It is only June, but the main issues in the 2024 presidential race are already pretty clear. They relate to whether American voters will accept or reject the MAGA imprint on the republican party. And that MAGA imprint covers a range of topics from
- Donald Trump’s questioning of the US role in leading NATO and investing in the western security system that the US created and has maintained since the Second World War
- Immigration – is Trump right that border policies with Mexico have failed to protect the border, and that the conservative proposal to improve those protections that MAGA scuttled and democrats aggred to was not enough?
- Do women voters support the conservative Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe, and the fallout where abortions have become less available?
- Should the US continue to support the defense of Ukraine against Russian aggression? More broadly, should the US oppose attempts by authoritarian regimes to expand their influence?
- Is the economic recovery that the US has enjoyed under the Biden Administration for real?
These are all substantive issues. And there is at least one more issue. Is either of the candidates who will most likely head their party’s ticket competent to serve?
Both candidates are elderly.
Here we have a problem. First with media manipulation by Mr. Murdoch et al. They wish to depict Joe Biden as having lost it. Most recently they posted what appears to be Biden wandering away from a gathering of heads of state, seemingly lost in space. If you watch the first part of the video, this appears pretty bad. But the editors conceal that Biden was not lost at all. He was walking over to speak with the parachutist that the various heads of state had just watch land.
The fact is that while Biden is elderly (81 years old), he has repeatedly demonstrated the capacity to understand and articulate complex policy ideas.
Then we have Donald Trump.
We have discovered during Trump’s trial that he has various physical issues. Not just that, he makes odd remarks and references. For example whether he could have a romantic relationship with former House Speaker Nancy Polosi. What’s more, he demonstrates a repeated inability to express coherent ideas. Not just that, he has difficulty saying words, and he mixes up names and dates. These issues were identified by medical experts as far back as 2019, and yet the mainstream media has not made this front page news.
And while not reported in mainstream media, audiences in his most recent events have reacted negatively to Trump’s presentations, apparently because they are not coherent.
My concern — because of the way the media is and is not covering this issue, voters could well go to the polls without a clear picture of the competences of the candidates.
But what do you think?
Buzzography 