First, however, let’s note what the Republicans and their Fox propaganda machine are saying in the throes of their nervous breakdown about his noble decision to bow out of the race for a second term:
Donald Trump—"He goes down as the single worst president by far in the history of our country.” Magnanimity, grace, compassion and empathy are not exactly Trump’s strong suits. I suggest he take a look at the recent assessment by 154 distinguished presidential historians. They ranked Biden 14th and Trump dead last of our 46 presidents. Moreover, the gap between second-to-last (Buchanan) and Trump was a chasm.
JD Vance—called Biden’s stepping down “a threat to democracy…Joe Biden has been the worst President in my lifetime.” JD must have spent the Trump years in cryologic suspension, after labeling Trump “America’s Hitler.”
Ron DeSantis—“Democrats are just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.” Says the Governor who is presiding over the state sinking the fastest into the ocean, denying climate change as he gasps for breath and continued relevance.
Jesse Waters (Fox)—“The entire Biden presidency has been a lie.” Says one of the world’s leading experts on lying.
Sean Hannity (Fox)—Biden should “take his family of grifters back to Delaware.” Sean has conveniently overlooked Trump’s family of real mega-grifters, recently emerged from the sludge at the convention in Milwaukee.
Having waded through this tripe, we now need to move on to praise Joe Biden for his incredibly patriotic act and for an administration overflowing with signal accomplishments, virtually all of which were resisted by the disloyal opposition. Not that voting against such landmark legislation as the infrastructure bill kept them for taking credit for projects funded by the law that benefited their states and districts. Rank opportunism, thy name is Republican.
Infrastructure, climate change, inflation reduction, employment, manufacturing revival, chips production, drug price-cutting (including a cap on insulin costs), student loan debt relief, increased access to healthcare—none of this would have happened under a Trump administration. Should there be a return to those darkest of dark days, all of these achievements risk being repealed.
Biden’s one-term domestic triumphs are only half the story. His foreign policy successes are equally worthy of acclaim: Expanding NATO; defending Ukraine; building coalitions in Europe and Asia; supporting Israel; restoring America’s role in the world after Trump turned the U.S. into a much-derided laughingstock.
And above all, returning normalcy to the White House and the nation after the chaos, confusion and corruption of the almost terminal Trump term.
Joe Biden’s heroic patriotic act–relinquishing the most powerful office on the planet, putting country before self, is the sharpest contrast imaginable with Donald Trump. Trump refused to relinquish the presidency despite being clobbered by 7+ million votes in the 2020 election and went so far as to incite a treasonous insurrection resulting in injury and death in a desperate attempt to stay in office. Imagine, a president who exhibits the highest manifestation of “duty, honor, country,” compared to a former president who continues to exhibit the highest manifestation of traitorous scumbaggery, including telling rallygoers that once he returns to power, they won’t ever have to vote again!
Every voter who casts a ballot come November should have this stark contrast foremost in mind when choosing who s/he wants to entrust with the sacred responsibility of governing this nation.
Dick Hermann
July 27, 2024