Joseph Biden was speaking at a press conference a couple of weeks ago when someone on his communications team suddenly turned off the microphone. Interrupted in mid-sentence, the president of the United States left the stage confused.
But, according to the press in Washington, the main concern among Biden's entourage is not his ability to screw up. The main concern is that the leg fails, that it falls in front of the television cameras, as has already happened, or that, as happened this week, it slips when getting off the presidential plane.
Yes, dear readers, yes. This man, whose weight of 80 years is more noticeable every day, is the only thing that separates us from the repetition of the biggest nonsense of the 21st century, Donald Trump being elected president of the United States again. The most recent poll, commissioned by ABC News and The Washington Post, gives Trump a ten-point lead over Biden in terms of his chances of winning next year's general election.
The difference between the two is that, for Biden, each setback weakens him; For Trump, every setback strengthens him. Biden's age is what raises the most doubts among Democratic Party voters about him. Trump's madness is what most dazzles Republican Party voters about him. There are seven more Republican candidates for the presidency, but the poll results are added and all together they do not reach Trump's numbers.
There was a televised debate between these other Republican candidates this week, a total farce. “The problem that those who participated faced was that Republican voters don't care about their policies,” said David Frum, a conservative commentator who once wrote speeches for President George W. Bush. “What they want is a proven track record of violent sedition, sexual assault and financial fraud.”
Frum was the one who invented the famous phrase, used by Bush junior in 2002, “the axis of evil.” At that time, four months after the 9/11 attacks, he was referring to Iran, Iraq and North Korea. Today Russia could be included on the list. If Trump is president again, we can add the United States too. Forget the strong Western unity forged in the Ukraine war. The first thing Trump would do is rebuild relations with his soul mate, the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, as undemocratic as he is or as, in his ideal world, he would like to be.
Under Trump, sanctions against Russia would be reduced and so would the flow of weapons to Ukraine. Without its best ally, Ukraine would face two options: lose the war completely or be forced to hand over a huge part of its territory to Russia. In either case, Putin would declare himself the winner.
The tremendous thing about this is that the best weapon that Putin has in Ukraine is not the weapons he has or the reserves of soldiers he has at his disposal. The best weapon Putin has in Ukraine is Trump. That is, the possibility of Trump returning to the White House.
Trump has said, without giving further explanation, that if he were president he would negotiate a solution to the war in Ukraine within 24 hours. There is another, surely easier way for Trump to prevent the deaths of hundreds of thousands more Ukrainians and Russians. Withdrawing his candidacy for the presidency.
Putin's main bet is that the West will tire of supplying Ukraine with weapons. If the United States gets tired, game over. He will not tire if Biden remains in power. Nor will he get tired if the most presidential person of the other Republican candidates in the race arrives at the White House, the only woman, Nikki Haley, former US ambassador to the UN. But since there is no reason to think that Trump will not run, and there are plenty of reasons to think that he will win, the Russian bet still stands.
Therefore, the answer to the million-dollar question, when will the most savage war on European territory since the Second World War end? is that it will not end until Putin wants it to end and that will not be until at least November of next year. , when the presidential elections will be held in the United States. In other words, every day that the war lasts between now and then, Trump will have almost as much Ukrainian and Russian blood on his hands as Putin himself. If Trump announced today that he was dropping out of the presidential race, Putin would have to set out to end his war.
Of course Trump won't quit. His personal ambition is worth more than a million lives. Furthermore, what is at stake for Trump is something more basic than ambition: his personal freedom. He has more than 90 criminal charges pending in court and the future for him is one of two: the White House or prison. He is accused, among other things, of subverting democracy, endangering secrets of high risk to national security and falsifying his financial data. Without the immunity that would grant him the presidential throne, there is a serious possibility that he could end his days behind bars.
Two questions remain. First, how is it possible that Trump still has a real chance of being re-elected? Because, for him, what doesn't kill makes you fat. The more accusations are leveled against him, the more his followers become convinced that he is the victim of a monstrous conspiracy led by Biden and his Democratic Party, the FBI, the justice system and “the deep state,” all instruments of the left or even , as incredible as it may sound, of international communism. There are millions of Americans convinced that Trump is the best defense against Joseph Biden's Marxism.
On the other hand, the worst defense against the real danger that Trump represents for democracy in his country and in the world is Biden himself. Here comes the second question. Why does the old man insist on running for president again when there is so, so much at stake? The answer: because power is a very addictive drug and because, although he is not crazy, he is, ultimately, as irresponsible as Trump. It's ugly to say it, but as long as they don't change their plan, the best thing for everyone, except for Putin and other tyrants, would be for both of them to die.
