Budapest Post

Cum Deo pro Patria et Libertate
Budapest, Europe and world news

Biden Just Played Right Into Trump’s Hands

Biden Just Played Right Into Trump’s Hands

The White House said Saturday that President Joe Biden’s aides had found more classified information stored at his private residence. It is inopportune timing for the president: His team said on Thursday that only one classified page had been found there. Now, it’s up to six.
For an administration whose FBI searched Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate over improper storage of sensitive government materials, it’s a bad look to be having your own issues with improper storage of sensitive government materials. The government has a system for storing sensitive documents, and “Don’t worry gang, it’s my home office,” isn’t part of it. (Especially not when there were secret documents also found at the Penn Biden Center, a Biden-affiliated think tank.)

There are political issues here, but let’s get the facts as we know them straight first. Biden’s team has found government documents in places where they shouldn’t be, copped to its mistakes, and handed the material back over to authorities. Biden is now facing a special counsel investigation, and he’s planning to cooperate with it. Trump knowingly took documents from the White House to Mar-a-Lago and sat on them. After the FBI found them, he claimed he was the victim of a “Deep State” plot and that he could declassify documents telepathically. And in the aftermath, rather than cooperating, he told his legal team to get “my” documents back, Rolling Stone reported in August.

In summary, though Trump and Biden both have improperly stored documents, Trump’s malfeasance is, so far, orders of magnitude greater. That’s both a fact, and a truly terrible political argument. If “they both had scandals, but some are worse” were an effective argument, Hillary “Emails” Clinton would not have lost to Donald “Self-Described Serial Sexual Assaulter and Prodigious Liar on All Fronts” Trump.

And indeed, Trump’s most effective argument throughout his political career has been whataboutism, where he defends his own behavior by pointing out his critics corresponding flaws, regardless of the difference in scope. Trump’s defense of deeply inhuman border policies was that the Obama-Biden administration had its own, less humane treatment of those seeking help on the southern border. Trump’s charity work is a farce and fraud? Well, have you heard of the Clinton Global Initiative??? Oh, Trump used high office as a perpetual front of self-enrichment? Well, let me tell you about a little guy named Hunter Biden. And on, and on, and on. There is, to widely varying degrees, truth to all of those arguments. (The Obama administration’s treatment of migrants was a moral stain, and one in which Biden is complicit.) But in every case, it’s clear that Trump went well above and well beyond.

In a better world, one with a media landscape that had the credibility to hold politicians of all stripes accountable for their bullshit, and one in which the citizenry was ready to scrutinize both the politicians from their party and from the other one, this sort of argument would flop. But none of that is true in this world, and so Candidate “Me Too” Trump won the White House to become President “But Also You Too” Trump. And as an ex-president, his successful use of that tactic is all of our loss.

Biden’s campaign for president had two major goals: The first was to pass some progressive policy, stopping a country that keeps voting left from getting relentlessly wrenched right by conservative zealots. It’s not going flawlessly, but on that front, the president has made headway.

The second goal, however, was the one he was most vocal and unequivocal about. Biden wanted to undo the damage Trump had done to our institutions and reset norms to the point where people of both political parties would condemn horrible actions — anything, say, from mocking a physically disabled reporter to attempting to overturn a legitimate election to stay in power. And on that goal, Biden is having zero success. That’s not all or even mostly his fault: The GOP is in Trump’s thrall and has no interest in getting out. But it’s a big problem if you’d like to have a functional democracy, or even live in any sort of shared reality.

And that’s why a few lousy pages of improperly stored documents are going to matter. It’s going to be one more opportunity for the GOP to normalize Trump — and the things Trump does that threaten our country.

