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Trump vs. Biden: A Character Study
I’m going to ignore policies in this post. By now, I think we know where each candidate stands on particular issues. I want to focus on their character. The media constantly tells me how Trump is an awful, malignant human being, and that alone should disqualify him for office. I’m then told that Biden is the polar opposite of Trump, and would return prestige and decency to the Oval Office. I don’t agree with this at all. Here’s why:
Work ethic: Donald Trump was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Point against him, but that’s out of his control. He could have lived off of his inheritance for the rest of his life, but he chose to work in a highly competitive industry. I think that says something about character. Joe Biden has been in politics for his entire life. He dabbled in law briefly but otherwise doesn’t have any private sector experience. Thirty years old and he’s going to tell the rest of the world what to do.
Inappropriateness: There are several videos and images of Biden acting strange around women, sometimes underage women. He has been quite liberal with his hands and you can see how uncomfortable these women (and girls) are in the various Biden memes that are out there. Trump almost had his 2016 campaign tanked when the tape came out of him stating that women liked when he “grabbed them by the p***y.” He was making a crude statement, in private, about hypergamy. That’s not the same thing as rape. I do not think Biden is a rapist. But I’ve heard excuses for the way he gropes women such as “that’s just the way men of his generation act.” I ‘ve never seen Trump do anything like that and Trump is almost the same age as Biden.
Ambitions: 2020 will be Biden’s third attempt at the presidency. He campaigned for it as far back as 1987. Trump ran as a Reform Party candidate in 2000 but did not get involved in politics again until his 2016 run. Both men crave power. But with Trump, I believe he ran for president because he accomplished everything else he could in life. I think he saw America heading in the wrong direction and genuinely wanted to get it back on the right course. With Biden, the presidency is a lifelong obsession. I’m not really sure what his ideas on America are because he’s a squishy politician who has flip-flopped on issues for half a century.
Integrity: Plagiarism got Joe Biden into trouble when he was a law student at Syracuse University. He plagiarized papers and ranked 76th out of 85th, and later claimed he was in the top half of his class. His political biography is also riddled with tall tales and fibs, but I’ll cut him some slack on that one because all political bios are trash. Trump “gamed the system” to avoid paying taxes, legally. I find it hard to be upset with someone who figured out (well, who’s accountants figured out) how to keep his own money.
Infidelity: Trump is on his third marriage and has a long history of being unfaithful. Biden may have been involved with his current wife while she was still married to another man. I’ll give the moral victory to Biden on this one.
How they treat others: Biden really set the stage for the “there is no low that is too low” tactics that were used in the Kavanaugh hearings. He was absolutely vicious towards Judge Bork and Judge Thomas in their senate hearings. Biden also used his political power to slander a private citizen. Curtis Dunn was the truck driver who accidentally hit and killed Biden’s first wife and daughter, but was ruled not at fault. Biden later claimed that Dunn was drunk at the wheel, which was ruled out of the police report. Even worse, Biden did this years after Dunn had passed away, so Dunn could not defend his reputation. Cowardly, evil behavior. Trump has mocked reporters for asking dumb questions and has hurled thousands of insults at his political opposition on Twitter. I’m of the opinion that in most of these cases, his opposition had it coming.
I keep hearing how Biden is a gentle soul who will get the country back on a moral path. I keep hearing how his compassion and kindness are without peer. But I’m not seeing it. It’s obvious to me who has the better character.
Published in Elections
I completely agree with your assessment in all areas. Joe only comes out ahead on infidelity, but just barely. Of course, the Dems will love him, no matter what.
Biden is a truly mean person. Watch videos of his bullying behavior toward voters, and his calling a group of soldiers ‘stupid bastards’ because they didn’t laugh at his unfunny joke.
But all this doesn’t matter to most of his supporters, because they seem Trump…and Trump supporters…as an existential threat. Similar to the way that most of us would have voted for an unpleasant and dishonest but non-Nazi candidate before we would have voted for a Nazi.
The problem is that most people get their news and analysis either from traditional media, or…equally bad..from Facebook…or…still worse…from Twitter. Hence, a very skewed view of what is going on.
Another one: Trump donates his presidential salary to charity. Biden got rich despite never creating a single job nor producing a product or service that people want to pay for.
As someone pointed out elsewhere, if you donate a cool $400,000 to charity and can control/limit your other sources of income (as opposed to holdings), then you’re not going to pay much in taxes and rightfully so.
Objection. The tape says that women let rich/powerful men do that, but Trump does NOT say that HE did it.
Trump said the women allowed rich/powerful men like him to grab their crotches. In other words, he was talking about consenting adults, thus easily clearing the extremely low bar set by the modern left for acceptable sexual behavior. Far weirder stuff is considered kosher, so much so that a guy who beat his girlfriend to death claimed it was a mutually-pleasurable BDSM thing gone wrong. She consented to having the daylights beaten out of her but her boyfriend beat her a little too hard and..the daylights stayed out.
Whoops! My bad! Said her “lover.”
That must have been an interesting funeral.
