Defense to the Inevitable Republican Claims
The next few weeks are going to be full of debate about our elections. Who we elect will decide the fate of our nation and how our next generation will be not just perceived, but define their role in future of this planet. It will get contentious, so I have prepared a few of the talking points we are sure to hear and some facts to have at your disposal to refute these claims.
Here is what the Republicans are going to incorrectly claim in order to plant doubt in the minds of voters.
Joe Biden never did anything in his 5 decades in Washington.
He is too old now, he is losing his mind.
His son, Hunter, took money to allow the Chinese and Ukranians to buy his father’s influence.
Biden forced the prosecutor in Ukraine out to help the company that hired Hunter.
Biden wants to defund the police.
None of this is true of course. Not the way they will spin it at least. Like in every effective lie, there is an underlying layer of truth that allows you to believe the inevitable disparagement of the truth.
Let us unpack these statements one by one.
“Joe Biden never did anything in his 5 decades in Washington.”
Joe Biden was a senator from Delaware since he was 30 years old until his being asked to be Vice-President by Barack Obama in 2008. From 1973 to 2009 Joe Biden served as the Senator of Delaware for 36 years. Joe was an active member and leader of many committees over the years, including from 1987–1995 he was Chairman of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, from 2001–2003 and again from 2007–2009 he was Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He also managed to introduce the VAWA, Violence Against Women Act in 1990 which was signed into law by President Clinton in 1994.
Biden/Hatch Crime Bill of 1994 which later became Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act when signed into law was more commonly referred to the “Tough on Crime” Law. This law is somewhat controversial as it was intended to curb rising violent crime rates, but contributed to the mass incarceration we subsequently saw since it was signed into law. You can read more about it in this article by VOX.
He worked for 8 years as the Vice President under President Obama, which he was integral in extending the Bush tax cuts to a reluctant and democratic congress. His ability to cross the aisle and garner Republican support was admired as was his relationship with Senator John McCain.
“He is too old now, he is losing his mind.”
He will indeed be the oldest president ever sworn into office if he were to win in November. Of course, Donald Trump will be the oldest as well if he were to win, and both of them would be breaking the record held by Donald Trump when he was elected in 2016 at the age of 70.
But age is different from mental faculties. And electing a leader of this age should absolutely be taken seriously. Having senior moments is common for people for this age, but cognitive decline of any sort as the leader of the free world is something we must take seriously. Joe Biden has always been prone to mispeaking. He was also a stutterer as a child, something he learned to overcome. So understanding where cognitive decline starts and Joe simply being Joe ends is difficult to say.
With his speech at the DNC on Thursday night, he quieted the critics that wanted to lean into the cognitive decline angle. Of course, you hear the hardcore Trumpers dialing up the fact he hasn’t answered a question since July, but the debates will be here soon enough. The way the Republicans are setting this up, establishes a very low bar, making it quite easy for Biden to exceed their pedantic expectations, which feels a bit naive of a strategy.
“His son, Hunter, took money to allow the Chinese and Ukranians to buy his father’s influence.”
Hunter has not been proven to do anything illegal here. Joe Biden, if anything, is guilty of being overly aggressive against Burisma, the company that hired Hunter as a non-exec director of the company. Joe Biden’s threat to withhold funds unless Ukraine’s top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, was removed from office was not an attempt to protect Burisma, quite the contrary. Biden, along with the rest of western governments, recognized Shokin was not only corrupt, but protecting Burisma from prosecution. You can read all about it as The Independent wrote a thorough piece of just what a con the Trump administration, led by Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, had concocted to deflect his guilt during the impeachment hearings.
Hunter also had involvement with a fund that received money from Bank of China, but once again, this is pretty standard procedure in the world of investment and finance. There have been investigations clearing Joe Biden of any wrongdoing, so not much to see here. The irony of Trump’s team making accusations of financial wrongdoing are quite remarkable since there is plenty of speculation on Trump’s dealings with Russia and his refusal to make his tax returns public.
“Biden wants to defund the police.”
Biden has supported Black Lives Matter, but he has stopped short of supporting all their proposals, including the calls to defund or abolish the police. In fact, he wrote an op-ed on the matter in the USA Today. As it was stated prior, Biden has always been tough on crime, almost to a fault. In fact, with the Black Lives Matter movement and the desire to defund the police, both Biden and Harris have careers starkly in opposition to these positions. Trump’s claims that they are going to be soft on crime and the rising crime rates we are seeing are a sign of things to come in Biden’s America are laughable being that this is actually Trump’s America he is using as his proof point.
