In 2020, Joe Biden saved the country from a second term of President Donald Trump.
Trump was dismantling conventional democratic principles and needed to be defeated. There was evidence he was the preferred candidate of Russia’s Vladimir Putin. What more do we need to know?
After Trump lost, many Republicans joined to condemn the attack on the U.S. Capitol. It seemed clear that Republicans needed a more stable candidate if they expected to remain a major party. But somehow, Trump has returned to avenge his loss to Biden.
What we saw at the Biden-Trump debate is that with all of his evident faults, Trump is positioned to fully recover politically.
The Joe Biden who saved us from Trump is not the same person four years later. The pressures of the office and his clear decline from aging demand that Democrats find a place-holder among their supply of capable future candidates to save Biden from an ignominious defeat.
Pending federal and state indictments against Trump and his collaborators will never be adjudicated if Trump wins.
Thanks, Joe Biden, for being there when the country needed you. It’s time to step away and help Democrats consolidate behind a younger, more energized candidate to defeat a revitalized, determined and more dangerous Trump.
Sheldon I. Saitlin, Boca Raton
Trump the clear winner
At the start of the debate, Joe Biden couldn’t seem to get his words out fast enough.
Then again, it may have been a result of “the juice” which Donald Trump supporters suggested he was given before the debate.
At times, Biden appeared to be confused, almost like a lost child. He came across as weak as he mumbled and stumbled through questions.
His raspy voice made it more difficult to hear and understand him.
On the contrary, former President Trump was not only strong and articulate, but he remained cool, calm and collected and didn’t take the bait of Biden’s provocations. Most importantly, Trump shared his plan of how he’ll make America great again.
It’s apparent that Biden has no such plan. Hands down, the winner and champion and our next president is Donald J. Trump.
JoAnn Lee Frank, Clearwater
‘Suckers and losers’
Retired General John Kelly, a four-star Marine, said during Trump’s 2018 visit to France for the centennial anniversary of the end of World War I that Trump did not want to visit the graves of American soldiers buried in the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery near Paris.
“Why should I go to that cemetery? It is filled with losers,” Trump is said to have declared.
During the same trip to France, The Atlantic magazine reported, Trump said the 1,800 US Marines killed in Belleau Wood were “suckers” for getting killed.
Trump now says there are 19 people who will testify that he never said it. Who are these 19 people? Since this was reported, why have none those 19 come forward to support Trump? By the way, as a veteran, I enlisted to protect Americans including putting my life on the line to do so.
Mario Signorello, Port St. Lucie
A new awareness in America
We arrive at adulthood blindly confident that despite the tumult engulfing us, some things are unchanging and everlasting: Mountains, rivers, glaciers, oceans.
Then we see mountains decapitated for coal, rivers polluted by chemical runoff, glaciers melted by global warming, and oceans choked by man-made debris.
We realize that this permanence does not exist without constant and reverent caretaking. So too it is with our democracy.
It is porous, vulnerable to destruction by humans’ lust for wealth and power. Our institutions are only as strong as the character of the men and women who inhabit them. As a result, we must exercise our vote with a new awareness.
Jeff Kleiman, Elizabethtown, N.Y.
