To me, Joe Biden’s election win in 2020 proved that the best way to beat hatred and dishonesty is to be compassionate and honest. Don’t do what I say, do what I do.
We live in the age of Trump and Cuomo, we thought they were the total opposites of one another, but they turned out to be too much the same, as some feared.
The real message of Trumpism is to take responsibility for nothing and to lie so often it became a new kind of truth to many. Joe Biden, it seemed, was paying too much attention to the former President and too little to his own conscience.
There are a lot of people who don’t mind lying at all. But Trump’s biggest mistake was in overestimating the number of people who respond to hate and don’t need more. Because they are so loud and often mean, they seem so much more powerful and numerous than they really are.
I think that the core, American people would prefer to be good. Biden’s genius was in being good.
The 2020 victory was simple.
Biden won because he was the opposite of Trump. Now, he too seems to be embracing the worst of Trump’s ideology – take responsibility for nothing, lie about everything, lose control of your narrative, and forget your own truth.
This afternoon, Biden is yet giving another talk about the heartstopping efforts to get American citizens and sympathizers out of Afghanistan. He’s telling us again that everything is okay, and no one could have foreseen what happened.
But he chose a lot of honest people, and unlike his predecessor, his people won’t lie for him. His followers won’t accept lies. If they wanted that, they would have voted differently.
Speaking only for myself, there is only one thing I want to hear from him before I listen to all of the dodges and excuses and rationalizations:
I messed up. I’m sorry.
And it’s not too late.
For years, the best pundits have said that if Richard Nixon had owned up to saying stupid things on his tapes, admitting to his role in Watergate, and apologized for it, he would never have had to leave office.
People in New York are saying the same thing about Andrew Cuomo, who insists he is the victim, not the women he victimized. He went down like a snarling animal, his regret was shallow and false.
People said the same thing about Bill Clinton when he perjured himself on national television and could not say the one thing that would have cleared the air: I messed up, I am sorry, I abused my position, I will never do it again. Leave me along with my family to heal.
Donald Trump changed the dynamic of American politics with his shamelessness. and absolute refuse to admit a mistake.
He repeatedly lied to the country but told the truth to anybody who got close enough to interview him. Apart from sedition and being a traitor, his other real crime was legitimizing, and inaugurating this Shameless Time, the age of lying with a straight face in the face of overwhelming evidence.
Truth is fighting for its life. It will win, it always does. I believe in it.
Right now, the contest is no longer about who is the most honest, decent, and competent. Thanks to Joe Biden, it’s becoming about who lies the most and takes responsibility for the least.
Everyone loses.
What the country needs most is not posturing and lying: it needs the moral authority Joe Biden promised us and has shown at times. Trump can’t tell the truth, Biden seemed unable to lie – until now.
Why on earth would he throw away that advantage?
In the time of lies, speak the truth, in the time of cowardice, be strong, in the time of manipulation, be authentic, in a time of hatred, preach empathy. At some point, we all are called upon to do what we believe is right. That is the definition of a moral human.
I believe the truth sets us free, liberates us, enables us to move beyond failure. Biden is trapped in a web of lies. His lies.
“If you are confronted with two evils,” wrote the moral scholar Hannah Arendt,” (the argument runs, it is your duty to opt for the lesser one, whereas it is irresponsible to refuse to choose altogether. It’s weakness has always been that those who choose the less evil forget quickly that they chose evil.”
The sad truth in politics – think of the past decade or two – is that most of the evil done in the world is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil once and for all.
Joe Biden is a decent man who seems to understand good and wants to do some, but in the case of Afghanistan, he weakens and panics hides when it matters the most. He believes in his own propaganda.
We need to understand what happened, not who is to blame, or that nothing went wrong.
But here, in the midst of this awful moral and humanitarian disaster, the President grasps the lure of Trumpism: public memory is short and selfish. If you want to do good, you have to do it for its own sake.
A wise politician once told me that his credo was to work hard and silently and let his success be his noise. Biden has succeeded with that in mind; now, he is letting cowardice and fear be his noise.
