Biden And Trump

Proportionality.

Cutting short (apparently unavoidably) an interview with an African-American talk show host on Thursday, Joe Biden was asked if he'd return later in the year for a second interview. Biden rashly responded  "If you have a problem figuring out whether you're for me or Trump, then you ain't black."

It was a stupid and insulting remark. It also missed the point of the invitation, which was less to figure out whether the host would vote for Biden than to get the candidate more on the record and to elicit a commitment from him on issues important to the black community. 

The real concern should be why the presumptive Democratic nominee for President, as well as other politicians and celebrities, would grant an interview with someone who calls himself "tha God.' However, Joseph Robinette Biden, rather than the multi-millionaire Lenard Larry McKelvey, is running for President and the candidate does not want to make the same mistake as did presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, who foolishly turned down an opportunity to sit down and chat with Howard Stern.

Moreover, as bad as was the comment made by Biden, the Never Trump Republican married to Kellyanne Conway had a fine retort to Republicans who quickly exploited the gaffe. President Clinton's press secretary had an even better response.

I also don’t remember hearing @realDonaldTrump’s apology for telling four members of Congress to go back to their countries. https://t.co/bOzNjtJraU

— George Conway (@gtconway3d) May 23, 2020

It's not a matter of apologizing. Politicians rarely actually apologize, strategically avoiding stating "I shouldn't have said (or done) what I did. It was wrong."  Donald Trump, as much as he has squashed and obliterated practically every norm, has strictly adhered to this regrettable custom.

Nonetheless, Trump's praise of Henry Ford for his "bloodlines" is not only reprehensible, but offers a window into his partiality for eugenics. When he stated "The company founded by a man named Henry Ford -- good bloodlines, good bloodlines, if you believe in that stuff. You got good blood," Trump yet again implied that those he considers winners in life got there through heredity. He is a guy who believes that some people are born superior to others, and it's no one's responsibility to help those who are inferior.

Noel Casler, the comic who previously worked on the set of The Apprentice, has tweeted "Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to let the smallest, most ignorant, venal, racist, drug addicted sexual predator this country has ever produced be POTUS." And it was a particularly bad idea during a pandemic, when the goal should be to keep people- all people, regardless of their station in life- alive, rather than the reverse.

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