It’s time for the most important election again, a rematch. The American voter will decide who will sit at the head of the world’s biggest government. A pick between two old men, each of whom have had four years as president.
Donald Trump, AKA “Orange Man,” has his fans, trolls, and “reformed” neocons clamor to see him upset the “woke” mob and to Make America Great Again II. Unlike last time, polls have shown more “non-white” voters than ever have an affection for Trump. And despite the best attempts of the corporate press and his legal concerns, Trump is currently ahead.
The incumbent, Joe Biden, is a lifelong politician who has gone from vicious careerist to giving awkward gaffs that Bushisms seem endearing and intellectually masterful. The “Ice Cream Man” has been propped up one more time to simply not be Trump, in the hopes that he can win again. In this run Biden seems irritable and feisty but alive for now.
Trump and his ego exhibit great energy. On the other hand Biden may be powered by daily injections to help him walk, stand, and remind him of his name. Trump represents the zombie spirit of conservative nationalists desperate to re-live the Reagan era. Though Trump is no Reagan, even Reagan was not who he is romanced as being. “Morning in America” has passed. Trump represents the zombie which plods on, re-living the twentieth century, while some of his supporters yearn for a nineteenth century. Behind Trump lurks a segment of the establishment; no swamp was drained, and in fact he helped to fill it a bit more.
Biden is the “safe” candidate, controlled and, despite his hair sniffing and lost gaze, he is indeed not his opponent. That’s what matters. Within the minds of those who hate Trump and Republicans, all that matters is a Democratic victory. “Vote Blue No Matter Who!” gush the dogmatic in their desire to win regardless of principles. Biden as a man was well past his mental health once he stopped being vice president. The United States now has an almost corpse. He may well embody the twentieth century Democrat politician raised on segregationist and pro-war sensibilities who matured into a political animal that uses progressive talking points. The irony is that Trump, for much of his life, was more “woke” with his liberal sensibilities than Biden ever was. Although the re-packaging of one and the brash word play of the other have solidified each man into memes.
The praise granted to Trump’s presidency is that he did not start any new wars. This is the high water mark for American presidential virtue, overseeing the killing of fewer nationalities than predecessors. Although Trump did expand attacks on those nations already in the cross hairs of U.S. foreign policy, he did shake hands with the North Korean dictator in what could have been a “Nixon goes to China”-lite moment. In many ways, it seems the Trump administration laid out a template that Biden’s team adopted for themselves. Above all, Trump was not Hilary Clinton, and for many voters this was his most important trait.
Hellbound and Down 