Today, elites smell them. That is what disgraced FBI man Peter Strzok actually said after a trip to Walmart, and echoed by his fellow Deep Staters regarding Trump supporters smell. But theirs is the nose of an elitist politically correct aficionado, not a hunting dog. It failed to sniff out the MAGA social movement that elected Donald Trump in 2016, and today it is missing the rage sweeping about half the country. The fury comes from folks who don’t subscribe to the New York Times, let alone the New Yorker, and who don’t venture daily to their yoga studios while carrying NPR tote bags, either. These “deplorables” watch pro football, know when deer season begins, and think they are badly governed by an unelected caste whose education, expertise, and ideology have not improved the lives of ordinary Americans. They are convinced that corporate suits who are currently lecturing them about race relations have outsourced their jobs and used the profits to buy political influence, as well as multi-million dollar mansions in the Hamptons and Martha’s Vineyard. (next to the Obamas) They know in their gut that this elite class has only contempt for them.
They knew it when they looked at Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren, Michael Bloomberg, and Beto O’Rourke (but not Bernie Sanders). They like Joe Biden a bit better, but probably not enough to lift him over the finish line. Joe himself recognizes this appeal and trades on it, emphasizing his working-class roots in Scranton, PA. When voters think of the tragedies he has suffered, they do more than sympathize. They recognize that pain like his is the great leveler of the human condition. It makes him one with all of us who suffer and still try to live on. But that was before THIS run for President by Sleepy Joe. He’s different now. When he gives campaign speeches, he doesn’t speak: he yells. He doesn’t talk “to” potential voters, he screams “at” potential voters. He’s not the same suave Delaware Democrat who spoke fluently and almost eloquently while sniffing young girls’ hair.
Their doubts about Biden are rising as they learn more about these corruption scandals surrounding Joe’s son Hunter and brother, Jim. On both right and left, the conventional wisdom among political strategists in both parties is that voters care much more about the economy and COVID-19. That’s correct. They do, and the polls show it. But that doesn’t mean the scandals are irrelevant. They matter politically for several reasons, all of them bad for Joe Biden. Remember that Google search: “How can I change my vote?” The other voter concerns come from the following:
- Biden is just another grifting politician who got rich in office;
- Uncle Joe’s persona as an average, lower-middle-class guy is just a cover story;
- His self-enrichment makes him the “Washington Swamp” incarnate, no different from all the other politicians turned lobbyists; and
- The media is so crooked it won’t honestly tell the public about these problems, so they do not vote the “wrong way.”
These issues are not a distraction from Trump’s central campaign themes. They are his campaign themes and have been since he came down that Trump Tower escalator in 2015 to announce his improbable candidacy. Remember his promises to “Drain the Swamp.”
The connection between these issues and Trump’s closing argument is clearest when Biden’s deals involve Chinese communists. Resistance to China, economically and militarily, is one of Trump’s main policy issues and one of the election’s sharpest divisions. Biden’s family wheeling-and-dealing reveals the Democratic candidate is deeply immersed with Beijing, exemplifying both the Swamp and the globalism Trump is running against.
Mainstream media outlets have buried the corruption story despite growing evidence of Biden family deals in China, Ukraine, Iraq, Kazakhstan, and elsewhere. They let Joe get away with vague, blanket statements that “it is all a smear, Russian disinformation, and Trumpian diversion.” They should be asking if Biden specifically denies the Delaware laptop’s authenticity or Tony Bobulinski’s confirmation of the evidence found on it. No member of the Biden family nor the Biden Campaign nor even the candidate himself have yet to deny the authenticity! The press should investigate the serious charges, not attack the few reporters’ motives willing to report it. They should be attacking the social media platforms that suppress the story, not suppressing it themselves.
When mainstream media outlets do mention Biden family corruption, they emphasize that documents made public so far don’t show much direct involvement by Joe Biden himself, only that of his son and brother. (Bobulinski says he met with Joe Biden twice about the China deals, but that’s only one man’s word. Interestingly, Biden hasn’t specifically denied what he said. There is some evidence of Joe Biden meeting with Hunter’s foreign business partners and Hunter being paid to arrange such meetings. There is plenty of evidence U.S. officials were concerned about Hunter Biden’s involvement with a shady Ukrainian energy company, Burisma, when his father was the vice president in charge of America’s policy toward that country. And the FBI has been investigating Hunter for alleged money laundering.)
While the media parses the evidence and buries the story, voters are not quick to dismiss it. Those who have paid attention think, correctly, that no political leader could be as ignorant of the pay-to-play schemes swirling around him as Joe Biden claims he was. They don’t believe Biden’s claim that he never discussed any business with his son. They are wiser than the conventional wisdom.
Sen. Ted Cruz may be right when he says the Biden business shenanigans won’t move many votes. But he may be wrong. They undermine Joe Biden’s central argument that he is the candidate of “character.” They reinforce Trump’s claim that the Swamp must be drained, that career politicians will never do it, and that Biden embodies Washington’s career politicians and personal enrichment. They reinforce Trump’s claim that America’s main strategic rival, China, is trying to buy influence in Washington, that he is willing to confront it, and that Biden is too compromised and corrupt to confront Beijing, too committed to globalism, not Trump’s “America First” nationalism.
These issues are not afterthoughts to voters’ concerns. They are among the most consequential issues in American politics. Trump is absolutely right to raise them. The media, which openly seeks Trump’s defeat, knows what is at stake when they spike those stories. The men and women of the Fourth Estate are helping their guy.
Summary
Besides the hope for those who pray for a second four-years of the Trump Administration, there is hope that all that has been brought to light about Washington corruption during the last four years will affect change. The problem is that Washington D.C. did not get this corrupt in four, eight, or even more years; it took decades. And even if the entirety of the corruption that has been uncovered so far (and the other that certainly will be exposed moving forward) is eradicated using whatever measures are necessary, who can say it will not sneak back into the fabric of American politics? I don’t think it came into our political the first time on a float in a victory parade. It sneaked in and found willing hosts. And its evil spread surreptitiously throughout D.C. and feeds on the power and control of its minions to sustain it.
What will happen? We certainly will not know today, tomorrow, next month, or even next year. But most Americans are uneasy facing this election’s results. Why? Few are comfortable that America is yet heading down the right road. And at least half of the nation will face certain fear and anguish if the candidate representing the Washington D.C. that most Americans want to see gone becomes President. those people would sleep much better knowing that Donald Trump gets to move the nation to Chapter Two of “Trump World.”