It was quite uplifting to see and hear Joe Biden on Canadian soil last week. It was like old times for Canada and the United States, like a bond was being rebuilt.
The 46th President – isn’t he supposed to be in dotage? – was full of pep and smarts and charm. He looked and sounded more comfortable here than in his home country. “Americans and Canadians,” he said, “are two people, two countries, in my opinion, sharing one heart.”
Of all the Canadian visits by presidents going back a century, not many surpassed this one on the success meter.
The Biden speech didn’t reach the heights of president Dwight Eisenhower’s moving address to Parliament in 1953: “The Canadian people,” the great war general stated, “have been valorous champions of freedom for mankind.”
“Before us, Canada and the United States, lies an immense panorama of opportunity in every field of human endeavour.”
Undeterred by exaggeration, Mr. Biden spoke of that kind of promise for the two countries, saying, “I’ve never been more optimistic in my life about the prospects.” While hope in America has been fading, his performance made people feel confident about its future, confident that the great republic was coming to its senses.
But the charm of the day was not to last. Back home, reality struck. Another mass shooting, this time killing six in Nashville, three of them school kids.
The U.S. media focus has not been on Mr. Biden’s good work, his putting in place a social contract for Americans with many Canadian similarities. Instead, it’s been Donald Trump sucking up most of the oxygen, playing the victim card to the hilt over the prospect of being indicted on matters arising from a hush money payment to porn actress Stormy Daniels.
There was Mr. Trump’s wacky speech in Waco, where in the Texas town this week he claimed that he was probably “the most innocent man in the history of the country.” Or his, ah, thoughtful take on Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who could bring the charges. An “animal” and “a degenerate psychopath.” Or his threat that an indictment of him could lead to “potential death and destruction.”
His rants that the justice system is being weaponized against him have worked, rallying his base and Republicans in Congress. You might think someone with Mr. Trump’s record of depravity would be 20 points behind a president like Joe Biden. In the old America, maybe. Today he’s even leading him in some polls.
Of the possible indictments facing Mr. Trump – on electoral meddling in Georgia, on stolen White House documents, on stoking a mob attack on Capitol Hill – he’s drawn the luck of having the most minor of them come to the fore first.
A big debate rages. On the one hand, there are those who insist that he should face justice like any normal American; just as his fixer, Michael Cohen, did for his involvement in the hush money payout. It’s of note that those heatedly defending him are the same allegedly tough-on-crime Republicans who impeached Bill Clinton on charges arising from his consensual affair with Monica Lewinsky.
On the other hand, there are the arguments that this case, as a misdemeanour, is too small for an indictment of an ex-president, that it can be too easily depicted as a partisan, politically motivated act, that it throws Mr. Trump a lifeline, that it will serve to diminish other indictments to follow.
The preferable outcome should be obvious. Don’t make a martyr out of Mr. Trump by going ahead with this case now. With three far more serious cases pending, slow-walk this one until the others are heard from. If you’re going to indict a former president, it has to be for something really damning. Complications in the Stormy Daniels case could arise owing to New York’s statute of limitations which, depending on the nature of the charges, might mean there is no time to wait. But if this case is lost, it’s hardly tragic given the much higher stakes in the others.
At the moment, prospects look good for Mr. Trump. If he is charged, the rage of his supporters will intensify. If he isn’t charged it will look like he has intimidated the justice system.
At some point, the law will catch up to this man. But the joy in that will be offset by his likely replacement, a less unhinged replica in the form of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
With all his optimistic and cozy “our-hearts-are-one” talk on his lovely visit to Canada, Mr. Biden left out a big piece. His country’s other beating heart.