It apparently took fellow Chicagoan Joseph Epstein two years to come to the conclusion I did in 2020, expressed in his Wall Street Journal op-ed, titled genteelly “Biden and Trump Are Both Bums”:
I have watched more than 16 hours of the Jan. 6 committee hearings and plan to watch the rest. I have learned some things, though not many. And I grant that the hearings might have been more effective if some aggressive Republicans—one imagines Rep. Jim Jordan scowling in his shirt sleeves—were present to cross-examine the witnesses. But then I have my own motive for watching. I hope they will sweep Donald Trump out of public life and return American politics to their old, calm, yes even dull days.
The hearings have revealed that Mr. Trump clearly enjoyed the violence visited on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021—and that he inspired it. He has yet to renounce that violence or denounce the groups that participated in it. A bully, a narcissist and a sociopath, Mr. Trump has been called many names, but he is above all shameless, which isn’t the first quality one looks for in a president.
Granted, he stabilized the economy, slashed regulations, and stimulated employment among blacks and Hispanics. He forced various North Atlantic Treaty Organization members to pull their weight, got us out of the misbegotten treaty with Iran, and moved the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. One could even argue that Vladimir Putin might not have gone into Ukraine had Mr. Trump still been president.
But, discredit where discredit is due, Mr. Trump is also responsible for Joe Biden, who may go down as among the most ineffective presidents in American history. Mr. Biden won 81 million votes in 2020. Yet who can doubt that roughly 50 million were votes less for him than against Mr. Trump, whose relentlessly rebarbative style pushed his accomplishments into the shadows? Mr. Biden meanwhile went back on his promise to unite the country and instead led a progressive program of big spending that, along with inducing inflation, further divided the country.
I learned a new word in reading that op-ed: rebarbative. It means unattractive and objectionable. Le bon mot. I wish I had known that word years ago. I would have used it in describing Donald Trump rather than shmuck.
Here is what to my eyes is the best part of the op-ed:
My sense is that, just as Mr. Trump gave us Joe Biden, liberal culture earlier gave us Mr. Trump. It’s easy to imagine all those Americans, struggling to make a living, worrying about the fate of their families amid rising crime and plummeting educational standards, tuning their TV sets in 2014 and 2015 to the antipolice riots in Baltimore and Ferguson, Mo. Changing the channel, they heard college students say that disagreement made them feel unsafe. On another channel they were told that failing to celebrate transgenderism made them bigots. Bring on the Donald!
Various polls show that as many as 85% of Americans feel the country is heading in the wrong direction. Surely one of the chief reasons is that for six years it has been led by men of dubious character. I haven’t voted in the past two presidential elections—on both occasions being unable to discern the lesser-evil candidate—but I can think of several current-day politicians I would be able to vote for in 2024, among them Sens. Tim Scott, Joe Manchin and Chris Coons, Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Gov. Nikki Haley and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard. None are corrupt; none, unlike Messrs. Trump and Biden, off-the-wall nutty.
All of which is why I wish the Jan. 6 committee well in disqualifying Mr. Trump from high office. In doing so, it would also likely eliminate the candidacy of Mr. Biden, for it has been said, with some persuasiveness, that the only hope he has to win re-election is to be opposed by Mr. Trump.
I watched the televised proceedings of the January 6 committee last night. It couldn’t have been clearer that it’s primary objective was to disqualify Donald Trump from running in 2024. Much as I might agree with that objective I didn’t see much probative in the proceedings, consisting as it did of testimony that would not have been allowed in any court. I’ve said it before. I sincerely wish that neither Donald Trump nor Joe Biden runs again in 2024. Both should be twilighted.
Trump was a product of the despair of half the American people. The other half are happy to wallow in Progressive filth, which suits them.
The corruption, depravity, debauchery, incompetence, and disloyalty of each and every member of the House and Senate means that anything resembling representative democracy is this country is impossible. Franklin’s Great Experiment at last failed. The ancient Greeks could have predicted it.
We no longer have law courts or a justice system. What is meted out depends on the defendant’s race and politics. Chicago, Minneapolis, Portland, NYC are horror shows of corrupt courts, DA’s and even police.
This morning on Fox, the execrable Gen. Keane (Ret.), once second in command of the whole US Army, boasted that the arms shipments to the Ukronazis had inflicted huge casualties on Russia (100,000 by MI-6), and stopped the invasion. He said US/NATO will now begin supplying the Junta with dozens, maybe hundreds of modern warplanes, so that it can drive the Russians out, even from Crimea.
That is a call for WW III. Russia thinks this is a war for the very existence of Russia. And it is right. The US plans to cut up Russia into minicountries and steal its resources. Syria writ large.
A senile, pedophile President, and a common whore Vice President, surely these are the End Times.
I dont know Epstein. Does he usually lie about stuff? The economy was already good before Trump took office, GDP growth was no better than under Obama and then there is this…
“He forced various North Atlantic Treaty Organization members to pull their weight”
No. As we have found out with the events going on in Ukraine those countries talked about increasing spending, justice like with the last 3 presidents, but they didnt actually do it. The rest is just right wing preferences and talking points. Its what you say if you believe everything Trump said about himself.
Steve
You may be interested in this.
Jon Darby is an actual member of the deep state and married to my cousin.
Director of the NSA.https://www.nsa.gov/Press-Room/News-Highlights/Article/Article/3100445/national-cryptologic-museum-crypto-conversations-jon-darby/fbclid/national-cryptologic-museum-crypto-conversations-jon-darby/?fs=e&s=cl#.Ytnr-mApvLE.facebook
Politics has become like a vicious game of table tennis, where each side slaps the ball harder and harder until one side wins. Both political parties seem to go only for each other’s jugular, forgetting about the bystanders (the people) trying to figure out who is really representing their interests more than their own.
While I’ve never heard of Joseph Epstein, before Dave posted his op-Ed, I found his opinion less than impressive. It’s the same way I felt about the J6 Committee’s deeply biased/flawed/cherry-picked “investigation,†that did little to move the needle as to what legitimately happened on that fateful day.
As for Biden vs Trump, the former (46) has damaged our way of life during the first half of his presidency, while the latter (45) improved it. Character observations, IMO, are subjective opinions, based on one’s ideology, emotional sensitivity to perceived unpresidential behavior, and especially influenced by the likability of the person we are weighing in our judgment of them. For me actions and policies effect a nation’s well being more than rough and tumble words that seem so insulting to some.
The country has been led by people of dubious character all my lifetime. I suspect far longer
People need to focus on policy, how the electorate votes, and not the political man or woman.