Moral authority is the most precious tool a leader can have.
Once lost, it can rarely be found again. That was Trump’s Achilles heel, then and now, and forever. He has the moral fiber of a swamp rat. When all is said and done, most people will not support a leader without a moral core. Not in 2020, not in 2022, not in 2021.
What can a critic say in response to those simple words: I screwed up?
If any of the so-called great men listed above had taken responsibility for their mistakes, some corrupt, some human, our history would be very different. Our politics might not be coming unglued.
Even the most powerful leaders – men all – will toss everything away rather than admit a mistake, even though the latter might very well save them. The longer I live, the more I wonder if testosterone is not a kind of poison.
To save our democracy, we need to understand what it is about the power that corrupts so absolutely. Trump has proven his unfitness for public trust and public office. Biden is catching up.
Biden, who promised to be better, has been upended by this crisis. I believe if he owns up to it, apologizes for it, and works to set it right, it will be forgotten. Donald Trump urged Americans to drink bleach to cure Covid-19 and still has 80 million followers. There’s hope for all of us, including our new President.
But the time for the truth is slipping away. There’s a lot more riding on President Biden than even the Afghanistan horror. American democracy is riding on his moral power.
Every day, Biden tells a different story about Afghanistan. It’s not that bad. It couldn’t be helped. We didn’t lose. It was the Afghan soldier’s fault. It was the Afghan President’s fault. It’s all under control.
He said that as president, “the buck stops here:” but was he just playing with us?
Biden is kicking the buck all over Washington. There’s no excuse for it, and it won’t work, and it is harming the country, just as his predecessor harmed the country and can’t wait to do it again and again.
What did happen to honor and integrity? Why have our leaders abandoned both?
The goal of every authoritarian is not to convince the Nazis or the fascists, but to persuade people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
That is the agony America is struggling through in 2021. The goal of every lover of freedom is the same. I write about politics for the people struggling to understand the distinction between fact and fiction so they can embrace facts and truth.
The goal of the totalitarian is to blur that distinction and distort it in every way. If Biden really wants to be the good guy he says he is, it is time to stand up and tell the truth, while he still can, and why people are still listening.
We are all human beings. We understand that human beings screw up, especially those in brutally difficult and demanding jobs and situations.
The Afghanistan withdrawal was a monstrous failure, a stain on a presidency, a black mark against the nation, a powerful weapon Biden has handed to the people he campaigned against and who have little use for the traditions of our democracy.
There is no excuse. It was nobody else’s fault—time to step and find courage. Nothing else will make that stain go away or soften it.
It takes less time to do a thing right than it does to explain why you did it wrong said Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
The battle of life is, in most cases, fought uphill, and to win it without a struggle is perhaps to win it without honor, said Samuel Smiles. If there were no difficulties there would be no success, if there were nothing to struggle for, there would be nothing to be achieved.
Governance without honor is simply another kind of betrayal.
It doesn’t really matter what Trump did or didn’t do. Life is moving him along and out of our way, as much as his poor followers and the media hang on.
What matters is that what Joe Biden practices and preaches and lives and the values he says he holds. If he can’t recover them, he will never get past the mess he has made or wipe out his bloody stain.
There are two enormous Big Lies gaining strength in America right now. One is that Donald Trump will seek re-election in 2022. Another is that the Afghanistan fiasco is not Joe Biden’s fault or responsibility.
I refuse to take either lie seriously.
The true poison making its way through America’s national veins is that so many people have chosen to believe lies rather than seek out or reward the truth.
Until we return to celebrating the truth, and as lies grow and propagate, we will get sicker and sicker.
In this instance, Trump doesn’t matter; he is beside the point. The fates will deal with him, as they have already done.
Donald Trump takes in millions of dollars every time he hints that he will run again. He will need all of it to rebuild his hemorrhaging company and pay the legal fees he will need to pay. In that sense, it makes little difference what Joe Biden does.
