October 26, 2020

The Case For Trump/Biden

As of Sunday evening, Former Vice President Joe Biden leads President Donald Trump by an average of 8% nationally. Biden is leading by 3.8% in battleground states. RealClearPolitics

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From the Left

The left supports Biden.

“In July 2017, Trump hosted a rally in Youngstown, Ohio… Trump promised to rebuild the huge steel-producing factories that once dotted the banks of the Mahoning River, and to bolster the American automobile industry that was a mainstay of the region’s economy for more than 50 years. He told those gathered not to sell their homes and not to move. He said the return of steel-making was imminent, and that he would ensure the expansion of General Motors’ massive car assembly plant in the region…

Here’s what has actually happened: not one new steel mill has been built in the past four years. And, in March 2019, General Motors closed its compact car-making plant in Lordstown, eliminating 4,500 high-paying jobs. The giant automaker shrugged off the president’s threat of economic retaliation… Ohio and Pennsylvania helped elect Trump. But he betrayed us again and again.”
Bertram de Souza, The Guardian

“For nearly four decades, the Editorial Board has stood for certain core values: truth, accountability, civility in public discourse, opposition to racism, common-ground solutions to the nation’s problems, and steadfast support for First Amendment rights. These aren’t partisan issues, or at least they shouldn’t be. Donald Trump has trampled each of these principles, making more than 20,000 false or misleading statements, ducking responsibility for his actions, spewing streams of invective at his critics, trafficking in racial fearmongering, governing more as the leader of the red states than of the United States, and relentlessly attacking the free press…

“Everything about Biden’s nearly half-century political career suggests he would do a far better job of respecting these values… In 2016, we broke tradition in urging you not to vote for Trump. Now we're making our first presidential endorsement… the Editorial Board unanimously supports the election of Joe Biden, who offers a shaken nation a harbor of calm and competence…

“Will this endorsement have any effect on what you read about the presidential campaign in USA TODAY’s news reports? No. Will it cause the Editorial Board to pull its punches if Biden were to become president? Also no. We may never endorse a presidential nominee again. In fact, we hope we'll never have to.”
Editorial Board, USA Today

“As 81 U.S. Nobel Prize winners in chemistry, physics and medicine wrote in an open letter endorsing Biden, ‘At no time in our nation’s history has there been a greater need for our leaders to appreciate the value of science in formulating public policy.’… Dozens of Republican national security officials have endorsed Biden, putting nation above party and declaring that the former vice president ‘will restore the dignity of the presidency, bring Americans together, reassert America’s role as a global leader, and inspire our nation to live up to its ideals.’… We enthusiastically endorse [Biden’s] election.”
Editorial Board, Los Angeles Times

Mr. Biden has a long and distinguished record of accomplishment, including, as a senator, sponsoring the landmark Violence Against Women Act of 1994 and, as vice president, overseeing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, passed in response to the Great Recession. In a 2012 interview on ‘Meet the Press,’ his remarks in support of gay marriage — which blindsided the Obama White House and caused a public kerfuffle — proved a watershed moment for the cause of equality… He has an unusually rich grasp of and experience in foreign policy…

“Certainly, not all of Mr. Biden’s foreign policy decisions through the decades look sage in hindsight, but he has shown foresight in key moments. He fought a rear-guard action in the Obama White House to limit the futile surge in Afghanistan. He was against the 2011 intervention in Libya and skeptical of committing American troops to Syria. He opposed renewing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 2007 and 2008 because it gave the government too much power to spy on Americans…

“[Biden] has the experience, temperament and character to guide the nation through this valley into a brighter, more hopeful future. He has our endorsement for the presidency.”
Editorial Board, New York Times

“On a trip to Moscow in March 2011, I was part of the team that helped Biden get ready for his long meetings with then-Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Biden’s work ethic was something to behold. He doesn’t wing it. Putin is intimidating. I’d met him before with other U.S. officials. In his meeting with Putin, Biden was polite but forceful and principled, seeking agreement on a limited agenda, but never friendship. Moments after leaving Putin’s office, Biden met with Russian human rights leaders, which annoyed some in the Kremlin and some in our own government. And that was just fine with Biden. Biden’s strategy of engagement with autocrats, as well as their critics, is exactly right

“Yet Biden also has higher priorities. We happened to be in Moscow during Ash Wednesday, so Biden’s team arranged for small, private Mass with a local Catholic priest. No press, no photo ops, just private prayer. On the flight back home from our trip, Biden didn’t retire to his private cabin, but joined us staff in the back of the plane… Biden loves being part of the team… I cannot predict what a President Biden will accomplish. What I can say with certainty is that he will advance his agenda with passion, values and dignity, with a team he admires and who admire him.”
Michael McFaul, Washington Post

From the Right

The right supports Trump.

