MOSHE HILL OPINION COLUMNS MARCH 13 2024
President Donald Trump is the most polarizing figure in American history. His personal affect leads a plurality of this country to have strong feelings of love or hate, driving millions to the polls to vote for him or against him. The hatred against him has driven many on the political Left, especially in the media, to the point of near insanity, with accusations so outrageous that they seem comical. The greatest joke, however, is that when looking at the policies that actually affect the lives of Americans and foreign interests, Trump is a moderate candidate – more aligned with the policies of Mitt Romney than those of Ted Cruz.
If you take any issue, between the economy, the border, trade, taxes, foreign policy, and others, Trump sounds like a mix between a Ronald Reagan Republican and a Bill Clinton Democrat. On the other hand, President Joe Biden sounds more and more like Bernie Sanders. Biden’s State of the Union address solidified this, engaging in partisan smears and pushing extremist policies that do not resonate with the American voter.
Biden began his speech comparing himself to Franklin Roosevelt in 1941, when the Nazis were marching through Europe, saying, “Putin of Russia is on the march.” This is, by any metric, insane. Regardless of what you think of Vladmir Putin and Russia’s war on Ukraine and how America should react to it, it is not in the same universe as the Nazi war machine marching through Europe. At the time FDR gave his State of the Union, Germany had already invaded Poland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Luxembourg, Netherlands, France, Yugoslavia, and Greece. Russia has been at a standstill in Ukraine for over two years, and NATO is not collapsing the way the League of Nations did. To believe what Biden is saying here is to be historically ignorant.
Compare Biden’s rhetoric and record regarding Putin to Trumps. The narrative from the media is the Trump is a Putin puppet, that Putin wants Trump in office to take over. This is a lie. This is actually such an obvious lie that it boggles the mind that anyone believes it. First, Putin himself said he would prefer Biden (to which Biden defenders claim that’s just Putin messing with American voters). Second, and most importantly, the only time Putin has not been territorially aggressive in the past 25 years that he’s been in charge of Russia is during the Trump administration. He invaded Georgia under George W. Bush. He annexed Crimea and took over Syria under Barack Obama. He invaded Ukraine under Biden. The only time he’s been contained was when Trump was in office.
Then there’s the lie that Trump wants to destroy NATO. Trump’s actions during his administration, and his rhetoric during this campaign, strengthened NATO. Pressuring NATO countries to live up to the agreement made by spending a certain GDP percentage on defense does not weaken NATO. To believe so would make you either a fool or an MSNBC anchor. On the other hand, it was Biden who said early in his administration that he had no definitive plan if Putin made a “minor incursion” into Ukraine. That, combined with the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, gave Putin all the reasoning he needed to believe that America was a paper tiger.
Biden also insults every thinking American with his claim that “Not since President Lincoln and the Civil War have freedom and democracy been under assault at home as they are today.” Between the Civil War and now, women and blacks were not allowed to vote. That doesn’t register with Biden. He has the audacity to claim that democracy is under assault when more people voted in the last presidential election than ever before. There are more days to vote in more states than have ever occurred in the history of the nation. This outrageous talking point seeks to only do one thing: divide Americans and make them hate one another.
Biden is still beating the relentless drum of January 6, claiming that “insurrectionists” placed “a dagger to the throat of American democracy.” This is ridiculous, and another lie. January 6 was a sad day, a dark day, and a condemnable day. It was also a day. Not even a day. It was a few hours that were terrible, where a few dozen people were violent, a few hundred people were bystanders, and a few thousand people were standing outside. All of these people, and anyone else who voted for Trump in 2020, have been declared enemies of the republic, regardless of levels of involvement. After a few hours, everything was back, and the Republican Vice President certified the vote. Compare that to other violent riots that have occurred in recent history. Did anyone know during the summer of 2020 that their city wasn’t going to be the next to be burned down? Is anyone now secure in the belief that they won’t be accosted by Hamas supporters in the streets? Both of these are not days, but rather months, of ongoing violence that has made the American people numb. Biden ignores all of it because those people are his voters.
If his rhetoric wasn’t bad enough, there are Biden’s policies. Biden attacked the Supreme Court for overturning Roe v. Wade. Biden has the most extremist policy on abortion. He claims that he wants a Congress that would make Roe into the law of the land. This is false. Roe had a third trimester abortion ban. If Republicans today made a bill that banned all abortions after, say, 24 weeks, it would be considered a radical extremist bill that Democrats would vote against and Biden would veto. Twenty-four weeks is six months, well into fetal viability.
The Supreme Court actually took a very moderate view on abortion rights: It left it to the states. There is no federal bill allowing or disallowing abortions, so the Court said that legally, it’s a states issue. An “extremist” court could have found a federal abortion ban in the law (the opposite of what Roe did), but it didn’t. Trump himself said that he would be okay with a 16-week abortion bill at the federal level, and even claimed that Republican states like Florida went too far on their abortion laws. That is hardly the policy of an extremist. On the other side of the aisle, the Democratic position on abortion today is “abortion until point of birth, paid for by the taxpayer.” Which side is more extreme?
Then there’s the border. Trump wants to close the border and deport illegal immigrants, starting with those who commit felonies. Biden is apologizing for using the word “illegal” when referring to the murderer of Laken Riley, after his administration started calling illegals “newcomers.” Biden opened up the borders, allowing nearly 10 million people into the country with no plan. He wants more money to move people to the interior of the country and process them for staying, not securing the border or deporting people who should not be here. Trump’s policies are actually far more moderate than Biden’s. It should also be noted that Biden spent more time on the amount of potato chips in a bag than the fentanyl crisis that kills 100,000 Americans a year.
On the foreign policy front, Trump has led the most successful foreign policy administration since Reagan. Biden cynically quoted Reagan in his State of the Union, but he has not acted tough with any foreign power in the way Reagan did. There is more war under the Biden administration because he’s been such a weak world leader. Russia and Iran have openly invaded foreign countries, and China is threatening to do the same to Taiwan. Under Trump, all of these despots were quiet.
Many supporters of Israel are grateful that Biden is “good enough,” and that he hasn’t completely thrown Israel under the bus (even though he’s gotten very close several times). Now, however, Biden is seeking to build a port for Hamas – with American troops. Best case scenario, the port is built, and Hamas steals all aid for themselves. Worst case scenario, Hamas fires on American troops, and America is either brought into another foreign war or Biden just allows more troops to die under his watch. Trump, meanwhile, has fostered more peace with Israel and her neighbors than anyone – ever.
Biden declares that he “reduced the deficit” and wants to charge billionaires 25%. These claims are outrageous. The national spending has not been reduced to pre-Covid levels. He has spent so much money that inflation crippled Americans, with the average item costing 20% more than it did when he took office (and most staples are far above that). Inflation is still 50% more than what it should be. Interest rates have skyrocketed, making mortgages harder to acquire, and Biden wants to flood more money into the economy, making it worse.
Biden is an extremist, but he’s not an ideologue. To be an ideologue, you need to be awake. Regardless of what drugs they pumped into him so he could deliver a speech, Biden is still the same senile, tired man that he was the day before and will be again. He is not capable of handling the job, and is embracing the worst of all of the extreme left positions. His campaign will focus on Trump the man, who is as flawed as anyone can be. They will ignore that he was already President, and America did not descend into the nightmare scenario they said it would. In fact, the opposite happened: America and the world prospered. Everything else Democrats and the media say is trying to obfuscate that fact.
