least the last hundred years.
It is not hyperbole anymore.
If we allow Donald Trump keys to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue again, it will be the end of American democracy.
Need more convincing?
The Washington Post reported:
Donald Trump and his allies have begun mapping out specific plans for using the federal government to punish critics and opponents should he win a second term, with the former president naming individuals he wants to investigate or prosecute and his associates drafting plans to potentially invoke the Insurrection Act on his first day in office to allow him to deploy the military against civil demonstrations.
How about the New York Times: “Sweeping Raids, Giant Camps and Mass Deportations: Inside Trump’s 2025 Immigration Plans,” the subheading for which reads, “If he regains power, Donald Trump wants not only to revive some of the immigration policies criticized as draconian during his presidency, but expand and toughen them.”
Remember when Trump promised “a complete shutdown of Muslims”?
One week into his presidency, he issued an executive order banning people from several Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States.
Remember when he promised to withdraw the US from the Paris Climate Accords?
Remember his promise to withdraw us from the Iran Nuclear Deal?
He promised to relocate the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Remember when Vladimir Putin told him to threaten to withdraw the US from NATO?
Remember the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), commonly known as the “Remain in Mexico” policy, responsible for separating more than 5,000 families for which the Trump administration kept no records?
It was just 11 months ago when he called for the “termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.”
While Trump was a failure as a president from the perspective of a constitutionally limited democratic republic founded on upholding the rule of law, he was successful in the eyes of autocrats, fascists, and those among us who believe democracy is for suckers.
Maya Angelou said, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”
Believe it when Trump and those loyal to him announce their intentions to revoke our freedoms.
It has happened in other countries and it can happen here too.
This should be an “all-hands on deck,” break-glass moment.
Instead, the for-profit corporate media is still clutching its pearls over President Joe Biden’s age.
The billionaire-funded corporate media had its work cut out for it recently when a CNN poll revealed that 46 percent of registered voters prefer any republican candidate for president over Joe Biden. 49 percent apparently believe Biden’s age is the biggest concern.
What this reveals is nothing short of poor messaging on the part of a right-leaning corporate media obsessed with political horse races over policy.
Even Barack Obama’s former chief election strategist David Axelrod, someone Biden knows well, couldn’t help reaching for the low-hanging fruit when he said, “Only Joe Biden can make this decision. If he continues to run, he will be the nominee of the Democratic Party. What he needs to decide is whether that is wise, whether it’s in HIS best interest or the country’s?”
Media outlets trip over themselves every time President Biden makes the slighted little gaffe. The most innocuous slip of the tongue or malapropism, and the media questions Biden’s “mental fitness””
Trump, though, in a recent speech, told supporters TWICE he beat Obama in 2016, after calling Biden “cognitively impaired”. He then claimed Joe Biden would lead us into World War Two.
In a other speech, Trump confused George W. Bush with his brother Jeb, stating:
When I came here, everyone thought Bush was going to win. They thought Bush because Bush supposedly was a military person. Great. He got us into the Middle East. How did that work out, right?
Apparently, in yet another speech, Trump didn’t realize Hungarian president Viktor Orban wasn’t the president of Turkey.
“I was very honored — there’s a man, Viktor Orban, anybody ever hear of him? He’s probably like, one of the strongest leaders anywhere in the world,” he said, adding. “He’s the leader of Turkey.”
This is not the first time Trump has praised right-wing autocrats, but being in the White House for four years, he probably should have known the difference, as he also should have known Orban’s country — whether it was Turkey or the actual country he governs — does not share a border with Russia, which he claimed in the same speech.
But this wasn’t the last time he invoked Orban. Last weekend, Trump said:
They were interviewing him [Orban] two weeks ago and they said, ‘What would you advise President Obama? The whole world seems to be exploding and imploding.
Did he mean Biden? Are we sure?
Last month in Sioux City, South Dakota, Trump praised the people of Sioux Falls, Iowa when he said, “There’s no way Iowa is voting against Trump.”
Are the cable news talking heads talking about this?
No. Because Biden’s old. Full stop.
Joe Biden is a lifelong stutterer, which he has successfully been able to deal with in over 60 years of public service.
Biden has visited two active war zones.