The right supports Trump.

“The primary yardstick of a president is whether he produces peace and prosperity. Trump achieved both until the pandemic sent the economy into recession… From the start, he was a jobs president and his [policies] benefited workers of every race and income level. His ironclad commitment to job creation was illustrated at last week’s debate, where sharp contrasts with Joe Biden centered on the Democrat’s pledge to raise taxes and ‘transition away’ from oil and gas. Trump correctly called both job killers…

“Cutting taxes and regulations, controlling immigration, supporting school choice and nominating qualified, conservative judges and Supreme Court justices are other big things Trump said he would do, and he did. Biden would do the opposite. On foreign policy, he was true to his word to wind down the longest wars and keep America out of new ones while strengthening the military. He is making historic peace between Israel and Arab states while making clear to Iran it must give up its nuclear and terrorist ambitions or be brought to its knees.”
Michael Goodwin, New York Post

“This year, Vice President Pence, Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson all came to events in Des Moines hosted by The FAMiLY Leader. They expressed their Christian faith and their confidence in the American people to solve many of our nation's woes by turning to our neighbors to help them, instead of turning to government mandates to control us… These leaders of high character and conviction are in key positions of impact today because President Trump placed them there…

“I look at the people around former Vice President Biden — Sen. Harris, Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — and I just see a very different vision for America, one laden with taxes, government regulation, restricted freedoms, extremist abortion positions, and radical environmental policies…

Voting for president is more than a vote for the man; it's a vote for people like Carson, Pence and Pompeo. That really does make a difference, and for me, it's more than enough to vote Trump in 2020.”
Bob Vander Plaats, USA Today

Some argue, “Whether we’re talking about religious liberty, school choice, or Title IX, Trump’s policies are much better than those of Joe Biden. On many issues, Trump has far exceeded the expectations I had when he won the 2016 election. I’m still not voting for him… because his character flaws keep him from meeting the threshold conditions to be entrusted with the presidency. All presidents have lapses in judgment, honesty, and self-control; many of them have even been wanting, at least sometimes, in decency and public-spiritedness. Trump is alarmingly deficient in all of these qualities at once…

“[The binary] way of thinking about elections assumes that one or more of the plausibly victorious candidates meets the minimum standard of acceptability for the office they seek. If that condition does not hold — if one of the major-party candidates is unfit for office because of his unusually low character and the other because of his party’s conventional policies — then the case for third-party voting, or writing someone in, or even leaving a ballot line blank, becomes stronger… The truth is that neither of these candidates is worthy of the public’s trust. So don’t vote for either one of them.”
Ramesh Ponnuru, National Review

Others counter that “The choice in 2020 is not simply Trump or Biden. It is: Do you want Mike Pompeo running foreign policy, or, say, Susan Rice? Should we continue building up our military and preparing for China as the great geopolitical challenge of the 21st century, or revert to the Obama-Biden program of hollowing out the armed forces and appeasing Beijing? Should we follow the free-market economic and financial predilections of Larry Kudlow, or the confiscatory authoritarianism of Bernie Sanders?…

“Trump’s candidacy is the difference between having a Justice Department that invokes civil-rights laws to vouchsafe religious freedom, economic liberty, due process on campus, and colorblind college-admissions processes; and having one that contorts civil-rights laws to hamstring police [and] eviscerate due-process protections…

“It is not a matter of liking or despising Trump. It is a choice between Trump and what the Biden-Harris Democrats would do to the country. It is not a choice that any of us can avoid. So, I’m making it: I’m for Trump.”
Andrew C. McCarthy, National Review

Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) writes, “actions speak louder than words. And when we look at what President Trump has actually done — recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, nominating Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, lowering poverty, lowering unemployment, raising wages for working Americans — his record is strong…

“Four years ago, I did not believe President Trump could beat Hillary Clinton. Clearly, I was wrong. Four years ago, I did not believe President Trump would govern as a conservative. Happily, I was mistaken there, too… [This year] considering the alternative, a Democratic Party promising to borrow and spend far, far more, while seeking to enforce ‘woke’ extremism at the expense of religious freedom, President Trump is the easy choice for me.”
Mike Lee, Deseret News

A libertarian's take

“Replacing your toilet is an important choice, and you'd be absolutely furious if your plumber told you that, despite the existence of numerous makes and models, due to the way the toilet selection system works you must pick right now between one that leaks and another that has a broken seat…

The candidates from the major parties are subpar… The fact that many voters in 2020 believe they must nonetheless actively support one of these two deeply flawed characters is a testament to the brokenness of the system that produced them. The fact that those voters feel like they only have two choices in the first place is a criminal failing in a country with such blooming, buzzing diversity in our commercial, social, and cultural lives."
Katherine Mangu-Ward, Reason

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