Biden and Trump: A Sharp a Contrast as Could Ever Be

Biden and Trump:  A Sharp a Contrast as Could Ever Be 

When I originally wrote this letter, VP Biden was in the last stages of selecting his own VP running mate. The challenge he faced in ultimately selecting Kamela Harris, was that of negotiating the tension between selecting the person he thought would be best qualified to become president should the occasion arise, and that person who would be most politically palatable, both to the internal constituency of the Democratic Party and to the electorate at large. The quality of discernment that the Biden team exercised in working through this incredibly important selection serves as an indication of the type of governance a Biden administration would bring to the presidency. 

This is a quality of mind, I argue, exemplified more fully in his Build Back Better economic policy in planning for a more carbon free economy. The plan includes job creation in the sphere of environmentally friendly manufacturing, high tech research and development, while simultaneously addressing the immediate health and economic crisis due to the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. 

Whatever drawbacks there may be to this plan—and details will need to emerge through specific legislative proposals—it has emerged out of a thoughtful dialogue between the liberal and progressive sectors of the Democratic Party. In this respect it is not the isolated idea of a singular individual. Rather, it is a well-thought out response to the domestic challenges in jobs creation, health care, environmental regulation, and infrastructure development this nation will need to master over the next twenty years in order for the United States to remain a first-rate nation in meeting the multifaced challenges of the third and fourth decades of the 21^st century.

The unity team for VP Biden spans the gamut, from former Ohio Republican Governor John Kasich to Senator Bernie Sanders, both of who spoke at the Democratic Convention in support of him for President. In his capacity to communicate across a wide ideological spectrum, the Biden top leadership team will lead his administration in the engaging, hard work needed to unravel the damage caused to this nation, by Trump’s ineptitude and rank corruption, as part of the essential work of moving forward in meeting the US domestic and international challenges of the next two decades.

By way of contrast, we have the rantings of a sociopathic troll as exhibited in the unhinged mouth of the current occupant of the White House. According to Trump, if elected, VP Biden is going to:

“Take away your guns, destroy your Second Amendment. No religion, no anything. Hurt the Bible. Hurt God. He’s against God. He’s against guns. He’s against energy. Our kind of energy” (Alternet, 08-06-2020).

No need for finessing here, or even the completion of a coherent thought, when the most patently absurd lies will fit the bill of Trump’s illusionary view of the propagandistic power of his own demagogic rhetoric. The irony should not be missed of Trump referring to Biden, a life-long practicing Catholic, as anti-God. This, I argue, is a projection of his own lack of godly standards when one considers his cruel demonization of immigrants, protestors, and urban dwellers, his absolute contempt for those who criticize him who he sometimes refers to as scum, and his obsession to erase Obama, whose urbane reasonableness represents the antithesis of what Trump epitomizes. That the president has amassed the support of 70-80% of white evangelicals, who I believe have been falsely sold a bill of goods, can be viewed as a double irony, particularly when their ultimate values are compared to what they take as their more expedient ones, based on a lesser set of values. 

The same charge can be leveled for Trump’s inept and purposely disruptive coronavirus policy which has been responsible for the death of tens of thousands. This includes his rejection of sound scientific advice when it contradicts the narrative that he wants to foist upon the American people, and his trashing of his own COVID medical professionals, Doctors Fauci and Birx , when they pass on inconvenient truths to the public. This also includes his demand that the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) revise its recommendations to the public on how to respond to the COVID-19 threat based on what best fits Trump’s highly partisan view. As an allegedly, "pro-life" advocate, this willingness to sacrifice the lives of thousands for his own political ends, is, on its very face, a most egregious contradiction.

It is often claimed that Trump’s ego is so large, it does not allow him to grasp the significance of anything beyond its narrow purview. It is more accurate to say that Trump’s id—“the part of the mind in which innate instinctive impulses and primary processes are manifest” (Dictionary.com)—rules his ego (the more rational center of the mind), which makes anything beyond his own native reactions virtually impossible for him to grasp. In this respect, his narcissism is rooted in an underlying psychopathology, which, given his position and most basic inclinations, has dangerous socio-pathological implications to which we as a nation have been inflicted, with consequences large and small.

In terms of temperament, knowledge of policy, sound governance, respect for this nation’s most deeply-rooted democratic aspirations in the very midst of acknowledging its most enduring flaws, and just plain human decency, the contrast between Biden and Trump could not be starker. We, as citizens of perhaps the most consequential nation in the world, are called upon to give our most serious consideration to the choices before us within the next few months. The fate of this nation and that of the world weighs in the balance. 

2020