The Witness Chronicles, February 13, 2024
The Week the Election Got Ugly
Joe Biden’s memory, get over it
“The thing about Biden’s memory is that he’s presided over the addition of ~15 million jobs & 800k manufacturing jobs, 23 straight months of sub-4% unemployment, surging consumer sentiment, wages outpacing inflation, the American Rescue Plan, Inflation Reduction Act, CHIPs Act, PACT Act, infrastructure law, gun safety law, VAWA, codified marriage equality, canceled $136 billion in student loan debt for 3.7 million borrowers, bolstered NATO, and presided over electoral wins in ‘20, ‘22 and ‘23.”
~ Brian Tyler Cohen, thanks to Heather Cox Richardson
Robert Hur, the Special Prosecutor in the investigation of Biden’s handling of classified documents, released a wildly irresponsible 362 page report that basically said they would not be prosecuting because, unlike Trump’s case, the Biden people fully cooperated in returning the docs. That was the good part.
But his claims about Biden’s memory seem designed to offset the absolutely bananas amount of crazy that Trump had been spouting non-stop for months. Hur, a former Trump appointee, knew the report would be public because AG Garland has previously announced its release in the name of transparency. So he intentionally politicized the report with inappropriate statements about Biden’s age.
That was ugly event number one and the far right media went bonkers. But the really ugly event was Donald Trump’s near treasonous statement that he would encourage Putin to invade NATO allies that ‘didn’t pay their dues’, which is not how NATO works.
Trump’s Republican enablers went along with this wildly irresponsible statement as though it were a normal thing for a Presidential candidate to say.
Consider the contrasts. Biden has memory lapses, something neurologists tell us are normal and do not affect judgment or reasoning. No big deal, as we have seen Trump repeatedly having his own memory issues. Yes, age is a legitimate campaign issue for both men and yes, campaigns get ugly.
But let’s look at the nonsense circulating from the Trump camp. He has asserted that ‘they’, whoever they are, will change the name of Pennsylvania if Biden wins. He said singer Taylor Swift was disloyal to him, though why she should be loyal to him is not clear.
This on top of the cuckoo conspiracy theories that somehow tie Swift, the Super Bowl, the Pentagon, and Travis Kelce into some kind of secret plan to upset the election in Biden’s favor.
It didn’t happen and Swift has been wise enough to ignore it all. But the serious media felt it had to cover this crap in the name of fair and balanced reporting. But calling it balanced to compare this stuff with the list of achievements in the quote at the beginning of this piece is irresponsible. There is simply no comparison.
The reality is that the Republican Party and Donald Trump have no real issues, policies, or achievements to run on, so Trump simply makes up fake scandals and predictions of the terrible unnamed events that he will save us all from. The economy, which is booming, will be rescued, he will end the Ukraine war by waving his magic wand and kowtowing to Putin, he will do something about Israel (not sure what) and he will ignore climate change and go back to the good old days when we guzzled gas nonstop.
Apparently he does not look out the window or watch the weather.
On top of all this, some Super PAC supporting RFK Jr’s campaign paid to run a campaign ad during the Super Bowl that was an old John F. Kennedy political spot with JFK’s face replaced by his anti-vaxxer weirdo nephew. The Kennedy clan went bonkers and RFK had to issue an apology because, apparently, he did not know about the ad.
All of this is pretty nuts but one thing stands out as being a very dangerous and that is the aforementioned statement by Trump about NATO. He may see this stuff as just another way to stay in the news and stir up the MAGA cult but our allies took it very seriously. Pandering to dictatorial war criminals with vast armies is not a PR opportunity. Someone tell Tucker Carlson, whose Putin interview was basically ignored because it was nothing but two hours of Putin propagandizing. At least the media got that right.
So that’s the week that was and there will be many to come. What really stands out is the shameful silence by the Republican leadership and the outright support from the far right of Trump’s statements. History will not forget this. We have not forgotten Hitler, Joe McCarthy and other tyrannical despots, and we will not forget Vladimir Putin. But we will probably try to forget Donald Trump and his shameful stain on our democracy.
~ I write The Grasshopper, a letter for creatives, The Witness Chronicles, a place for my articles on politics and climate, and The Remarkable, a recovery letter, about my addiction and reentry experience. All are weekly and free, however this is how I live and I strongly believe all writers and creatives should get paid, if we provide value. Your upgrade to a paid subscription helps make that happen.
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Believe me, it makes my day. M
Yes, any sane person would see the gulf between an ageing, crazy, lying, sex-offending, gibbering psychopath and an ageing, hugely successful president, who occasionally forgets things - and cast their votes accordingly. Logically, Trump can't beat Biden. But... sadly logic doesn't come into it.
There's no way on God's earth that Trump should have beat Hilary Clinton in 2016. But it happened. And it happened because Trump and his MAGA party were able to convince people that Clinton was a crook and should be locked up. So we already know that the voting public can't be trusted to make the right call. Sadly, it seems that in an election: facts don't matter; achievements don't matter; policies don't matter; threats to democracy don't matter.
It's all about perception. And the Trump team will now mercilessly exploit the Hur findings. And for that reason, Biden should step aside. Yes, it's unfair, after he has achieved so much. But he needs to focus on the most important issue: saving democracy, by ensuring Trump doesn't get back into The White House.
Each week with tRump is just another gigantic shit show after another. Thanks for pulling all these things together to our attention, Martin.