Biden's 'I'm no Trump' campaign is not enough to govern

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

I wish I could take credit for the title, but I cannot.  That honor goes to The Hill, incredibly.  Incredibly, because The Hill has been one of Trump's biggest critics, excoriating him at every turn and painting Biden as the Messiah.  Those reasons and more are why I cannot believe The Hill ran the following article on their pages.  It disappoints me deeply that approximately half of my fellow Americans can be so shallow as to support Biden over Trump simply because, according to the article, Joe is a nicer guy, not because of his (non-existent) policies.  Incredible, indeed.

Biden's 'I'm no Trump' campaign is not enough to govern

© Getty Images

“The Only Good Thing About Donald Trump Is All His Policies.” So proclaimed an opinion column headline in 2018. The converse might be said of President-elect Joe Biden. He may be likable but he offered little vision and said nothing about policy in his Saturday-night victory speech — nor much during his entire campaign.

Biden, so far, is defined by who he is not: Donald Trump.

Biden’s election is notable for several things. The much-anticipated “blue wave” did not materialize; there were razor-thin margins in several battleground states that were projected to be cakewalks for Biden. The most remarkable thing was the vacuousness of Biden’s platform; his message consisted almost exclusively of a still-life image of safe sequester in a well-disclosed secure basement location.

Biden claims a mandate, but his prime raison d’etre will depart 1700 Pennsylvania Ave. on Jan. 20. Then what?

Organizing a coronavirus task force is not a policy, nor is mask-wearing. The coronavirus is spiking across the entire Western world with little variation by differences in government policy. It will continue untamed until the arrival of an effective vaccine. Trump pursued a fast-track vaccine policy, Operation Warp Speed, which took a process that normally runs in sequence — first, vaccine development; then, production and deployment — and runs the two stages in parallel. The administration encouraged and funded a broad field of vaccine candidates, with several now in late-stage clinical trials. It will be impossible for Biden to attach his name to this visionary strategy. 

Similarly, it will be difficult for Biden to unshackle himself from the rioting, looting and violence unleashed by his tolerating or ignoring ongoing street protests, many of which have been anything but peaceful. Amid charges of systemic racism and calls to “defund” the police, Biden and many Democrats have maligned and delegitimized law enforcement, with a consequential rise in crime and homicide rates.

The problem, of course, is that violence and lawlessness beget more of the same. Maybe Biden thinks this will end with his election. Yet, the night after Election Day, protesters in Portland, Ore., carried one banner reading “The vote is over, The fight goes on,” and another, “We don’t want Biden. We want revenge,” emblazoned over the image of an AK-47. Democrat-run Portland in Democrat-run Oregon has been besieged by daily protests for more than five months. Trump offered repeatedly to send in the National Guard but was rebuffed by Oregon Democrats; Biden was silent. Now he owns severely alienated police forces across the land who voted almost unanimously for Trump.

Biden’s economic policy consists of massive trillion-dollar tax increases to fund socialistic programs of free college, expanded government-financed health care, etc. Make no mistake, the replacement of private-sector activity with government programs is socialism, no matter how appealing government handouts may be to people struggling to afford college and health care. His energy policy is opaque, with vacillating positions on fracking and only nominal opposition to the Green New Deal. 

On foreign policy, we know far less about what Biden has promised to do, or will do, than we know about what Trump actually has done.

Trump confronted China and kept the world relatively at peace. There have been no disastrous interventional U.S. wars, as with George W. Bush, nor any premature troops withdrawals allowing the emergence of murderous caliphates like ISIS, as with Barack Obama — not to mention any unenforced Obama-esque “red lines” or world apology tours. 

Trump reversed President Obama’s hope-and-change agreements with sworn enemies such as Iran. The first limit under Obama’s 2015 Iran nuclear deal expires in just four years, most others in six years, and the remainder in just ten years. Over the last half-decade, the hoped-for change in Iran’s behavior — renouncement of its sponsorship of terrorism — never materialized.

Nor did Trump continue Obama’s participation in the Paris Accord on climate, which allows China to increase its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through 2030 — China, which produces about 40 percent of global GHGs. The U.S. produces just 20 percent and has been reducing its absolute amounts of GHG emissions for a decade, primarily by replacing coal with natural gas produced by fracking. Under the Paris Accord, the U.S. would be obligated to contribute yearly to the $100 billion that developed nations promised to underdeveloped countries — including, inexplicably, China. Biden, of course, wants to rejoin this agreement under which the U.S. subsidizes the world’s biggest polluter and our No. 1 rival on every stage.

Charitable Trump supporters will afford a President Biden a honeymoon period — not out of respect for the man but, rather, out of respect for fellow citizens who voted for him. Never mind that Democrats did not extend the same respect to Trump or his supporters, post-election or during the nearly four years of his administration. 

But a Biden honeymoon may be short-lived, in part because Biden will govern without a mandate. Mandates go to candidates who win based upon compelling positions on important issues. Biden has expressed none.

Edited November 14, 2020 by Dan Warnick

[frankfurter + 562]

Biden means business as usual... and that's not a good thing.

The laptop is a treasure trove of the $, ways, and means by which he enriched his family while VP. His son, with zero credentials, was appointed a director of a foreign, state-owned gas company.

Biden’s opposition to any single-payer model of healthcare and the large sums of money he receives from the healthcare industry ensures the U.S. is without a public health system altogether.

Biden's domestic policy will result in more identity politics, which will divide & rule the country.

Biden will follow Obama’s disastrous foreign policy, worsening of US-UK relations, more intervention, confrontation with Russia, probably an attempt to overthrow Assad in Syria. This is why neocons like Powell, Palin & Bush support him.

Obama administration increased U.S. wars from two to seven. In eight years, Biden assisted in the coup of Honduras, the overthrow of Libya, and the ongoing proxy war in Syria.  The destruction of the richest nation in Africa, Libya, has resulted in a destroyed state where an active slave trade is now conducted. The going rate for a slave in the outdoor markets of Benghazi is said to be below $450. This is what Americans call exporting freedom and democracy.

Biden is on record to claim Russia is his biggest enemy. No wonder. Putin opposed entirely the Bidens' corruption in Ukraine. But will this focus shift to China? And what differnce will that make, if any, for the millions of deplorables?

And there is much more to the evil called Biden.