And since I goddamn well come as close as a stone-cold atheist can to praying Biden will be president come January, I better figure out times to say something more than, "Well, hell, I'd rather have the nice dementia patient instead of the cruel one."
So lemme say a nice thing here: Biden did pretty damn well at his press conference Tuesday after a speech where he ripped Trump another new one over Trump's brain-damaged response to the coronavirus. Trump had been repeating endlessly, and it was echoed across the conservative media circle jerk, that Biden was out of it, incapable of answering questions, lost in his thought, weak, confused, and every other synonym for that kind of thing.
Except when it came time for Biden to leave the prepared remarks behind and take questions, he was more cogent than Trump has been in years, and smarter than Trump has ever been in his entire worthless life. For instance, here he is on whether or not Trump has fucked over the United States by refusing to do anything after learning that Russia is paying bounties for American heads in Afghanistan: "One of two things, this president talks about cognitive capability. He doesn’t seem to be cognitively aware of what’s going on. He either reads and/or gets briefed on important issues and he forgets it, or he doesn’t think it’s necessary that he need to know it." In other words, "You think I've lost a step or two? Have you seen fucko in the White House?"
Other than rage tweeting about it being another "hoax," Trump hasn't taken any questions about the Russian bounty story. But in a town hall with Fox "news" toilet Sean Hannity, he offered this not quite as nimble take on Russia: "Look at the Pulitzer Prize. The Pulitzer Prize is very embarrassed. It’s lost a lot of its credibility, because all these writers got Pulitzer Prizes on the Russia, Russia, Russia, and they were all wrong. But John Solomon and all of the people that you deal with. And you, by the way. Laura, Lou Dobbs, Fox and Friends, people that are great. Great group in the morning, including the weekends, to be honest, with Pete. You have some great people. But they got Pulitzer Prizes on Russia, Russia, Russia, and they were wrong." Honestly, that's more understandable, like on a basic language level, than when he tries to talk actual policy about Russia. It's like he's reading Page Six in the New York Post and wondering why the blind item he fed them isn't there.
Asked about Black Lives Matter protesters taking down statues, Biden was again clear and empathetic, saying, "I think the idea of bringing down, I think all those Confederate monuments to Confederate soldiers and generals, et cetera, who strongly supported secession and the maintenance of slavery and going to war to do it, I think those statues belong in museums. They don’t belong in public places."
And here's Trump on the same subject: "Like the character on the horse the other day, he’s up there putting on the ropes. He’s in trouble, on the Andrew Jackson … beautiful, it’s beautiful, right opposite the White House. And you got to remember Andrew Jackson, the Battle of New Orleans and so much. He was a very good president. He was a great general and you can’t let that happen." (To be a little fair here, Biden did say that he was against tearing down statues of Jefferson and Washington. But he didn't mention Jackson, who was a bloodthirsty motherfucker who we should be embarrassed to call one of our presidents.)
When he was questioned about everything becoming political, including wearing masks so you lower your risk of fucking killing someone, Biden dismissed Trump's bullshit and talked about how we've gotta do this for each other, you know, like a nation, not a mass of individual islands screeching about freedom: "We’re also talking about it in terms of the president talks about manhood and being strong and you don’t need the mask. I think we have to start appealing to the better side of human nature by pointing out that that mask is not so much to protect me. It’s if I have it, it’s to protect you against me. It’s to protect other people. And it’s called patriotism. It’s called responsibility. It’s called making sure you look out for the other person."
In an interview with Eric Bolling for Sinclair Media Group (motto: "Trump's balls aren't gonna polish themselves"), the president offered grudging support for mask-wearing at last, but he put it this way: "Well, I've already had masks and I want a mask. And if I'm near people, you know, you were tested, right? Just now. And everybody that's around me as president gets tested, that's like standard. Uh, and I'm also -- I keep distances. I'm, you know, supposed to keep a distance and I keep distances. But if I needed a mask, if I was in a crowd of, you know, crowd, a lot of people and everything else, I'd wear -- I have no problem with a mask at all...I have no objection to masks whatsoever. Do what you're supposed to do and also do what makes you feel good." Not a single goddamn word about being kind to each other. It was purely about how he feels, purely selfish, with not even a nod to the larger good because he doesn't fucking see how that matters.
Joe Biden is 77 years old. Donald Trump is 74 years old. It's not ageism to say that they have slowed down a bit, that they have moments when they're not as quick on their feet. It's not ableism. It's medical science. But Trump has made it a centerpiece of his reelection campaign that Biden is somehow suffering such grave cognitive decline that he can't function. It's absurd for Donald "Can't Complete a Sentence" Trump to make that allegation. That's projection to such an extreme extent that he may as well be accusing Biden of combing his hair like it's old cotton candy, fucking a porn star, and putting on orange makeup. Motherfucker, that's you.
Honestly, occasional lapses aside, the biggest difference is that Biden sounds like a regular old politician, and that just sounds fuckin' weird now, man. It's like we've dated someone who kept shoveling cocaine into our noises and screaming at us to tell him we love him for four godforsaken years and all of a sudden we meet a guy who says, "Just have some tea and lemme tell you how it can all be better." Jesus, you think, I wanna get off this fuckin' bender and here's my chance.
(Note: Full disclosure- I have praised Biden in the past, too, like when he debated Paul Ryan and Sarah Palin. Context is everything.)
