"Trust" is a keyword in this 2024 election year, and in a recent political ad, Pres. Biden used it when he stated he can "trust women" in matters of their control of their health and abortions. He is on to something. Trust is a powerful word that rings bells deep in human psyches. Trusting a political leader to do good or to do something that benefits you is a positive message. You can trust someone to help or harm you, to do good or evil. You can trust others to do good or evil, too. You can trust someone to act a certain way when the chips are down or wonder which way the knee jerks at the moment ormeets a political need critical to staying in power. at that time.
There are some dark and troubling sides to the kind of trust Trust demands. Trust as a factor is not confined to one or two issues but to many. It is a theme Biden could use in other issues as well. Whatever works for Trump, he considers it is fair and right in his mind and to many who pledge allegiance to him as loyal followers. There is one area we can trust Trump to be and do. He is open and public about his plans to amass more power for himself and his threats about how he will take revenge against those not supporting him. You can trust him to do this because it is a technique that has enabled him to amass political power even since he has left. the Oval Office.
You can trust him to defy laws and order. Lies and twisted reality, ignoring evidence to the contrary, are fine tools if they serve his purpose, even when there are inconvenient facts. Trust him to always tell you his version of the truth. Claiming he is above the law is necessary to be powerful, unlike any of his predecessors in 250 years. Trust him to succeed because he needs to break laws to be successful.
When it comes to public policy issues, you can trust him to do what benefits him politically, even if he reverses himself at dizzying speed. Keeping up with his ever-shifting positions and about faces on public policy is a challenge. Which is it: Yesterday's position or today's tweet on abortion. Above all, you can trust him to take revenge and retribution if you break his trust. You can trust him to appease and pander if it works for him. Flattery and bootlicking by those loyal to him work, so it should also work in foreign policy in dealing with foreign affairs, especially as it applies to Ukraine and NATO, as he appeases and cozies up to those who want to control America's policies.
Once the defender of the faith against abortions and in an unfamiliar pose of being pious, Trump read his polls, and now he decided to be squishy on abortion. What laws he would sign would depend on what would serve his political interests on that day. Trust him, he asks women. Why should they?
He knew the fear he whipped up about the threat of immigrants and still does. Trust him, too, on the threat of immigration that is so imminent and a crisis. Fentanyl. Crime. Murder. Raposts/ Poisoning our blood. Remember? When Biden embraced many of the GOP planks in the Trump border policy that were humane but that only needed funding to address the "crisis", the crisis appeared to be not so much of a crisis, after all. Trump torpedoed the Senate's bill because 'fear of immigrants" might go away as his best re-election tool. Even those who never met an immigrant believe his very words. Fear them. Stop them. He, only he, can fix it. (He had four years in office and most of the time a willing Congress, but failed then, too.) Trust him anyway,
By contrast, Biden is old and steady at the wheel. tweaking a bit here and there, but there are no surprises. He always returns to long-standing beliefs that reflect his personal beliefs in his years in powerful political positions. If there are problems to address, fund his ability to address them, and above all, those policies must be humane and not cruel. That democracy is better than dictatorships was not even questioned until Trump came along. If democracy did not serve Trump's lust for more power, then a dictatorship would plot with think tanks like 2025 to achieve it by day one. Biden can be trusted to preserve the kind of democracy that we have had for 250 years.
Friends and foes are expected to be law-abiding as well. Biden is a standard law-abiding citizen who has a long track record, and "the Biden crime family," anything more than an attack slogan to offset all of the court findings of business fraud of Trump's own family, has failed because of a lack of any evidence and when witnesses failed to materialize. Tighten up border policies? OK; fund sane administration of laws that still give refuge in America for those fleeing oppression and dictatorships, and be humane and empathetic about it. Cruelty is not a weapon he employs.
What we can trust is Biden's long consistency on many issues. There are no surprises. He is a steady hand at the wheel. Revenge is not a tool he has used; willing to forge coalitions and bipartisan agreements with those who may not have supported him on other issues. He has always favored hard-working blue and middle-class folks if he favored an economic group or demographic. Tax policies should work to their benefit. Trump gave huge benefits to the rich with his tax cuts and pledges to keep them if re-elected. No surprises there. Biden thinks that inclusiveness and minorities deserve a leg up. He has a lifetime of civil rights support. No surprises there, either. Impious Trump is recently invoking God and their ideology, forging alliances with white Christian nationalists supporting favoritism to those practitioners at the exclusion of "others.".. Biden, lifetime practitioner and follower of Catholicism. is no instant conversion. Biden has always believed that foreign policy and national security depend on strong alliances and recognizing those who are our adversaries. Boot-licking and flattereyTrump sees his own ticket to governing and putting America First. He lusts after the power dictators like Putin and Orban have. He seems to see the US becoming their satellite and fellow traveler is the best route for American security. After having been in a position to gain wisdom for 50 years of leadership as a Vice President and head of foreign relations committees in the Senate, Biden is no fool. He has been consistent. No surprises.
https://mufticforumblog.blogspot.com/2024/04/messing-around-political-name-calling.html
A classic line that will live forever came from the mouth of a prospective juror in the hush money trial: "I wouldn't believe him if his tongue was notarized." The phrase has a history, but it became a legend in the trial when a prospective juror applied it to her opinion of Trump. https://www.google.com/search?q=tongue+notarized+quote&rlz=1CAJFMC_enUS1016US1016&oq=tongue+notarized+quote&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIHCAEQIRigATIHCAIQIRigATIHCAMQIRigAdIBCjIyOTI1ajBqMTWoAgiwAgE&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#ip=1&vhid=6HE2sDKVxk0rGM&vssid=l
No comments:
Post a Comment