The lie, blame it, or why Biden lost the debate with Trump

The global election year, about the peddled dangers that we debated with unconcealed concern in one of the first articles of 2024, has now passed the halfway point. Calendar-wise, the year has halved, while concerns, on the contrary, have increased exponentially or, at least, doubled. This is because Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine has caused the elections in certain large, small or conglomerate countries of states, more or less locally relevant in peacetime, to gain unprecedented interconnectivity in the third year of war, as never before, and to function as communicating vessels at a global level. Local elections in different states and regions have therefore become part of a global confrontation, and the battle for their results is not yet in favor of the democratic world in its life-and-death dispute, which has become much more invasive on the margins of the war in Ukraine, with the world of tyrannies and dictatorships, resurrected in our century by Putin’s authoritarian regime.
This is because in the states of the democratic world elections are elections as such, they are based on rigorously supervised rules, while those in the world of despotic regimes have been transformed into grotesque surrogates, in the manufacture of which regimes use the most vile means to extract from them the planned results. Then, the democratic world does not get involved in distorting elections in other sovereign states, while its opponents practice almost openly intrusion, the most widespread means being corruption and disinformation, incitement to betrayal and lies. As a consequence of this „irregularity”, the world of dictatorships is much more efficient and effective on the electoral confrontation front with the democratic world. About the results of the so-called presidential elections in Russia on March 17, 2024, the whole world knew exactly one hundred percent from the first day of their appointment, while about the results of the elections of the same level in the United States, set for November 5, 2024, no one has any imagination, although the contenders are known, And the confrontation between them and their parties is increasingly fierce.
After putting his people in the shackles of a generalized prison regime and killing his political opponents one by one, Putin considers himself far above Biden, who is required by American law to run for a new term in the White House under the same conditions as his competitor. He is under criminal investigation on dozens of counts, having on August 25, 2023, for 20 minutes, the „quality” of detainee with no. P01135809 of the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta (USA), where he was summoned and presented himself as a defendant. However, US law allows the candidate, named Donald Trump, to continue his campaign for the leadership of the United States, while still benefiting from the support of his party, a considerable number of declared voters, sponsors and important and influential media outlets.
It is unimaginable that Biden would hire some Mexican mobsters to liquidate him with four bullets fired at his rival’s back just below the White House fence, while he was walking on the Pennsylvania avenu, as Putin did with his rival Boris Nemtsov, on February 27, 2015, killing him under the walls of the Kremlin with the hands of assassins of Chechen Kadarov. Or to have arrested Trump for a concrete act – the anti-constitutional war of January 6, 2020 -, then to order a trial, to order his sentence to heavy years of detention, to be sent to a colony with a special regime somewhere, in Alaska, and there, „taken to the air” in the terrible heat of the polar morning to be „walked” until his blood froze in his veins and his heart stopped beating, as Putin did, right around this year’s presidential elections, with his opponent Alexei Navalny.
The options applied by the Kremlin leader – treating the competitor with „Novichok” or unwinding his opponent’s personal plane in flight – should also be considered, but as Russia is not the United States, Biden cannot be like Putin either. This does not necessarily mean that the American model of candidate protection is exactly perfect. Or, when people with serious and real criminal record problems, even if he is an ex-president, can sneak into the chair of the head of state for the second time, taking advantage of excessively protective procedural interpretations, they can be detrimental to both the system and the state. Once in power, Trump will have no greater interest than to get rid of this criminal record in one way or another, while also trying to take revenge on his political rivals, but also on the exponents of the judiciary who, rightfully, filed his cases. „Promises” of this kind have already resounded in several public speeches of the candidate. How will he do it? It is not at all excluded that he will resort to the „Putin model” of affirming in Washington the total and infallible statesman. It is the model most visible and the most coveted by Trump. On January 6, 2020, the day when Trump, because he did not want to recognize the results of the presidential election, incited the crowd to storm the Capitol, the building of the United States of America’s Congress, he was just trying to cancel through war one of the fundamental principles of American democracy – alternation of power. In addition, a few days earlier, he had ordered several governors to provide him with the votes in those states that he lacked at all costs in order to emerge victorious again. The cases have of course become the subject of investigation in the courts, but until their verdict that could come long after the defendant enters the new mandate, how else can the act be interpreted than a first attempt by Trump to inoculate the „Putin model” in the American political plantation?
The attempt of a few years ago could take root in the land administered by Trump, if he returns to it after the elections in the fall, because the former president and the current pretender has very well mastered one of the main Putinist procedures for cultivating such a kind of regime. There are already symptoms that the flaw could catch on even in societies as meticulously protected as the American one. The process is based on the persevering and total practice of lying. As the most recent example, the televised debate between Biden and Trump yesterday, June 27, can serve us, so much discussed all over the world. The dispute was labeled a fiasco, a collapse of Biden, which sparked waves of calls, including from co-partisan Democrats. The current president has been asked to withdraw from the race due to his advanced age. Biden was turned on all sides and judged in every way for not looking fresh, he stuttered in his words and was incoherent in exposing certain phrases, thoughts. Although everyone admitted that a more economically prosperous, politically dignified and institutionally correct presidency than the current one America has long since had, Biden has not yet come out of the pressure of superficial invectives entirely related to the lack of physical ability and theatrical-concert expression in televised debates, turned into a show. On the other hand, the fact that Trump rattled all the time reserved for him and in this sound interval gave voice to a string of more than 30 serious lies bothered the American public less, but also the one in other areas of the world. This probably offended Joe Biden the most, because the very day after the debate he came before the audience with a sincere acknowledgment, but also with a necessary clarification: „I will say one thing obvious: I know that I am no longer young. I know that I don’t go as smoothly as before, I don’t speak as coherently as before, I don’t lead debates as well as before, but I know what I know. I know how to tell the truth.”
It is natural, we say, that Biden was shocked by the dexterity with which Trump tells lies, just as we saw him shocked and disgusted by the lies heard in recent years from Putin, the Russian leader who tells lies from the professional obligation of the Kaghebist turned state dignitary, to the misfortune of humanity. At the same time, it is unnatural that at his age, Biden would claim a new term as President of the United States. But we know that he is taking this step with self-sacrifice, because confronting Trump and blocking his path to the White House is equal to saving American democracy and, certainly, saving us, the states in the area affected by Putin’s war of invasion. Which makes senior Biden not only wise but also courageous. Let’s keep our fingers crossed and wish him success.
Valeriu Sharneanu