Anderson Cooper and Joe Biden assert, flatly, that Hunter Biden did nothing wrong in taking $50,000 a month from a Ukrainian energy company. This wasn’t new.
If you turn on CNN or MSNBC in October, the odds are high you saw a chyron reading something like “HUNTER BIDEN HAS NOT BEEN FOUND TO HAVE DONE ANYTHING WRONG.”
This gets repeated on cable news and in center-left mainstream outlets again and again. The point they’re making is understandable: The investigation Rudy Giuliani and William Barr have pushed, and the accusations President Trump has made, are based on conspiracy theories.
Fine, but getting $50,000 a month from a Ukrainian oil company when your only qualification is being the son of the vice president is, in fact, corrupt. Not only is it corrupt, but it’s exactly the sort of corruption that spurred a populist revolt in 2016.
Yet now, Democrats are all in a position where there is heavy pressure to defend Hunter Biden; to play the CNN-chyron game and flatly assert that everything Hunter did was just fine.
Making that argument will win some #resistance points, but it won’t win any populist points. So Democrats are in a position of needing to either (A.) grant that possibly Trump almost has a little point, or (B.) defend corrupt nepotism that enriches the insiders.