Trumpism is no longer about Donald Trump. It is a mass movement of disenchantment and rebellion against almost anything that government does. It is an assault on the very idea of government itself.
Biden was helping democracy just by being decent and telling the truth. Trump has betrayed his supporters, and soon enough, they will figure that out. Biden betrays us now with cowardice, slick answers, and finger-pointing.
Biden won on moral authority. Trump has no moral authority and is grossly incompetent. He is the most vulnerable political target imaginable. Biden is pissing his moral authority away, press conference by press conference, hideo video after hideous video.
Weak and tired at 80, he still beat someone who was thought to be unbeatable. Imagine Trump running again someone younger and stronger.
Trump proved that a President could do anything – lie, cheat, allow hundreds of thousands of people to die needlessly, promote sedition, undermine the democracy, and mess up every challenge that came before him.
Biden promised us he would be the most competent. He is giving that away also with his equivocating and dodging.
In one month, few Americans will be talking about Afghanistan.
If the country really cared about that country, we might actually have won that war. Americans care about the economy and their notions of law and order and safety. That has always been true. They don’t care about foreign policy unless it is threatening to blow them up.
In my own life, the notion of taking responsibility has gained steadily in importance and meaning. I have no lies to hide, no apologies to make, no excuses to hide behind.
I wish that Joe Biden shut up and stop spinning and just say those simple words: I screwed up. I’m sorry. He might well be respected for that rather than just reviled more and more every single day.
Biden will be a hero again if he behaves like a hero again, and if he doesn’t, he deserves to fail. It will just take those few simple words.
In the 1920s and ’30s, the totalitarian strategists turned any statement of fact into a question of motive, the very idea that lies at the heart of the Trumpist revolution.
When good people lie, all of their motives fall into question. It’s bad enough when bad people lie, but that’s what they do. It is unbearable with good people lie., the world is turned upside down.
Just say it, Mr. President: “I messed up. I screwed up the retreat from Afghanistan. I’m sorry.”
You said so eloquently and precisely, the many things I have pondered over this past week. I admit that I am crestfallen that a man/leader I felt to have such high moral authority, has let me down. Well…..I *feel* let down, but I am hopeful he will be more forthright VERY soon. It will be very telling……if he does? or if he doesn’t, speak the truth
Susan M
I am waiting for the exact same thing, Susan. And John…we can only hope the President is reading your blog.
Dot
this here this picture is exactly what II meant by ‘ screaming man ‘. I always go over what I write because I tend to leave a word or words out in places. I put in word s that I I unintentionally left out. I’m mostly a one finger typer so that gives my mind time to race even further head. being humen wven after proofreading my message I still don’t catch all my mistakes which sometimes lead to misunderstanding s. when that happens I always write to the person to correct and clear up misunderstanding s. Thank you for taking the time to read this. alexa
Jon, Thanks for this great essay!
Here is something else to consider:
“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere, insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” – Alexander Solzhenitsyn
i love this and know it to be true.
I think if anyone let anyone down, it was U.S. intel taking such a bad read on Taliban strength in Afghanistan, and treating it as truth. They failed every U.S. President who started, expanded, continued the war, down to Biden. The following statement was credited by whoever to a Taliban leader is worth remembering: You have clocks, but we have time. Persia, the Greeks (under Alexander), Genghis Khan, several empires, then then Soviets, British, French all those and more invaded Afghanistan over a couple of thousand years. Not one could make it stick.
What an absolutely sickening mess he has got this country of our in…….Sorry doesn’t get it….sorry!
Sorry would work well, he is sorting it out, but should have apologized I think. It’s not Armageddon, he’s working hard to make it right.
No matter what Biden did he would have critics. We’re getting out, long overdue. Afghans weren’t willing to fight for their country so neither should we be. Hopefully we don’t get into another war!
