Hunter’s guilty verdict benefits Biden’s campaign
A Delaware jury convicted President Biden’s son Hunter today on three felony counts for lying on gun-purchasing paperwork and unlawfully possessing a gun. Evidently, jurors found testimony about his notorious adventures and struggles with drug addiction wrenching but not exculpatory. He now faces 25 years in prison.
Yet, Hunter’s conviction might be the best thing to happen to Biden’s presidential campaign. After all, Trump has predicated his presidential campaign on defending himself against four criminal indictments by claiming that Biden’s Department of Justice (DOJ) is weaponizing justice against him.
This conviction of Biden’s own son belies that “big lie.” It also reinforces the indignant way Attorney General Merrick Garland defended the DOJ at a congressional hearing yesterday. He decried Trump and his enablers for hurling rabidly partisan, dystopian, and dangerous attacks at the American criminal justice system.
The rule of law: Trump vs. Biden
During Trump’s trial, his behavior was nothing short of a demagogic farce. He called presiding Judge Juan Merchan a “highly conflicted” overseer of a “kangaroo court.” And, following his lead, MAGA supporters flooded social media with calls for Merchan to be executed.
Trump even summoned Republican members of Congress to sit in court in a vain attempt to intimidate the judge and jury. This behavior belongs in banana republics, not the world’s premier constitutional republic.
By instructive contrast, Biden remained unfailingly presidential, balancing his roles as the nation’s leader and a concerned father.
‘As I said last week, I am the President, but I am also a Dad,’ Biden remarked. ‘Jill and I love our son, and we are so proud of the man he is today. So many families who have had loved ones battle addiction understand the feeling of pride seeing someone you love come out the other side and be so strong and resilient in recovery.’
(Washington Post, June 11, 2024)
Even Hunter’s behavior throughout his trial was more presidential than Trump’s was throughout his. Arguably, Trump and Biden’s family values were on trial too. Trump’s sons echoed their father’s un-American rants about the justice system, while Biden’s son displayed and eventually echoed his father’s resilient grace:
I am more grateful today for the love and support I experienced this last week … than I am disappointed by the outcome. Recovery is possible by the Grace of God and I am blessed to experience that gift one day at a time.
This is a sad day of reckoning for the Biden family. But it’s a proud day of vindication for the justice system.
Trump’s gaslighting about a two-tier justice system
Trump and his MAGA Republicans propagate the autocratic notion that the criminal justice system is fair only if they win. This notion apes their autocratic spin that elections are fair only if they win.
They bitched religiously about a two-tier system. But these Republicans conveniently ignored that, thanks to Judge Merchan, Trump was shown more deference and fairness than any other criminal defendant in US history. Exhibit A: Merchan found cause to hold Trump in contempt 10 times during his trial, yet never imprisoned him. Legal experts agree that he would have imprisoned any other defendant after the second contempt citation.
Meanwhile, Biden and Democrats honor the rule of law, come what may. Democratic Congressman Jamie Raskin highlighted this juxtaposition in his reaction to today’s verdict:
I’ve not heard a single Democrat anywhere in the country cry fraud, cry fixed, cry rigged, cry kangaroo court. … We believe in the rule of law.
(USA Today, June 11, 2024)
Enough said?
Presidential pardons
Biden insists he will not pardon his son, but let’s not be naive. Biden also insisted he would not continue Trump’s racist and inhumane immigration policies, yet here we are.
Therefore, it’s reasonable to predict that Biden will pardon his son right after the November election, win or lose. Meanwhile, Trump has made no secret of his intent to pardon himself and every other MAGA convict if he wins.
Undecided voters
Reports say a small percentage of still-undecided voters will decide this year’s presidential election. Remarkably, no reporter ever bothers to ask how they could still be undecided. After all, the differences between Trump and Biden are as clear as they are notorious.
Apropos of this, CNN is hosting the first presidential debate later this month. Biden should seize the occasion to call out Trump for undermining the justice system and constantly bad-mouthing America.
Trump paints a grim picture of a country he claims to love. And he couldn’t care less that his anti-American whining is based on nothing but Orwellian lies. Frankly, all that’s left is for him to declare this a “shithole” country too.
Meanwhile, crime is at historic lows, the DOW at historic highs, unemployment — across the racial spectrum — is at its lowest in 50 years, and America is leading the world in combating autocracy in Ukraine and terrorism in Gaza. And we all know if America were performing this well under his presidency, Trump would be boasting that America is great like nobody has ever seen.
On top of all that, there’s the patent folly of Republicans drawing false equivalencies between Trump, a presidential candidate with 34 felony convictions, and Hunter, the son of a presidential candidate with 3 felony convictions.
They would have you believe that Hunter, not his father, is the Biden running for president. Above all, their dystopian intent is to convince voters that the Biden family is just as corrupt as the Trump family, so Trump doesn’t look so corrupt standing next to Biden.
But, again, the way the Trump and Biden families behaved during these trials was like night and day. The differences were on full display. And those differences alone give any truly undecided voter all they need to vote for Biden instead of Trump.