As I sit here in every midwestern diner eating my chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes while drinking a non-woke beer, I have to shoo away the New York Times and Washington Post reporters hanging on my every word. The media elites recognize the real power of the American electorate is centered here in this crude high school art class version of a Norman Rockwell painting. Of course, with a 2020 rematch coming for November 2024, my opinion has never been more valuable.
That said, I’m having trouble deciding between Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
I am not a single-issue voter. In past elections, I have voted for Democrats and Republicans. I just really need to consider who has the right values and intellect to be commander in chief again. Donald or Joe.
Trump has a family history of Alzheimer’s and had that bizarre boast about passing a cognitive test of five words, which was somehow supposed to reassure us of his mental acuity. He tends to ramble in speeches and recently blamed Jeb Bush for the Iraq War while promising he’d defeat Barack Obama. He tried to buy Greenland, pushed injecting bleach to stop COVID, and suggested we dampen forest floors to prevent wildfires. Trump also had trouble drinking a glass of water, and looked feeble and unsteady while walking down a ramp. But in all fairness, that might have been a result of the lingering effects of his completely valid and real bone spurs that prevented him from winning the Vietnam War.
On the other hand, Biden looks too old to be president in those deceptively edited clips shared by conservative media.
So, you see the source of my indecision. A corrupt, deranged narcissist who has given voice and energy to right-wing terrorism pulling this country apart? Or a genial lifetime public servant with a steady hand on the tiller of government?
It’s not an easy choice, because the public servant is slightly older.
I mean, Biden was alive when the Allies won World War II. So you can understand how that is of concern to Trump supporters. Their side lost World War II.
It really is hard to know how to cast my ballot.
During Trump’s presidency, the US unemployment rate rose to 6.3 percent, and the economy lost nearly three million jobs. Contrast with Joe Biden, who has overseen an economy that has created over thirteen million new jobs and an unemployment rate of 3.8 percent.
But Biden is three years older than Trump.
Despite Trump’s promise to lower healthcare costs and take care of everybody, when he was in office, more than two million Americans (including more than 700,000 children) lost their health insurance. In addition, healthcare premiums jumped 6 percent on average while Republicans tried to repeal the ACA and slash funding for Medicaid and Medicare. Joe Biden has lowered prescription drug costs, reduced the cost of health insurance premiums, and expanded access to mental healthcare.
But remember: Joe is more than forty months older than Donald.
Trump added $7.8 trillion to the federal deficit, mainly from a tax cut that helped big corporations and wealthy Americans. The Tax Policy Center reported his administration had the third-largest primary deficit of any president (5.2 percent of GDP). Biden shaved $1.7 trillion off the deficit in his first two years while passing tax changes to address income inequality and support working families.
But don’t forget, when Biden was a senior in high school, Trump was just a mere freshman.
Trump was impeached twice, openly colluded with hostile foreign dictators, was found liable for sexual assault, and is currently facing four separate criminal investigations related to unlawful document retention endangering national security, campaign finance violations, and state and federal charges for his attempted insurrection. He incited the mob to attack the Capitol on January 6, which tried to overturn the results of a lawful election, leading to the deaths of five police officers. Trump is also undergoing a civil trial, which will dismantle his various business cons following decades of tax fraud and other financial improprieties. According to the Washington Post, he lied more than 30,000 times during his four years in office, which is more than twenty lies per day.
Then again, Biden loves his troubled son and was born a week before Jimi Hendrix.
Sure, Joe’s enacted the most progressive agenda since LBJ (without a Vietnam). Still, he is over 1,300 days older than an unhinged racist who has authoritarian aims to suppress free media and weaponize the judiciary, and is facing ninety-one criminal charges.
I guess I’ll just flip a coin in the voting booth.