For all his supposed “cognitive decline,” he signed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the massive Rooseveltesque landmark legislation that provides the largest investment in history — $385 billion — to fight climate change, decreasing greenhouse gas emissions 40% by 2030; lowering energy, prescription drug, and health insurance costs; and reduce the federal deficit by requiring a 15% minimum corporate tax rate on companies that report more than $1 billion in profits, and 1% tax on stock buybacks.
He recently created the American Climate Corps.
Thanks to a key provision in that law, Medicare is now permitted to start negotiating for more affordable pharmaceutical drugs.
The Education Department, upon a directive from the White House, recently started tightening up years of “historical failures” and administrative errors to automatically forgive student loans — totaling $39 billion — for over 800,000 borrowers who have consistently paid 20 or 25 years of their income-driven repayment plans.
Democrats passed and President Biden signed into law the Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics (PACT) Act, a bill designed to expand health care and disability benefits for veterans exposed to toxic chemicals and burn pits.
More than 600 children have been reunited with the families from which they were separated at the US-Mexico border under the Trump administration’s 2018 “zero tolerance” policy.
The “No Surprises Act,” designed to eliminate surprise bills from health insurance providers for out-of-network care, is now law.
All federal employees and federal contractors must be paid at least $15 per-hour minimum wage.
Biden signed the Postal Service Reform Act that, among other things, “requires the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to establish the Postal Service Health Benefits Program within the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program under which OPM may contract with carriers to offer health benefits plans for USPS employees and retirees.” It also guarantees mail delivery six days per week, and repeals the provisions under the George W. Bush-era Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA), requiring the postal service to calculate all its anticipated pension costs for 75 years and set aside five billion dollars per year to cover future employees.
Then there’s “the Safer Communities Act,” the most significant piece of gun safety legislation in 20 years, that includes millions of dollars allocated for mental health, school safety, crisis intervention programs, and incentives for states to incorporate juvenile records into the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. It also incentivizes more states to pass “red-flag laws,” designed to permit law enforcement or family members to petition courts for temporary firearm removal if individuals pose potential danger to themselves or others, and extends current laws barring convicted felons and those convicted of domestic violence to abusive dating partners with domestic violence convictions or restraining orders, colloquially referred to as the “boyfriend loophole.” Gun purchasers under age 21 now must undergo expanded background checks. “Ghost guns” are now illegal.
We will finally start manufacturing some technology again in America thanks to the “Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors for America (CHIPS) and Science Act” that will “strengthen American manufacturing, supply chains, and national security, and invest in research and development, science and technology, and the workforce of the future to keep the United States the leader in the industries of tomorrow, including nanotechnology, clean energy, quantum computing, and artificial intelligence.”
We mustn’t ignore it is the same Joe Biden who was so vehemently opposed to marijuana legalization his entire political career and refused to alter his stance even when running for president, issued federal pardons for thousands of Americans with simple marijuana possession convictions, and announced his administration would be taking steps toward marijuana decriminalization.
Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act, codifying into federal law the right to same-sex and interracial marriages anywhere in the country, regardless of where the marriages were performed.
Congress passed an omnibus spending bill that includes a reform to the 1887 Electoral Count Act, an important step in helping prevent a repeat of the attempted coup against our government that occurred January 6, 2021.
In the revised law, the vice president’s role in the counting of presidential electoral votes proceedings is now purely ceremonial. Where previously it only took one House member and one senator to object to a state’s slate of electors, kicking off a potentially days-long debate, the new law raises the threshold for an objection to 20% of each chamber’s members.
Joe Biden nominated and got confirmed the first African American woman to the US Supreme Court.
He rallied our allies in defense of Ukraine against Russia’s unprovoked aggression.
He ended the 20-year illegal war in Afghanistan — the longest in US history.
Let’s not ignore the fact that, due to the prior administration’s negligence and malice, we unnecessarily lost over half a million of our fellow Americans to a plague, and it was the nascent Biden administration that prioritized the vaccine that returned us to a semblance of normalcy.
We are building more factories now than ever before in our history.
Unemployment is at its lowest point in over half a century.
All this from a man rumored to be “too old” to be president.
We ignore Trump’s insanity at our own peril.
Should gas being over $3 a gallon really be a reason to end democracy?