Jim, thanks for the comment, you have a strong point, but it doesn’t address what the column was about. He messed up the evacuations, which we all knew were coming. He should just own up to it. The fact that his policy was courageous and correct does not let him off the hook for his mistakes.
i agree with you, Mr. Katz. I am so disheartened to read in the news of how the withdrawal was done. I have read the news in horror as I actually bite my fingernails. It looks to be a ghastly undertaking. And yes, Joe Biden could/should admit that the US failed miserably in many ways. Thank you for a very fine article. I don’t know much about politics but I learn from reading your blog.
They’re, the Administration, is making decisions minute by minute second by secind in panic circumstances and any such President meaculpas could worsen their efforts. It’s of course painful to watch the chaos, babies being lifted over fences, the two escaping locals falling from the plane they held onto.
Its still too dangerous to monday-morning quarterback or ask for The Pres’ MeaCulpa. We will have time to sort out who did what wrong when the preventable danger has passed, when we can investigate Internal sabotage of Biden which can’t be discounted when we have enough info. Who wants to make it worse right now.
You’re right, it seems they did not foresee the lightning speed the Talibs would take to retake control of the country: nine days.
Most vote for a president because we trust his overall character and values, not every piddling action he has taken or omitted. He is human and like everyone will make mistakes especially in the heat of chaos. Read Grant’s Memoirs (considered one of our best pieces of nonfiction btw, Every teen should read it for complex thinking, moral judgment and beauty of language ). We consider even expect that our president may be confronted with a chaotic new test case. But PREVENTABLE RISK STILL LOOMS. Biden saying he is sorry would complicate the chaos. There’ll be time for that.
We appreciate your frustration but it seems risky and far too premature and MORE dangerous for an executive or ground fighter, the military, to mea culpa in midstream of a chaotic action(s). it’s really “hold your breath” right now for bystanders (unless some space force can lift them out with some way to distinguish the Talibs from the loyal Afghani, and the ISIS groups infighting the Talibs now, a miraculous fantasy).
I did not foresee the speed w which many, almost 8000 in a day, of our own and friends at the kabul airport have now been lifted out of Kabul. We must now let this incredible miraculous escape happen safely.
We don’t know why he is saying some of what he is saying, but I think this critique won’t help at this point. In fact could hurt. PLEASE hold off to avoid making it worse. Its better not to collaborate with the Talibs and the ISIS factions.
It’s not my job to help or hurt him Joseph. I don’t belong to the left or the right. I just speak the truth as I see it, and he’s a big boy and can take care of himself. If I wasn’t authentic, there would be no reason to read me at all. If you want propaganda, you’re not in the right place.
For once, I don’t agree with you. We spent 20 years, a trillion dollars in Afghanistan with US / Allied / civilian casualties beyond calculation, to no effect. The Afghan government / military had fair warning for months that US was about to withdraw: DJT struck a deal with the Taliban in February, 2020, essentially – we withdraw, you take over, promise to be good. After that, Afghan “security forces” surrendered not just territory, but US weapons and names of “collaborators” to the Taliban in exchange for $ and free passage out of Afghanistan. The US had the idea that, after the investment of 20 years, Afghan govt forces would at least make a stand, give time to evacuate people. That proved to be wrong. My heart hurts for people trying to get out, esp. for women of Afghanistan. but the day of withdrawal had been coming for a long time.
Thanks Susie, I’d be no use at all if you didn’t sometimes disagree with me, I appreciate the thoughtful message.
I have been reading your “column” for some time…even attended one of the open house you hosted and own your book about Simon.
Tonight, I am feeling very concerned about our country and the path that Joe Biden has taken. I truly don’t think in a month the effects of the way he has decided to leave Afghanistan will be forgotten. Hopefully, I am wrong. Only time will tell.
Peace!
Americans have very short attention spans, Maureen and they have never cared much about foreign policy. THey are very tired of this war and approve of his decision to get out. The exit was a nightmarish mess but he’s already moved nearly 70,000 people out. When they get here, they will be the story, not the bungled exodus. It’s important for progressives to avoid gloom and excessive pessimism. Biden is smart and experienced,the pandemic is much more important to people and a much greater threat to him down the road.