An irony of the Trump era is that as petty and petulant as the president can be, he’s the one forcing people to grow up.
For too long, we’ve treated the White House as though the person who lives there should function as our collective daddy, someone we have a personal affection for, someone to look to for comfort.
That’s the central theme of Joe Biden’s campaign. “Restoring the soul of America,” as he puts it.
That’s not a new policy or even a response to “Make America Great Again.” It’s a slogan that makes no argument as to whether Biden would, in fact, improve the country and the lives of voters for the better.
Implicit in that slogan is that by having President Trump in office, we, as a country, should be ashamed. We’ve apparently lost our soul, after all.
Why would anyone be ashamed? The economy was white-hot for the first three years of Trump’s presidency. Wages were rising. Republicans have seen their long-running dreams manifest in his Supreme Court appointments. We haven’t allowed ourselves to get bogged down by yet one more war.
But what about the name-calling and mean tweets?!
The Washington Examiner addressed that niggling issue in a beautiful endorsement Monday for the reelection of the president:
I’d add to that that Biden and Democratic governors and mayors are itching for more lockdowns that keep people dependent on them for “relief money.” And there’s also the fact that a Biden-Kamala Harris White House will have no choice but to take policy direction from the Black Lives Matter mob that now runs his party — but threats from Democrats to escalate partisanship wars should be enough to move anyone to Trump’s corner.
But Trump isn’t presidential! The norms! What about his character?!
True, it would be nice if the president was the kind of person who you could trust to tuck your child in at night. But again, that’s not how we should be determining who sets foreign policy, who enforces the law, and who commands the military.
We’re supposed to be choosing the president of the most powerful country in the world, not addressing the psychological needs of people still searching for a father figure.
As weird as it is, Trump is the one to make that clear.
