But his nomination isn’t secure.
American voters will have to engage in a bit of discernment in choosing which nominee to decide to be President in November. In the past, they could vote on relative charm or whether the economy was doing well, knowing that whomever was elected would have been a responsible President and so not a crucial choice. But not this time.
If Biden had flubbed yesterday during his post NATO Summit Meeting press conference the way he had in his debate with Trump and his interview with George Steponopolis, then Nancy Pelosi and some other senior Democrats could have had the distasteful duty of going to the White House and telling Biden that he could no longer do the job and give way to either Kamala Harris or a short list of articulate, vigorous and well experienced Governors for the Chicago delegates to choose as standard bearer. But that is not what happened. Biden was strong in offering a comprehensive view of foreign policy. He explained the reason for and accomplishment of a strong NATO to fend off the America Firsters who had not infiltrated into the Republican Party since Pearl Harbor, pointing out that internationalism included both Ronald Rdeagan and himself. He turned a question of whether he was able to negotiate with foreign leaders into describing that he had restored talks with China and that at the moment there was nothing to talk about with Putin who is not willing to budge on his war aims against Ukraine despite the very high casualties to Russia and a loss of land in Ukraine controlled by Russia. Biden also mentioned that he had strengthened the Pacific Rim allies and so was controlling China and economically punishing Chinese cooperation with Russia.Biden also said that managing Israel was difficult because it had the most conservative government it had, his own involvement going back to the time of Golda Meir. Biden also managed to point out that at home employment was up and inflation down and illegal immigration seriously lessened because of his own executive orders. Quite a good performance.
But here is where the discernment comes in. Biden’s voice is weak. He sometimes has to wait a few seconds to recover a word he is looking for, something familiar to myself during advanced age. He sometimes garbles his words or stutters. He is clearly an old man and so need to notice that his knowledge of the facts and ideas remain clear and decisive. He knows what he thinks, has thought through the issues, rather than offering canned statements. Don’t worry about teleprompters that are used by both candidates. He is an active and acute observer of what is going on and people should notice that if they put aside his elderly mannerisms.
The media will over the next four months have a lot of influence in helping the voters to discern what is the differences between reality and appearance, not something required in past elections where voters could choose differences between policy, character or party affiliation. Will the media dwell on Biden’s verbal lapses or attend to the fact that he knows what he is talking about? That could make the difference. An even greater challenge to the media is how to handle Trump, whose test begins soon enough this coming Monday at the Republican Convention in Milwaukee. Commentators have already taken the role of fact checking Trump but will they do it aggressively enough tyo show he lies all the time about anything and that what he says are assertions rather than evidence or arguments, which seems a mental failure of his that goes very far back and so is not the result of aging.
The most important questions to face Trump or his spokespeople starting now is why he has never provided evidence of a rigged election, or why he hid and lied about secret documents and what right he had to ask Georgia to give him the votes needed for him to win the vote in the stage. He and they can claim Trump can’t say because these matters are in the courts, but that doesn’t wash. He is offering himself to be President of the United States not just in jeopardy of being a jailbird. He can be asked to meet a higher standard, that of public opinion. Ask on the Sunday programs why there are no explanations of these various issues and why is he delaying the process for possibly exonerating himself? The ball is in his court and evading the issues makes him seem guilty, which is reason enough not to vote for him, as well as for his general demeanor of meanness and his plans to overthrow democracy. Commentators may be willing to discuss the 2025 Project but find it distasteful to deal with Trump’s personal character, every president, like Richard Nixon, given a clean shave for his past character once assuming President because it is so distasteful to deal with negative personal qualities. Bjut why shouldn’t they ask? Newspapermen looked into Gary Hart’s personal life and undid him as a candidate. Why not ask why revenge isn’t always a bad thing or that diminishing an opponent’s stature by remarking on his small hands or his wife’s appearance diminishes himself rather than the people he tries to belittle. Media people will have to wade into personalities when they try to avoid thinking verbal flubs are evidence but smearing is beneath their dignity when it is the most obvious evidence before them.
We will see next week how the media handle Trump. That could be decisive.