A ‘Hail Mary’ pass

You may have heard of the story in the New York Post last week about a new twist on the old, debunked story that Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter was trading on his father’s name while being on the board of an energy company in Ukraine. (I won’t get into the fabrications here.) You should know, however, that the story has already been proven unreliable, with the author(s) withholding his/her/their name(s) because it couldn’t be independently verified — and it turns out the former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, now serving as personal lawyer to President Trump, planted the story as per Russian spies.

That said, this qualifies as a desperation move from pro-Trump media to find a way to take down Biden just weeks before the election. And it won’t work.

Reason?  This election is less a referendum on Biden’s fitness for office than Trump’s failure to govern properly. Unfortunately, Trump supporters aren’t interested in governing, only in power, and that’s been his, and their, downfall from day one.

Of late they’ve done their best to try to marginalize those they don’t agree with as, say, “radical left” or even the old, played-out cliché “communists” for standing up for justice.

You see, for some people the idea of “equality” is a threat, which to me is a tragedy but which is also why Trump is actually popular with his crowd. But the COVID-19 pandemic and especially the Black Lives Matter protests that took place over the summer discombobulated that hegemony and left him with little to work with because the nation had real problems that needed to be addressed.

In other words, he was exposed. And with even parts of his base, including some evangelical Christians, eroding, drastic measures were deemed necessary — thus the story about Hunter and Joe Biden’s alleged corruption.

The last time Trump wanted Joe Biden investigated, it got him impeached — more accurately, he tried to strongarm the president of Ukraine into announcing an investigation — because he feared Biden. And with Biden’s willingness to build a broad-based coalition, from far-left activists to disaffected conservative Republicans, he had good reason to fear.

I’d say that pass is incomplete or intercepted.