Lyin’ Joe and Ruinous Susan
Like a lot of people, I knew this country was cooked during the Biden/Trump debate last June. Biden’s sad babbling wasn’t what convinced me, though. It was just one small moment, lost in the overwhelming disaster of the night.
Both sides had agreed to debate without fact-checkers and Trump was on a tear, looking silly as hell. The Internet was exploding with frustrated Dems wondering why Biden’s team had agreed to something that would so clearly benefit Trump. Honestly, at first I wondered, too, but then Biden let one go: the claim that he’d inherited 9 percent inflation from Trump. It was actually 1.4 percent. Again, it was a small thing, but it wasn’t true.
So what, right? What’s one little fib when your opponent is spitting 110-percent disinformation?
Well, first of all, two wrongs don’t make a right and I can’t believe I have to tell you that. Secondly, Biden had been making that same false claim for weeks, and multiple news outlets — including debate host CNN — had been calling him out on it the entire time.
This was hardly the first time Biden had lied in this way on the campaign trail. In fact, it’s how he blew his presidential chances in 1987. From the New York Times:
“Joe Biden was riffing again — an R.F.K. anecdote, a word about ‘civil wrongs,’ a meandering joke about the baseball commissioner — and aides knew enough to worry a little.
“‘When I marched in the civil rights movement, I did not march with a 12-point program,’ Mr. Biden thundered, testing his presidential message in February 1987 before a New Hampshire audience. ‘I marched with tens of thousands of others to change attitudes. And we changed attitudes.’
“More than once, advisers had gently reminded Mr. Biden of the problem with this formulation: He had not actually marched during the civil rights movement. And more than once, Mr. Biden assured them he understood — and kept telling the story anyway.”
Biden dropped out of the ’88 race after admitting to having never been an activist. And to plagiarism. And lying about his academic record. Almost four decades later, when he pulled out that inflation whopper, it became clear why Dems agreed to forgo fact checking: Trump lying is just Trump being Trump, but if Biden got caught, he wouldn’t necessarily be revealed as the liar he’d always been so much as he’d appear confused or senile. Either would spell the end for him, but this pointed to a bigger problem within the party.
During a time when truth was in such short supply, the Democratic Party had put a compulsive liar atop their ticket, and being long past any attempts to stop him, they were willing to do anything to keep him there. The truth had completely stopped mattering, which, I’m not going to lie, felt insulting on a personal level. Like, you’re just going to cede truth to Donald Trump? You’re just going to let this sickening, racist-ass turd be right? These assholes.
I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised that Dems’ attempts to persuade voters last year included telling a country with expansive poverty and record-setting homelessness that the economy was better than ever, and promising to protect democracy while escalating and profiting from a genocide.
As if that wasn’t enough, one of the last things Biden did was announce the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) as “the law of the land” and the 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. If you’re unfamiliar, the ERA would prohibit discrimination against women and efforts to pass it have been ongoing for more than a century. Also, Biden completely fucking lied, again. It is not the law of the land and the Constitution still only has 27 Amendments. At least he’s consistent, though.
Anyway, Susan Collins is running for re-election again. If you’re unfamiliar, she ruined the country by voting to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, who in turn voted to overturn Roe v Wade. You know how we’re told to contact your representatives about important issues? How that really, really works?
Well, people all over the state flooded her office with e-mails and calls opposing Kavanaugh in 2018 — folks were even arrested for occupying her office. She proved in no uncertain terms that she will absolutely never be held accountable to the people she’s sworn to represent. Then she won re-election that November.
Collins has voted for most of Trump’s cabinet nominees — including devout racist and Project 2025 author Russell Vought as White House budget director — since announcing her 2026 re-election bid. I’d say it’s up to the Dems to stop her, but at their current rate of capitulation they’ll be accusing her of being too liberal by then.
Samuel James also writes “Banned Histories of Race in America” at samuelj.substack.com.
