Trump, On The Merits
Let's all take a look at the two candidates in preparation for the upcoming debate.
(Photo by David Becker/Getty Images)
In preparation for this week’s presidential debate, please set aside how you perceive the personal characteristics of the candidates.
Forget that Joe Biden is arguably too old for the job. Forget that Donald Trump is a convicted felon.
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Let’s think only about the issues.
On foreign policy, I don’t think this is a close call: Biden has the better stance on the issues.
Biden supports NATO; Trump wants out. I understand that the America First gang doesn’t think we need international coalitions to achieve our goals, but they’re wrong. We should stay in NATO, which has generally preserved peace in Europe for the past 70 years, rather than ceding America’s place in the world.
What about Ukraine? Biden supports Ukraine; Trump wants out. Trump says he’ll negotiate a peace agreement in a day, which means he’ll give Putin a victory for having attacked the country. I think appeasement is a bad idea. It’s a shame that people are dying in Ukraine; I would prefer if the war were over; I’m not sure about the tactics being used to fight the war; but, as between helping Ukraine defend itself and giving up, I’m with Biden — help Ukraine.
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What about the Middle East? Both Biden and Trump support Israel. Any difference between their policies is hard to find, except that Trump, of course, says that the war would never have started if he had been at the helm, and the war would end immediately if we reelected him. But Trump was going to replace Obamacare with something better, and there was going to be a recession if we elected Biden, so I don’t put much faith in Trump’s boasts about how great he is and his predictions about the future.
China? Everyone hates China these days. To me, it’s a push between Biden’s “impose tariffs” and Trump’s “impose even more tariffs.” Call that one a draw.
Speaking of tariffs, Biden has used tariffs more or less as they have been used historically, neither dramatically increasing nor dramatically decreasing them. Trump says that he’ll increase tariffs by 10% across the board, and he’s recently floated the idea of eliminating the income tax system by increasing tariffs sufficiently to fund the entire federal government. That’s terribly inflationary — we’d pay vastly more for all imported goods — and would probably trigger a global depression. Advantage: Biden.
Speaking of inflation, who’s right? Inflation has been high. It’s now decreasing, but prices are higher now than they were four years ago. Who has the right policy to get things under control? I’m not sure that the president has much control over inflation. To the extent the president does, Trump probably increased inflation by cutting taxes without making offsets in spending. Biden probably increased inflation by increasing spending (during the pandemic and to pay for infrastructure) without offsetting that spending. As far as I’m concerned, I don’t trust either party: There are tax-and-spend Democrats, and there are cut-taxes-and-spend Republicans. You’ll have to look elsewhere for a responsible politician.
Immigration? Biden mishandled immigration early in his term, permitting the border to get out of control. But, more recently, he supported legislation that adopted virtually every policy that immigration hard-liners proposed. Trump opposed that legislation, and thus tanked it, because he wanted to maintain immigration as a campaign issue. A pox on both of ’em.
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On healthcare, Democrats want to expand Obamacare; Republicans prefer private market solutions. As a general matter, Democratic solutions spend government money that we don’t have; Republican solutions strip away healthcare from people who need it. Although governments should assure their citizens access to healthcare, our healthcare system is monstrous, complex, and inefficient, and I’m not sure either party has yet proposed a viable solution.
Abortion? Roe may have been wrong as a matter of constitutional law, but it was right as a matter of policy. I think Bill Clinton’s view was correct: Abortions should be “safe, legal, and rare.” Democrats have now strayed from that policy, because they want abortions to be viewed as standard medical care; Trump, on the other hand, appointed the justices who reversed Roe, and heads a party now laying siege to contraception and in vitro fertilization. Between those two extremes, put me on the left.
The First Amendment? Democrats punish you for suggesting that America should be race-blind; Republicans want to ban books and jail people who oppose the party. There’s not much left of the First Amendment.
Let’s move on to the Second.
Who’s right on the Second Amendment? There are vastly more guns per capita in the United States than there are in other countries in the world, and there are vastly more mass killings. Republicans insist that this is not a problem with our access to guns, but a problem with our mental health. That’s insulting: I refuse to believe that Americans are any crazier than people elsewhere in the world. Background checks, banning bump stocks, and so on, are not silly ideas. We should enact those ideas and others like them; Republicans will have none of it. I’m with Biden.
So put personal characteristics aside. Put aside who poses an existential threat to democracy: Trump says it’s Biden; Biden says it’s Trump. Put aside who’s mentally competent, who’s a felon, and who’s a rapist (oops — who committed a sexual assault, which, in the common vernacular, would be called rape, and was proven only to the civil, not the criminal, standard of liability). Put aside who’s under indictment for about 50 more felonies, including mishandling classified government documents. Put aside who ran a business found liable for hundreds of millions of dollars in civil liability. Put aside who hired, and hung around with, scores of people who have now been indicted or convicted of crimes. Put aside who incited a riot at the Capitol Building and now plans to pardon the folks who heeded his call.
Put all that aside.
Trump’s campaign gives the middle finger to government (which the government may well deserve), but Trump should lose to Biden on the merits.
Mark Herrmann spent 17 years as a partner at a leading international law firm and later oversaw litigation, compliance and employment matters at a large international company. He is the author of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law and Drug and Device Product Liability Litigation Strategy (affiliate links). You can reach him by email at inhouse@abovethelaw.com.
