Alan Zendell, June 12, 2024

Ever since his own FBI Director James Comey initiated an investigation over his alleged ties to Russia in 2017, then President Donald Trump has been ranting about a rigged, weaponized justice system he says is being used to undermine his chances of winning in November. That has been his only line of defense as he has been indicted on more than ninety felony charges by two states and the U. S. Department of Justice, and has thus far been convicted of 34 of them. He has been found guilty of sexual assault and fraudulently managing his company by two state courts, for which he has accumulated fines in excess of a billion dollars, while screaming that these events were somehow orchestrated by the Biden family crime syndicate which does not and never has existed.

Trump has spent his entire election campaign charging his opponents with witch hunts and illegally attempting to influence the election, a crime for which he himself has been convicted and is awaiting sentencing. He has spent millions of dollars raised from supporters to pay scores of lawyers to delay his other trials until after the election, because he believes a sitting president is immune from all legal actions. He swore to pardon all the January 6th insurrectionists including himself if he is elected and to purge our justice system of everyone he perceives to be an enemy. Except for his incoherent, irrational rants and threats of revenge, Trump hasn’t uttered a single word of substance concerning the state of our nation’s economy or our status as leader of the free world.

Contrast that to the way President Biden has campaigned, particularly in recent weeks, as his only surviving son, Hunter, was on trial in Delaware, the Bidens’ home state where Hunter’s late brother, Beau, served as Attorney General. In the wake of Trump’s charges of being victimized by the Justice Department at Biden’s behest, Hunter’s federal convictions on three felony counts, which stem from falsely claiming he was not addicted to drugs on an application to purchase a firearm, created an awful dilemma for the president. The irony that Hunter only owned the gun for a few days and never used it only made the situation more poignant.

President Biden has the legal authority to pardon his son. As a parent who is nearly as old as Biden with two sons roughly the same age as Hunter, I feel his pain viscerally. Were Biden the man Trump accuses him of being, in other words, were Biden as venal and self-serving as Trump, pardoning Hunter would be the natural thing to do. But Biden is a man of integrity, and in this situation, integrity meant believing in our justice system and accepting the verdict of the jury in a very blue city in a very blue state. If there were any hint of corruption, this is where it would show up.

Biden announced, days before Hunter’s case went to the jury, that he would accept the outcome of the trial and would not pardon his son if he was convicted. I wish I could claim that level of integrity. If one of my sons was a recovering addict with no prior criminal record who was convicted of a nonviolent crime and possibly faced up to twenty-five years in prison, and I had the power to reverse that, nothing else would matter. Be thankful that President Biden is more principled than I am, than most fathers would be. His selfless act of integrity is the best contrast with his opponent’s complete lack of it.

Against a challenger whose only debate strategy is ranting incomprehensibly and accusing his opponent of everything he himself is guilty of, and who lies shamelessly about everything, the best defense is “actions speak louder than words.” Biden’s action speaks decibels louder than all the combined screams and threats emanating from the Trump campaign. His recent Executive Actions to counter illegal immigration at our border with Mexico and the success of his administration’s pressure on Mexico to do its share are a thundering roar that drowns out Trump’s hypocrisy over the border.

Biden promised he would repair our economy and strengthen our alliances. He has delivered impressively on both, having to overcome a House of Representatives frozen into inaction by an obstructionist MAGA minority. Every important measure of our economic health – inflation, unemployment, wage growth, equity markets – is trumpeting his success. As our most dangerous adversaries, Russia and Iran, pursue wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and Trump continues to try to undermine the president, Biden has not only stood firm but convinced a badly divided Congress to support these efforts in legislation.

Actions always speak louder than words, don’t they? Even that adage is being put to the test as Trump’s ability to create chaos and corrupt facts with his own insane fantasies seem to work with his base. The outcome of that test may well determine the future survival of our country, but Biden will fight on the side of integrity with his last breath.