In fact, they’ve already begun.
AI Disclaimer: An advanced artificial intelligence (AI) system generated the content of this page on its own. This innovative technology conducts extensive research from a variety of reliable sources, performs rigorous fact-checking and verification, cleans up and balances biased or manipulated content, and presents a minimal factual summary that is just enough yet essential for you to function as an informed and educated citizen. Please keep in mind, however, that this system is an evolving technology, and as a result, the article may contain accidental inaccuracies or errors. We urge you to help us improve our site by reporting any inaccuracies you find using the "Contact Us" link at the bottom of this page. Your helpful feedback helps us improve our system and deliver more precise content. When you find an article of interest here, please look for the full and extensive coverage of this topic in traditional news sources, as they are written by professional journalists that we try to support, not replace. We appreciate your understanding and assistance.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Ukraine Declares De Facto War on Hungary and Slovakia with Terror Drone Strikes on Their Gas Lifeline
A monster hit and a billion-dollar toy empire
Animated K-pop Musical ‘KPop Demon Hunters’ Becomes Netflix’s Most-Watched Original Animated Film
Canada: Nurse Suspended and Fined 93 Thousand Dollars After Stating the World’s Most Well-Known Fact Since the Creation of Adam and Eve, That There Are Only Two Genders
Elon Musk tweeted, “Europe is dying”
Far-Right Activist Convicted of Incitement Changes Gender and Demands: "Send Me to a Women’s Prison" | The Storm in Germany
Hungary Criticizes Ukraine: "Violating Our Sovereignty"
Will this be the first country to return to negative interest rates?
U.S. Treasury Secretary Whitney Bessent Backs Stablecoins to Boost Treasury Demand
Spain to Declare Disaster Zones After Massive Wildfires
Three-Minute Battery Swap Touted as Future of EVs
Beijing Military Parade to Showcase Weapons Advances
U.S. Tech Stocks Slide on AI Boom Concerns
White House Confirms Talks Over Intel Stake
Trump Suggests U.S. Could Support Ukraine ‘By Air’
Trump Called Viktor Orbán: "Why Are You Using the Veto"
Horror in the Skies: Plane Engine Exploded, Passengers Sent Farewell Messages
AI in Policing: Draft One Helps Speed Up Reports but Raises Legal and Ethical Concerns
Shame in Norway: Crown Princess’s Son Accused of Four Rapes
Apple Begins Simultaneous iPhone 17 Production in India and China
A Robot to Give Birth: The Chinese Announcement That Shakes the World
Finnish MP Dies by Suicide in Parliament Building
Outrage in the Tennis World After Jannik Sinner’s Withdrawal Storm
Class Action Lawsuit Against Volkswagen: Steering Wheel Switches Cause Accidents
UK Government Tries to Sue 4chan for Breaching Online Safety Act
Dogfights in the Skies: Airbus on Track to Overtake Boeing and Claim Aviation Supremacy
Tim Cook Promises an AI Revolution at Apple: "One of the Most Significant Technologies of Our Generation"
Are AI Data Centres the Infrastructure of the Future or the Next Crisis?
Miles Worth Billions: How Airlines Generate Huge Profits
Cambridge Dictionary Adds 'Skibidi,' 'Delulu,' and 'Tradwife' Amid Surge of Online Slang
Zelenskyy Returns to White House Flanked by European Allies as Trump Pressures Land-Swap Deal with Putin
The CEO Who Replaced 80% of Employees for the AI Revolution: "I Would Do It Again"
"Every Centimeter of Your Body Is a Masterpiece": The Shocking Meta Document Revealed
Character.ai Bets on Future of AI Companionship
China Ramps Up Tax Crackdown on Overseas Investments
Japanese Office Furniture Maker Expands into Bomb Shelter Market
Intel Shares Surge on Possible U.S. Government Investment
Hurricane Erin Threatens U.S. East Coast with Dangerous Surf
EU Blocks Trade Statement Over Digital Rule Dispute
EU Sends Record Aid as Spain Battles Wildfires
Beijing is moving into gold and other assets, diversifying away from the dollar
China Requires Data Centres to Source Majority of AI Chips Locally, For Technological Sovereignty
Escalating Clashes in Serbia as Anti-Government Protests Spread Nationwide
Category 5 Hurricane in the Caribbean: 'Catastrophic Storm' with Winds of 255 km/h
Trump Backs Putin’s Land-for-Peace Proposal Amid Kyiv’s Rejection
Digital Humans Move Beyond Sci-Fi: From Virtual DJs to AI Customer Agents
YouTube will start using AI to guess your age. If it’s wrong, you’ll have to prove it
Jellyfish Swarm Triggers Shutdown at Gravelines Nuclear Power Station in Northern France
OpenAI’s ‘PhD-Level’ ChatGPT 5 Stumbles, Struggles to Even Label a Map
Zelenskyy to Visit Washington after Trump–Putin Summit Yields No Agreement
×