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Jonah Goldberg
The aftermath of President Biden’s disastrous debate last week is giving me deja vu.
I’ve been right about some things and wrong about other things in the right-wing debate over Donald Trump, but I believe I was incontrovertibly right about one thing: I argued from the start that a Trump presidency would end badly because, to quote Heraclitus, character is destiny.
President Trump’s term in office ended badly, but sadly, his political career did not. Regardless of what laws he broke on January 6, 2021, he spent much of the afternoon watching on television as violent hooligans stormed the Capitol on his behalf, tried to steal the election, shouted death threats, and literally and figuratively defecated in the people’s home. He was even impeached on his way out.
If I had bet on my prediction, I would have received my winnings for sure that same day.
You know what else is destiny? Age.
Not everyone is lucky enough to live into their golden years, but those who do will inevitably lose some of the qualities of youth, both mentally and physically. Some people lose more of their youth than others, but everyone will eventually decline.
Even Biden acknowledges that aging is not immune to its effects, he just denies that it matters much, as do nearly all Democrats.
The rhetorical platforming consists of a number of interchangeable talking points. “Bad nights happen in debates,” Barack Obama declared. The Bidens “are not going to let those 90 minutes define four years of your presidency,” first lady Jill Biden told Vogue. “We’re going to keep fighting.” The point of all this is that the president’s performance last week was just a snapshot, a one-off event.
It’s all nonsense. Common nonsense. For years, whenever Donald Trump showed signs of ineptitude, his defenders have said it was an out-of-the-blue statement, a one-off. You have to judge him in context. He’s a good guy. He’s fighting for you.
In other words, they will say the same things that Biden’s partisan guards are saying now.
But these were isolated incidents, like watching a movie frame by frame. You roll the film and see the man’s actions. Biden’s 90 minutes of terrible behavior was not a one-off incident, but an example of a long-running problem, tragically broadcast to the entire nation.
The deja vu doesn’t end there.
After Trump won the presidential nomination in 2016, his defenders responded to any assassinations against him following the airing of the “Access Hollywood” tapes that showed him bragging about sexual assault with, in effect, “What about Hillary?”
Anyone who questioned Trump’s fitness was accused of supporting Clinton. Today, concerns about Biden’s fitness are met with the same “whatever” attitude about Trump.
After Trump was elected and the “isolated incident” defense lost all traction, Trump’s defenders began urging people not to believe their lying eyes. For years, Democrats and Trump critics called this “gaslighting” — trying to get people to doubt their own perceptions rather than admitting that something is wrong or untrue.
Now the enemy of gaslighting is the gaslighter.
It was Biden’s idea to hold this debate. He set the date and the rules. He spent a week in seclusion preparing. Why? Because the Biden campaign knew they needed to refute the notion that he was too old and infirm to debate.
Instead, Biden acknowledged it.
Defenders correctly point out that Trump’s performance was full of lies (Biden is not exactly a paragon of truth) but Biden was unable to refute them.
When asked about his biggest concern, abortion, the president launched into a string of words that ended with an unintelligible quagmire about how crimes committed by illegal immigrants are no big deal because American women, including their sisters, are raped so often. In response to Trump’s absurd denunciations about the national debt, Biden rhetorically proclaimed, “We’ve finally defeated Medicare.”
There’s a difference between old age and bad character, but the similarities here outweigh the differences.
If you think Biden is the best option to beat Trump, make that case. If you think someone who is only “reliably engaged” from 10am to 4pm, as Axios reported, can hold down the job for the next six months, let alone the next four years, make that case.
But spare us the Biden accomplishments, the one bad night and the “What happened to Trump?” The only questions that matter are “Can he get the job done?” and, by a wide margin, “Can he win?”
—Jonah Goldberg is a columnist for Tribune Content Agency.
