Trump, Biden rerun a disaster

Judges of the US Court of Appeals in Washington will decide Donald Trump’s claims to presidential immunity over what he did on January 6, 2021, as mobs attacked the US Capitol. But what is clear is that three years on from that shattering event for American democracy, Mr Trump, 77, has learned nothing. His most recent claim that he is campaigning to win the White House “for a third time” shows that, implying as it does that it was he, not Joe Biden, who won the election in 2020. No less cuckoo is his assertion that those involved in the Capitol rampage were patriots, not law-breaking felons. Those who have been charged and convicted since, he insists, have been taken hostage by the Biden administration in the heart of the world’s most powerful democracy, rather like Hamas has taken Israeli hostages in Gaza.

It may be that polls have Mr Trump a country mile ahead of other Republicans before next Monday’s influential “first in the nation” Iowa caucuses, the beginning of the presidential primaries cycle leading to the November election. But with other Republican contenders – notably former South Carolina governor and UN ambassador Nikki Haley – gaining ground, especially in New Hampshire, which follows Iowa in the primaries calendar, that does nothing to erase legitimate questions about Mr Trump’s candidacy, especially in relation to January 6. In New Hampshire, Ms Haley is on 32 per cent, just behind Mr Trump on 39 per cent. Her momentum in the Granite State is real, according to The Wall Street Journal. She enjoys the political good fortune, too, that the next big Republican contest after New Hampshire is in her home state of South Carolina.

Mr Trump’s antics, especially the world of fantasy he is in over January 6, is the strongest – and perhaps only – thing embattled Mr Biden, 81, has going for him, apart from not being Mr Trump. Neither man should be running. Mr Biden’s obvious senility should rule him out, just as Mr Trump’s wacky perceptions of what he did or did not do on January 6 to overturn the 2020 election, plus the slew of criminal charges he faces, should rule him out. The Wall Street Journal got it right when in a headline it greeted the grim prospect of a re-run of the 2020 election between Mr Biden and Mr Trump with the single word UGH! American voters deserve better. So do US allies that look to it for strong, coherent and sensible leadership to meet the current crises facing a deeply troubled world. New blood is needed. A rerun of 2020 by the same dotards would be a disaster.