The Threat
How big a threat does Donald Trump consider Joe Biden to be to his Presidency? So large, that he was willing to risk the office, face impeachment and join the short list of three, to muddy Biden’s reputation. When Biden seemed like he was failing, he fell off of the GOP radar. Now that he’s back as one of two candidates for the Democratic nomination, guess what’s back?
Monday, Senator and Trump lackey Ron Johnson threatened to issue a subpoena to a private company to investigate Burisma. Johnson claims the company, named Blue Star, “sought to leverage Hunter Biden’s role as a board member of Burisma to gain access to, and potentially influence matters at, the State Department” (Politico).
Johnson is using his position as Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee to leverage the investigation. Democrats on the Committee are warning the Republicans that they are, “concerned that the United States Senate and this committee could be used to further disinformation efforts by Russian or other actors” (Politico).
This move is despite warnings from fellow Republican Chairman Lindsey Graham (Judiciary) and Richard Burr (Intelligence) about treating such intelligence as Russian disinformation.
The Tactic
The Republicans learned at the “feet” of former Congressman, turned Fox News commentator, Trey Gowdy. Gowdy spent two and a half years, issued a 700-page report and spent $7.8 million to investigate Hillary Clinton and her involvement in the Benghazi disaster and the death of Ambassador Chris Stevens. While ultimately the Committee was unable to blame Clinton for any wrongdoing, there were able to “drag Clinton through the mud” for more than two years before her run for President. As now House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said in September of 2015:
“Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she’s untrustable. But no one would have known any of that had happened, had we not fought” (WAPO).
Donald Trump had the highest unfavorable ratings historically of recent Presidential candidate at the end of the 2016 election cycle, 61%. His only chance of beating Hillary Clinton was to make her nearly as “unfavorable” as he was. Starting with the Benghazi hearings and then the FBI email investigations, Clinton reached a negative rating of 52%, nearly as bad at Trump, and close enough to create the extreme conditions where Trump won the Electoral College despite losing the popular vote by three million votes (Gallup).
Today Donald Trump has a 52% disapproval rating. Currently Biden has a 47% rating, though this rating is based on polling done prior to the South Carolina and Super Tuesday primaries. To replicate the election strategy of 2016, Trump must make Biden as unfavorable as he is.
The Mud
It won’t just be investigations of Hunter Biden and Burisma. It will be attacks on Biden himself, about his age and his well know propensity to commit verbal “gaffes”. And I’m sure there will be some weird sexual allegations about Biden “inappropriately touching”. If Biden gets the nomination, watch for an “October Surprise”.
Truth isn’t the issue. Finding “real dirt” won’t be the problem. We are in the “post-fact age,” so there is no need for veracity. And it will be aided by the powerful social media presence of the Trump campaign, and added to by Russian Intelligence.
So get ready. We are going to hear all sorts of things about Joe Biden, most not true. But, as Alexander Hamilton noted two hundred and twenty four years ago:
“The public mind fatigued at length with resistance to the calumnies which eternally assail it, is apt in the end to sit down with the opinion that a person so often accused cannot be entirely innocent”(Hamilton – The Reynolds Pamphlet).
Baked In
The public perception of Trump is baked in. We already know he’s a misogynist, a racist, a narcissist, and a whole lot of other “ist” words. There is little a President, elected without a majority, impeached by Congress for a crime he admitted doing, could possibly do to make the public see him as any worse.
A segment of our American society has bought the lie: we need a bad man to make our country better. It is the “myth” of the Fox show Twenty-Four: to “protect America” we need Jack Bauer, willing to break any law and violate any moral. Trump himself has made that point explicitly by defending, protecting and pardoning Eddie Gallagher, a disgraced Navy Seal who murdered a teenage prisoner, then took a “trophy” picture with the body to send to his friends.
Joe Biden has been in the service of America since the 1970’s. Unlike many, he did not enrich himself in service in the Senate. He came in the poorest Senator, and he left the Senate thirty some years later still as the poorest. He has been prone to verbal “gaffes” since he first ran for President in 1987, it’s not a sign of “old age,” it’s him. We all know that from the stage-whispered “this is a big f**king deal” in Obama’s ear when the Affordable Care Act was passed.
So Biden will “be in the barrel”. It will be up to America to ignore the lies.