Yes, I thought about adding “but if the women LET them then it’s not really assault” but these days you can’t say or even think that.
The main point, though, was that Trump said women let rich/powerful men do that, but nowhere does he say that HE did it.
I have had much the same thoughts about these two candidates. Setting policy matters aside, they have a lot in common on matters of character, intelligence, and integrity. It’s totally legitimate for people to be strong supporters of either one because of that voter’s policy preferences, but I think there’s a little self-brainwashing going on when someone says that their guy is obviously on a higher moral plane than their opponent.
Right. But seconds before the infamous p****-grabbing quote he said that he can’t resist kissing women, essentially without their permission. Let us not pretend that Donald Trump was like some minister, shaking his head at the sadness of how women interact with high-status men.
Robert Avrech, a Pulitzer-prize-winning screenwriter…and one of the relative-few non-Leftists in Hollywood…said this about Trump:
He is not a standard Conservative. He is not a libertarian. He is not a Democrat either. The fact is that Trump is a quirky man who loves America.
“A quirky man who loves America.” There are two things about that character that bother Democrats and “progressives.” First, of course, the “loves America” part, which to them is a clear sign of primitivism. But also, the “quirky” part…Trump is not a standard-issue law-school / Ivy-League politician, and he does not talk like they do or think in the boxes that they have constructed for themselves, and they find this to be unsettlingly alien.
Robert’s post is here, and his blog is well worth following.
I have written about Trump’s failings at length, and do not need to repeat it here. https://ricochet.com/611684/archives/why-trump-is-disqualified/
However, I think that this video about Biden speaks highly of his character.
Because it’s less than half of the full story about Biden?
I understand your point. But will you grant me that Biden’s support of stutterers is at least a small point in his favor?
Low bar? I wonder. Before I retired I had to attend, along with everyone else, what were called “Ethics Training” sessions. One year the moderator explained that it is NOT sexual harassment if a man asks a woman out. Apparently, in a survey over 30% of women in the corporation thought that it is. So, we had to listen to someone patiently explain that it becomes harassment if the man continues after having been told “no”. I hope the same standard was applied to woman harassing men, and given the scenarios mentioned, I believe it was.
So small as to be irrelevant/insignificant.
He might – just might – impress me, a LITTLE, if he dropped out of “public service” to really support stutterers.
But of course he’s incapable of that. Joe Biden apparently believes he is indispensable to the country, even to the world. Which is why he got into “public service” as early as he was legally able to, and has stayed there for the majority of his entire time on the planet. Despite lack of any real “contributions” in that area. He would have accomplished more by just tutoring stutterers one-on-one. Problem is, nobody becomes a multi-millionaire doing that.
According to the clip in Comment 12 Biden does just that. He says that he works with 25 stutterers, by telling them what he did and encouraging them. This is a good thing.
Not the same thing. But, it might count for more – or at least something – if it wasn’t offset by so much awfulness.
That’s fair. Thank you for acknowledging that Biden has done good in one small area.
Which, just for starters, is not nearly enough to compensate for Biden’s repeated claims over years/decades that a “drunk driver” killed his daughter and first wife.
And so much more…
A lot of terrible people have had one or a few “good points.”
So f’ing what?
Biden “helping stutterers” doesn’t even begin to move the needle in the “not awful” direction. A lot of people can do – and have done – that, without all of Biden’s…. “baggage.”
Your turn.
If you’re going to contribute to my post, why don’t you address the examples I outlined? We can cherry pick the history of almost anyone and find examples of kindness. You’re not advancing the discussion.
EGTD
Egg Goober Toad Deuteronomy.
Message received, Sir.
Systems activated.
Re : 10
I’m pretty sure that video is edited, because I heard the same tape, about 4 tears ago, and my memory is that it was significantly longer. I was not yet a Trump supporter when I heard the tape. But, my immediate impression of it then, in spite of the fact that I didn’t like Trump, is exactly what it is now. It’s this: Trump is saying, in a just-between-us-males way, that there’s a certain type of woman who will put up with almost any kind of lewd-slob behavior from men as long as those men are rich and famous.
That’s deeply cynical. It’s also—-AND WE ALL KNOW THIS—-true. (Why is the opening scene of the movie “Bonfire of the Vanities” funny ? It’s funny because of the way it shows what Trump said with what would have been inexcusable crudity if any women had been present when he said it. The movie of the book, Bonfire of the Vanities, opens with a drunk writer getting away with acting drunk, arrogant and lewd because he’s newly rich and famous .
Of course it’s also just as true that a certain type of man is that servile around male and female “stars”. But, Trump wasn’t commenting on men at the time, only because the conversation was about pursuing women sexually.)
These are actual quotes of a conversation between two WWII survivors (I swear it):
Okay, so now I know, if I ever have kids, wife will be playing them Rush tapes etc in-utero. They can learn about Mozart etc later! Priorities!
I thought about going the “Hitler was kind to children and animals…” route, but I figured I’d let someone else “go there.”
If only Bork and Thomas stuttered.