Biden vs Trump In 2024–The Greatest Show On Earth

No one doubts that The Donald will be back, and that President Biden will rouse himself for another run.  It promises to be a spectacular event with melodrama, bombast, the Salem witch trials, and the thunder of a righteous God not to be missed.

Of course contenders for the Republican candidacy are already lining up, players with state creds like DeSantis of Florida, and international reputations like Nikki Haley, but the country has far from tired of the Big Man.  Despite the kettle drums and cymbals, the banging and thumping and howls of ‘traitor’, ‘insurrectionist’, and ‘buffoon’, America is tired of being hectored by Biden sanctimony.

People are tired of being told to be good, to wear their masks, to social distance, to get boosted.  Wokeness is a bloody bore, a stifling, gassy room with no exit.  It has been two years of false piety, rank politics, and wobbly policies, and it is time for a change.

There are many who say that Trump can never get elected.  The kangaroo trials, demands for witness, the outing of tax records and personal ledgers have taken their toll.  The Democratic campaign to discredit the former President has tarred him, and the feathering will come.

But then there is Biden, Trump supporters reply.  A bumbling old man who can barely remember how to tie his shoes, at home only when prompted, symbiotically linked to the teleprompter, and in the thrall of a wild clutch of radicals for whom only black, Latino, transgendered women are heroes, and working class Rosie the Riveters are heirs to the new transgendered, social economy.

The President is an empty suit, led by the nose by his claque of Congressional guerrillas, led around the ring of international diplomacy like a child on a pony, no match for Xi, Putin, Kim, or the Ayatollahs. 

The campaign would be a ready made cartoon – the 97 lb. weakling against Hollywood-ready, Venice Beach, iron-pumping star.  Who would not pay good money to see it?

Washington is already scurrying for the best seats, but Democrats are desperately trying to beef up their man, give him at least a show of authority and command, an illustration of power.  A tough row to hoe, given the fact that he is increasingly straying off message, dreamily reflecting on summers in Ukiah, memories prompted by a speech on Ukraine. 

“Age is not an issue”, say his PR team.  “Experience is”; but Biden’s experience before being caravanned to the Oval Office has been one of toady gofer – Obama’s trusted, quiet, yes man – and Delaware’s representative elected to bring home the bacon and stay out of trouble. The Biden presidency has been less of a clear, unequivocal personal vision, but a progressive smorgasbord prepared by his handlers.

The  rise of the black man to his final, legitimate place at the top of the social pyramid? Words only.  Biden is no Martin Luther King or Stokely Carmichael, or even Bill Clinton, self-styled black president who felt the pain and suffering of the black race.

The similar rise of the woman, genetically superior to men, finally given her due never to return to the kitchen, enabled at last to contract childbirth to surrogates, live alone and independently, choose her sexual partners willy-nilly, and redefine gender and sexuality? Speeches written by tough girls from Bernal Heights, no teeth in them, for the President has always been a home-bound, dutiful husband.  A time for gayness? The final demise of the heterosexual culture and the universality of the gender spectrum? Niceties spoken by a man who has never known what’s what sexually except for lovely Jill.

“I am the issue”, shouted Donald Trump from the podium at a rally in Des Moines.  “I am the one, the only one, the twice-elected one, the only legitimate one; and I am yours”.  Thunderous applause and cheering,  The political messiah has returned!

Progressives were outraged more by his messianic references than by his transparent aside about the 2020 election.  “How could he?”, they shouted.  The chorus was taken up by MSNBC, CNN, and the NY Times who saw Donald Trump as the key to improving viewership which had dropped off sharply when only Biden was news.  All of which was fuel for the Trump fire, and his speeches became hilarious Borscht Belt parodies of the wounded Left.  He was in his element once again, his eyes were on the prize and he was once again flummoxing the opposition who, once again, had no idea how to deal with this blowhard idiot.

Half of America loved Donald Trump because of his outrageousness, his bombast, and his high-wire circus act.  His supporters understood what he meant as he pinwheeled from one progressive issue to the next.  The fabrications, exaggerations, and bald-faced inventions were simply part of his Hollywood, Las Vegas, mean streets persona.  No one expects the truth from Hollywood, only fantasy, nor anything but glitz, glamour, and faux reality from Vegas.  And whoever thought that high stake real estate deals were made on the basis of camaraderie, transparency, and respect?

So Trump was America’s man, and here he was back again.  The big top circus tent was being erected right their on the Washington Mall in plain sight of the White House and the Capitol.  Side show freaks were already assembled, the roar of lions and tigers could be heard across the Potomac.

Now that the January 6th Congressional hearings are concluded, and millions of dollars and untold hours of blather and venal debate later, not a mark was laid on the former President.  He was now a martyr who refused any act of contrition or remorse. Those who had stormed the Capitol were part of a ragtag, Halloween-costumed band of crazies who had left their cracker shanties, log cabins, and trailers to yell and shout and make a mess. 

Insurrection? Had there been even the scintilla of doubt about the flimsiness and wacko nature of the hairy crowd, the FBI would have stopped it in its tracks.  They ignored it for what it was, balderdash nonsense.  You want insurrection?  insiders commented.  Go to Sierra Leone, Liberia, Angola, Congo, or Nicaragua. Blood, child soldiers, slaughter, mayhem, and chaos.   The police should have banged heads, used cattle prods and lasers to stop the idiots, and the foolish affair would have ended there.

Nothing sticks because Trump is too smart, too canny, too schooled in the bare-knuckled ways of Wall Street.  He is street-fighter, circus impresario,  vaudevillian, and ur-chutzpah politician the likes of which America has never seen.

Many Americans and not a few on the Right wish that Trump would go away, leave them alone, go back to Mar el Lago, play golf, and write his memoirs like every other former president; but America has not had enough of Trump, especially after two numbing years of Joe Biden.

What is easily forgotten is the potent conservative message within the bombast – limited government, eased regulations, lower taxes, a muscular foreign policy, energy independence, tightened immigration, and a renewed respect for free speech, the freedom of religion, and traditional sexuality.  “Wokeness dies in Florida”, said Governor DeSantis, and under Trump, say his supporters, it will die in America as well.

It is more than likely that the Republicans will choose a more moderate, less controversial, more temperate candidate for President.  Trump is a loose cannon, and while his thunder draws a crowd, it might not be the right kind.  What remains however, is the question no Democrat has ever answered – what is behind the Trump phenomenon?  The most knee-jerk responders will say it is because Trump is evil and the Devil works in mysterious ways.  The more savvy will accept the fact that he has touched a chord, perhaps a dissonant, unpleasant one to listen to, but music nonetheless.  Donald Trump is America, after all.