Public Domain via the White House
Joe Biden
Joe Biden
As a journalist, here’s what bothers me about the news media continuing to produce story after story, headline after headline, about the fact that President Biden will be the oldest president in history if he’s reelected next year.
The same is true of Donald Trump. Trump, the prohibitive favorite to be Biden’s Republican opponent, is only three years younger. Trump would also be the oldest president in history.
Since there’s so little difference in age between the two candidates, why do the stories always focus on Biden? Trump is not only old, he’s also a raving maniac. His randomly capitalized and punctuated threats with multiple exclamation points vowing to exterminate all his enemies read like ransom notes from a deranged terrorist.
Some analysts describe the continuing stories about Biden’s age as the media equivalent of the shocking Hillary Clinton email scandal. It’s a lame attempt to say something negative – anything – about a Democrat to balance all the negative stories Trump produces on a daily basis.
Lies, Corruption
Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign produced a non-stop series of stories about Trump’s constant stream of provable lies, openly racist appeals to white supremacists, corrupt business practices and his long history of sexually abusing women topped off with obscene boasts he could get away with grabbing the genitals of women any time he wanted.
Despite decades of rightwing attacks on the news media for liberal bias—or because of them—many news organizations were desperate to find something negative to say about Clinton to prove they were non-partisan. Sadly, they couldn’t find any vile acts by Clinton that even came close, so they went with the worst they had.
Unbelievably, it was what server Hillary used to send her emails. But that was all Trump needed. Somehow an accomplished political demagogue like Trump can transform any boring nonstory into the Crime of the Century. Trump was suddenly leading chants by his crazed supporters all over the country to lock up Clinton for felonious emailing.
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Vicious Disinformation
But the most disturbing part about the current flood of media stories by professional news organizations about Biden’s age is the subtext suggesting he might not be up to the job. That’s clearly driven by the vicious age-related lies about Biden from Trump, Fox News and the entire rightwing disinformation network.
That fraudulent rightwing narrative began before Biden took office, but it cranked up to 11 when he began repairing Trump’s destruction of America. It was a cruel cartoon caricature of Biden as a brain-dead, doddering old fool who doesn’t realize he lives in the White House or understand what the words in his speeches mean.
Never mind that Biden refutes Trump’s words every time he speaks publicly to respond to the continuing attacks on America from Trump and his MAGA extremists and the challenges to war and peace around the world right now that require strong, competent presidential leadership.
Meaning of Democracy
It’s the Republican party that no longer appears to understand the meaning of democracy or free and fair elections. Nominating their defeated Republican president again isn’t going to prevent U.S. courts in the coming year under our Constitution from holding Trump accountable for attempting to overthrow Biden’s election by the American people.
The only similarity between Biden, who supports democracy, and Trump, who doesn’t, is they both have remarkable genes. It’s true many men their age wouldn’t consider running for the job of president. It’s also true only one of them, Biden, is fit to be president, but that has nothing to do with age. Trump was never fit to be president and the nation is still paying the price.
Here’s the only thing that matters about Biden’s age. It’s not whether he walks stiffly approaching the podium and when he walks away. Neither is it his lifelong stutter that occasionally causes him to misplace a word.
It’s that Biden has had a remarkably productive first term as president recovering in record time millions of jobs lost through Trump’s mishandling of the pandemic and continuing robust job growth, raising wages and reducing inflation while preventing a recession. Any president with such a successful first term would deserve a second.
Even more important is everything Biden is fighting for over the vehement opposition of Trump and Republicans—voting rights, reproductive rights for women to control their own lives, outlawing the sale of military assault weapons used in mass murders and protecting the planet from catastrophic climate change.
Biden will continue to be what he’s always promised, a bridge to younger generations of progressive Democrats who will continue the fight to prevent Trump and Republican extremists from destroying American democracy.
In 2024, eight years after Trump’s election, America will still be dealing with the crimes and corruption from his presidency legally and politically. Prosecutors and courts are dealing with the legal part. It’s our job as voters to rid his corruption from our politics.
