Will You Vote for a Convicted Felon or Lying Fraud?

The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday concerns the 2024 presidential election contest between incumbent President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. Ben Shapiro called the two men described the two contestants in the title of a recent article “Of ‘Convicted Felons’ and ‘Lying Frauds.’” I will allow you to decide which is which. 

Shapiro reminded his readers that Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts by a jury in New York City due to the coordination between Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and Judge Juan Merchan. The conviction has to do with falsification of business records or maybe election fraud or possibly tax issue or something that no one knows for sure! In fact, Merchan instructed the jury that they did not have to agree on the crime in order for them to declare Trump guilty.

Shapiro declared that none of the details matter. Despite Trump’s conviction and possible jail time, he remains “either tied or within two points either way” with Biden. Most people question how a convicted felon can “be running even with the incumbent president?” Shapiro wrote that the answer is twofold and explained the two reasons as follows.

… First, Biden is a truly awful president; second, Biden has no ground to stand on in labeling Trump a threat to law and order.

First, Biden’s terrible record. Americans have been slammed by inflation for three years. Our social fabric has continued to decay as Biden openly seeks “equity” – meaning discriminatory legal regimens designed at rectifying group disparities – in every area of the federal government. On the foreign front, Biden has hamstrung Ukraine in its defense against Russia, and openly manipulated on behalf of Iran and Hamas in Israel’s war against the terror group that performed Oct. 7. It is difficult to see an area of the world that is markedly better off since Biden took the White House.

Second, Biden’s hypocrisy. In the aftermath of the Trump conviction, Trump naturally condemned the justice system that targeted him. Biden then responded by doubling down on his narrative that Trump’s pushback represents a threat to our democracy and our institutions: Last week, Biden staggered out to the podium to claim that “the American principle that no one is above the law was reaffirmed.” He added that it was “dangerous” and “irresponsible for anyone to say this was rigged just because they don’t like the verdict.”

The problem is this: Biden as defender of our democracy and our institutions just doesn’t play. This is the same president who tried to use his Occupational Safety and Health Administration to illegally cram down vaccines on 80 million Americans; who attempted, in defiance of law, to relieve student loan debt – and then bragged about defying the Supreme Court; whose Justice Department even let him off the hook for mishandling of classified material by calling him a dotard. Biden’s party has spent years tut-tutting massive riots, appeasing pro-terrorist student trespassers, and calling for an end to parental autonomy. There isn’t an institution in the country Biden hasn’t weakened.

To hear Biden rail against Trump for undermining institutions, then, simply won’t play. But Biden doesn’t have much left in the playbook.

All of which means that Trump still – still – has the upper hand. Ironically, Trump being sent to jail might actually help him, given that most Americans will correctly see the jailing of Biden’s chief political opponent as an act of vicious partisanship unworthy of the most powerful republic in world history.

Shapira concluded that things are different in 2024 than they were in 2020. Biden ran in 2020 “on the platform of stability and normalcy” but exploded both. He has nothing left except warnings about Trump. This may not be enough when voters make out their ballots “if gas prices are high, groceries cost too much, and the world remains aflame.”