Candidate needed
During Thursday night’s debate, I was sad for my country. I’m no fan of President Joe Biden, but he is my, he is your, and he is our president. On display for the world to see Thursday night was not the leader of the free world, not a beacon of democracy, nor hope for the future, but an elderly man struggling to remain relevant. It was sad.
Biden needn’t be criticized, mocked or defended. But for the good of our nation, first lady Jill Biden and those closest to him need to gently convince him that it’s over. And the Democratic Party needs to nominate a viable candidate.
As one who had to make a similar decision for his father, those near Joe Biden must do the same — for the people, for the country and for Biden.
Are you listening Jill Biden?
Frank G. Coyle, Virginia Beach
Choice?
I watched the President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump debate in its entirety, and there was clearly a big loser: Unfortunately, it is the American public.
Biden’s faculties are clearly slipping, and there should be significant concern over how much more his cognition may falter over four more years of advanced aging.
And Trump continues to spew utterly ridiculous falsehoods as if they were facts, which his gullible followers will believe instead of fact-checking him.
They both said they would not be running except they have to in order to prevent the other guy from winning and hurting America. The American public would win if they both agreed to drop their campaigns and let each party come up with any other candidate.
It is truly a sad state of the union when we have these two as the major candidates. Absent of any changes, some other party candidate (Libertarian, Green, Constitution) is getting my vote.
Terrence Stone, Chesapeake
Trump achievements?
Former President Donald Trump believes he wins elections and court cases or they are rigged, yet people who wouldn’t tolerate that attitude from their children in youth sports are nevertheless comfortable with him leading our nation.
Many Trump supporters excuse his chronic lying and overall indecency because they fondly remember his policies as president. But what policies, exactly?
Trump inherited a strong economy in 2017, which was deeply in recession when then-President Barack Obama took office in 2009. Trump takes undue credit for an economy that Obama shaped, which his partisans don’t acknowledge because Obama plays for the other team.
Trump’s supposed signature achievement was his 2017 corporate tax cut giveaway to company shareholders via stock buybacks. We’re told that raising the corporate tax results in companies raising consumer prices; why didn’t cutting the tax lower them? Because their real purpose is to compensate the party’s donor class. It’s apparently enough for their non-wealthy supporters if Republicans simply demonize those who they hate.
Trump has also promised deregulation and another tax cut to fossil fuel company executives in exchange for lavish campaign contributions, thus selling out future generations who will have to deal with the unmitigated environmental disasters of a warming planet.
Journalists should assess whether Trump’s pre-pandemic policies deserve credit or is it a case of confusing causation with correlation, and examine why many economists judge that the partisan class warfare, mass deportation of immigrants and highly restrictive tariffs promised in a second Trump presidency would be economically disastrous.
David Meyerholz, Virginia Beach
Debate performance
It appears we now understand why Attorney General Merrick Garland doesn’t want the classified document interview tapes released and that the investigator was in fact spot-on in his assessment of the president’s answers.
Stephen Restaino, Chesapeake
