Quick — chose a word to describe Donald Trump’s White House. I bet the word “chaos” — or the abstraction described by “chaos” flashed through your mind. That chaos wasn’t Trump brilliantly playing some version of game theory above all our heads. It was a criminal and a traitor who never really wanted to be POTUS running America the same way he ran his own business. And Trump’s business, let’s be real, was not some world-beating real estate company, it was a mon ‘n pop money laundering shop . That’s what Glenn Simpson realized back in 2016 when his company Fusion GPS was hired to do oppo research on Trump for the benefit of the Marco Rubio-backing owners of the conservative Washington Free Beacon. Evidence of more money laundering keeps popping up. Take the Trump project in Azerbaijan which, in addition to evidencing money laundering connections, also evidences connections to Iran’s hardline Revolutionary Guard — a sworn enemy of America.
Or take the entire Donald Trump-Vladimir Putin relationship as a whole. A case can already be made — and its make-ability will only get stronger with time — that everything about it is treasonous.
Trump ran the Peoples’ House like a cheap whorehouse with deep criminal ties. By contrast, Joe Biden, doesn’t. He’s like the democratic-spiritual Gallant to Trump’s complete & total Goofus. From the instant Team Biden took the reins of power from the Trump Clique, America began to “function” again rather than lurch haplessly from crisis to crisis. If you perceive government as public service then when the people grant you political power because you won an election, you’re apt to use that power to serve the public rather than use the power to abuse the public. But, if you’re like the GOP, you perceive “public service” as a way to get the American public to serve you. And, if you’re Donald Trump, you see the White House as the ultimate cash machine.
The simple fact is Joe Biden does not and would never run his White House the way Trump ran his. Honorable public servants behave like honorable public servants while criminals behave like criminals. Our news media however sees little difference between them. They instantly adapted to Trump and his lying by assuming Trump was lying. They didn’t really challenge Trump on his lies, they just agreed amongst themselves that Trump was probably lying no matter what he said. And that was fine with them. That’s how “Mexicans are rapists” and “pussy grabbing” got normalized. Our news media decided that Trump was a “different” kind of politician who shot from the lip and drove their ratings ever higher. In a way, our news media are like all those conservatives who turned up their noses at Trump’s racist, anti-democratic behavior but tolerated him because Trump was putting money in their pockets.
As these humps will soon learn, if you stand with a racist, corrupt traitor, you will be painted with the same brush they’re painted with. Stand with a liar, that makes YOU a liar. Same goes for any stripe of criminal especially traitors.
It seems our news media now expect Republican administrations to be corrupt just like they expect Democratic admins to be competent and professional. That makes it odd and painful that the news media continually try to hoist Democrats on their own petard when that petard is the commonweal. Trump set the catastrophe in Kabul in motion before he left office — like a car bomber parking his vehicle in the shadows and walking away. He surrendered Afghanistan to the Taliban behind the government of Afghanistan’s back. He opened the prisons and released the very people now trying to run Afghanistan for the Taliban. In short, Trump did whatever Putin told him to do vis a vis Afghanistan. You’ll notice, please, how much benefit Russia (and China and Iran) are gaining from what Trump did. It’s not a coincidence.
One of the benefits of having Democrats in power — especially in the White House — is that Democrats, unlike Republicans, like governing. They bring genuine expertise to their work and genuinely aspire to make both America and the world a better place. Faced with challenges, Democrats go deep into problem-solving mode. Republicans, by contrast, go deep into finger-pointing mode. Unequipped to solve anyone’s problems, the party of personal responsibility makes it a point to never take responsibility for anything. Or to ever plan for anything since planning might take money meant for some Republican’s pocket and spend it on, you know, a disaster as it’s happening.
The White House Press Corps is determined to blame Joe Biden for the fall of Afghanistan. Their hearts may be in the right place, but their heads are shoved so far up their own asses that it doesn’t matter. They won’t be seeing daylight any time soon. Personally, I think the news media preferred having Trump as president to having Biden there. With Trump in office, there was NEVER a “slow news day” because chaos could erupt from anywhere at any time. These days — with Biden in the White House — there are days when, it sure feels like “nothing is happening”. Of course things are happening — just not with the narcotizing relentlessness of the Trump years.
It’s not in Joe Biden’s nature to act like Donald Trump — or like any Republican. But, if he could pull it off, he could tell the press they’re public enemies for caring about Afghanis. Biden could lie to the entire press corps’ face then insist either he never said it or was just “joking” when he did. Quick side note — people like Trump who have literally NO sense of humor? They can’t laugh at themselves — that’s how you know they have zero sense of humor. If you can’t laugh at yourself, you literally can’t see humor. You literally can’t see irony. You can laugh — at others — the way bullies do, but you can never laugh WITH anyone because, frankly, having no sense of humor, you can’t really grasp what everyone else is even laughing about.
Biden — any Democrat really — would seem far more successful if they simply refused to answer the Republicans’ questions. They aren’t being asked sincerely anyway. They’d seem even more successful if they approached politics with the same Machiavellian intent as the Republicans do. Trump’s White House failed because they’re all failures who suck at everything except being criminals. Biden’s White House has been tasked with, first, cleaning up the mess the Republicans made of America’s government and the world.
If Biden ran his White House with the same chaotic fervor Team Trump did, he’d probably get away with it — because he’d be ignoring the news media’s bitching and moaning about it.