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Tuesday, December 10, 2024

Democrats' Deal with the Devil

From the Invasion of Iraq to 2020, Democrats unquestionably held the moral high ground in politics. Bush led the war in Iraq where tens of thousands of people were killed without as much to show for it as he promised. Obama ran on hope, change, and unity. Democrats were the party of healthcare, education, science, diversity, and good government. Republicans were the party of rich people, tax cuts, laissez-faire economics, and an aggressive foreign policy.

When Trump was elected, this perceived moral gap between the parties grew even larger. Trump (and Republicans) were racist, misogynist, xenophobic, corrupt, anti-science, and every other bad thing you can think of.

Conversely, Joe Biden was a saint.

For four years, many, including myself, have been arguing that Joe Biden was not a good person, he was just better than Trump. If not for Trump, though, Biden would have been the worst person in terms of character to be President since Lyndon Johnson. I maintained a list of things Biden did while President that showed a deficiency of character. Things that he did as a bad person, and things that he did that made him a bad leader.

Now, four years later, a few of those things have allowed many Democrats to realize this, too. Particularly the last year where he stubbornly remained in the race for President even though he was headed for failure, undermined his VP's candidacy, and pardoned his son.

The result of this chain of behavior, and its national prominence and undeniability, is the Democrats have surrendered the moral high ground (and here).

Democrats made a bargain with the devil. They nominated a morally deficient politician because he was their best chance at getting rid of someone worse, then they boosted his ego by lying about his moral stature, and it came back to bite them.

Not only did Biden lose, and the guy they deemed worse is back in office, but Biden has now destroyed precedent after precedent and sledgehammered some walls that held back presidential power just in time for Trump to turn those new abilities toward his own goals. The Democrats' ability to criticize and appeal to the public are greatly diminished because Biden conspicuously laid the groundwork and the media discredited itself by lying on his behalf and then getting caught holding the bag.