Sep 1, 2021 5 min read

The Afghanistan pullout calamity has provided critics of President Biden with powerful ammunition. The mess that has been created places in doubt the ability of the Democrats to retain political dominance in the 2022 and 2024 elections. I can place no positive spin on this debacle in defense of the administration other than that its actions were the tragic culmination of 20 years of mismanagement and incompetence engineered by three prior presidents.

I wonder, though, how many of Biden’s harshest critics had any concern throughout the four years of misery, chaos, hatred, intolerance, misogyny, incompetence, and divisiveness which defined the Trump presidency. Was there a peep of criticism from them when Trump:

• Humiliated our country on the international stage in Helsinki, Finland, taking the word of thug Vladimir Putin over what had been concluded by our intelligence services about Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election;
• Wrecked relationships with our traditional allies while cozying up to ruthless dictators like North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, asserting that the two men had “fallen in love”;
• Called for political foes to be “locked up”;
• Pressured state officials to “find votes” for him so as to overturn the result of the most safe and secure election of our history and threatened to hold one of them criminally liable if he would not participate in the scheme;
• Instructed the Justice Department to say the election of Nov. 3 was fraudulent and “leave the rest to me”;
• Despite holding himself out as a champion of “the little guy,” enacted a tax reform bill which provided the bulk of the benefits to wealthy individuals like him;
• Suggested that those who cooperate in investigations of his administration’s corruption committed treason and deserved to be executed;
• Chose corrupt and incompetent individuals to serve in high positions in his administration;
• Derived personal profit from his position as president;
• Acted beneath the dignity of the presidency in referencing ideological foes as “human scum”, “lowlifes”, “the enemies of the people”;
• Encouraged his rally mobs to perpetrate violence on anti-Trump protesters;
• Threatened to crack down on television networks which dared to report in a manner which was not favorable to himor dared to satirize him;
• Ordered his attorney to pay off a woman with whom he had an extramarital sexual relationship, and then attempted to smear her in referencing her as “Horseface”;
• Equated the two sides that participated in the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017;
• Indulged or failed to repudiate idiotic conspiracy theories, and served to embrace QAnon and Proud Boys;
• Attempted to shake down the president of Ukraine for dirt on his most feared political opponent;
• Intentionally played down the seriousness of the coronavirus, consistently lying to us about it, and according to the former head of his Coronavirus Task Force, contributed mightily to hundreds of thousands of senseless and needless deaths;
• Lied or distorted the facts tens of thousands of times within his four years as president;
• Granted pardons to criminals who should be in jail, including Roger Stone and Michael Flynn;
• Sought to impose a religious test for admission to our country, barring Muslims;
• Maligned immigrants and conspired with adviser Stephen Miller to stem not only illegal immigration, but to bring to a grinding halt the arrival of legal immigrants;
• Instigated our modern day of infamy on January 6, the riot which brought thousands of crazed Trump supporters to desecrate our beloved Capitol;
• Sided with one of the rioters who was tragically killed rather than with the law enforcement officers who were savaged by his mob, expressing not the slightest regret or concern about those members of the police force who died in the days following the insurrection, and those who were battered by the crowd, suffering lasting physical and mental injury;
• Continues to lie about the result of the election, which places the country and our democracy in clear and present danger and leaves the door open to another attack on our government.

I imagine that to Trump supporters, all of his misdeeds and acts of hatred committed by their leader are written off as fake news or irrelevant because one dare not challenge the self-appointed “Chosen One.”

Hypocrisy knows no bounds in this era of selective outrage and the wearing of blinders.

Oren Spiegler is a resident of Peters Township.