But for the fact that the presidential election is still 15 months away, the widespread unhappiness with the prospect of a Trump-Biden rematch hasn’t yet turned into a full-blown panic. Assuming that those two do become the major party candidates, it will.
Like most catastrophes, this one is being spawned by more than one factor. First, there is the character and performance of Joe Biden, our president and commander in chief. To say that he is not as advertised would be the nicest way of putting it. By his maniacal embrace of environmentalism and woke culture, and the growing evidence of his own involvement in his family’s influence peddling, the cultivated image of a folksy and common sense “Old Joe” has given way to that of a grotesquerie. Add to this the mounting evidence that he is in mental decline, and Biden’s unfitness for office is clear as day.
Another factor is the spectacle of what is laughingly called the mainstream media. Other than elected Democrats, no group of people have gone further off their rocker than the nation’s corporate journalists. With few exceptions, the MSM wouldn’t know the mainstream if they were foundering in it. The transparently biased gibberish in their reports about “Russia-gate,” Hunter Biden’s computer, the southern border, and many other matters have reduced the news media to one of the most distrusted, if not positively detested, institutions in the country.
Then, of course, there is Donald Trump. Like the politically inspired impeachments against him, the indictments generated to date have garnered a mountain of sympathy for Trump among Republicans and independents. Add to that a growing appreciation for his accomplishments in office, and it should surprise no one that he is the leading candidate for the GOP nomination in 2024. But is that enough to warrant his election?
Discerning people will have noted long ago that Trump evinces many childish characteristics, like bragging and exaggeration, but it’s been his performance against his challengers for the GOP’s 2024 presidential nomination that has revealed the depths of his immaturity. Take, for instance, his use of the moniker “DeSanctimonious” for Ron DeSantis. It isn’t clever. It isn’t funny. It illustrates the shallowness of Trump’s understanding of the woke movement. Does Trump think DeSantis is sanctimonious because of the governor’s fight against the woke takeover of the education establishments and corporations like Disney?
A more recent example of Trump’s unseriousness was on display when he averred that he was glad some of his announced GOP competitors were in the race. Some of them, he said, might have a role in his administration, and anyway some of them hinted that they’d like to be his running mate. He didn’t name any of these people because, he claimed, he didn’t want to embarrass them. Right.
The other factor that will work to push the voters into panic with a race of Biden vs. Trump is the fraught state of our country and the world. If you are one of those people who don’t recognize the chaos and danger we are in right now, just go back to sleep. There’s nothing to see here.
Don’t worry about the growing military threat posed by China, or the threats by Vladimir Putin to use nuclear weapons to conquer Ukraine. Nothing to be concerned about with a woke movement that has metastasized to every corner of our culture and has as its goal the destruction of our history as a nation, the undermining of our Constitution and laws, and the trashing of individuality and meritocracy. No problem at all with our national debt growing exponentially and already too large to be paid off or even meaningfully paid down.
If, on the other hand, you see these matters as the existential threats they are, surely it is clear to you that it will take a leader of enormous stature and wisdom to put them right, and you know in your heart that Trump lacks those qualities in sufficient measure to the task, and that Biden lacks them entirely.
Patrick Maines is the president emeritus of the Media Institute, a Washington-based think tank that in his time aggressively promoted free speech and journalistic excellence. He engineered the creation of an independent national celebration called Free Speech Week, now in its 20th year. This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.
