These are the words inscribed on the gate of Hell in Dante’s famous 14th century narrative poem “Divine Comedy.” It well describes the situation Americans are encountering as we face the coming presidential election.
Joe, the incumbent, is running for reelection. He’s senile. A special prosecutor, named by Joe’s own attorney general, to investigate his illegal retention of classified material, scattered willy-nilly in boxes determined that he willingly and illegally retained classified material from his days as a senator and vice president. That is a crime, although Joe can’t be prosecuted for it until he leaves office. However, the report did not recommend prosecuting him because a jury will conclude that he is just a well-meaning old man with a bad memory and not convict him. Joe conducted a furiously angry press conference in which he declared that there is nothing wrong with his memory. Then, in almost the next breath, he referred to Abdel Fattah al-Sisi as president of Mexico. Doesn’t sound like a Spanish name, does it? That is because al-Sisi is actually president of Egypt. Andrés Manuel López Obrador is president of Mexico. That’s a pretty serious lapse of memory for the President of the United States to make. I can see him having a memory lapse on the name of the leader of some postage-stamp size island nation in the south-west Pacific, but not the names of the presidents of two major countries that are important to U. S. international relations.
It’s easy to see why Joe’s handlers rarely let him give press conferences.
Joe certainly had a bad week, but Donald Trump helped him out. In a public rant about NATO, he suggested that he would let Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin have any NATO country that isn’t meeting its defense spending obligations. This would be a violation of our treaty obligations. We are, by treaty, obligated to come to the defense of any NATO country, even Turkey, if it is attacked. Trump can’t pull out of NATO on his own volition, either. By federal law, he must get the Senate’s approval to do that. This rant reminded a lot of people of Trumps middle of the night Twitter tirades when he was president. Trump took an immediate hit in polls because of it.
I really wish Donald Trump would just go away. Four more years of Joe will be a disaster, but I’m really worried that Trump’s mouth will get Joe reelected. Trump’s propensity to bluster hurt Republicans in 2018, 2020 and 2022. 2022 should have been a great year for Republicans after two years of the Donkeys’ demonstrated incompetence. Trump, unfortunately, got involved and got a lot of weak candidates nominated who’s only “virtue” was kissing Donald Trump’s rear end. If Trump had stayed away from the elections, Republicans would have a majority in the Senate and a larger majority in the House. Maybe their House majority would have been large enough that the Speaker of the House could have kept the Freedom Caucus from turning the House’s business into chaos.
But, Trump didn’t go away and “Democrats,” by weaponizing the justice system, have made sure most Republicans stand behind him. I plan to vote for Nikki Haley in the Virginia Republican Primary because polls show she will beat Joe by a large margin. However, Trump is going to end up getting the Republican nomination. Then, senile old Joe will win the presidential election and “Democrats” will probably win the House while keeping control of the Senate. That will be a disaster.
Compared to the horror of “Democrats” being in complete control of our federal government, Dante’s description of Hell doesn’t sound bad.