OPINION: Trump and Biden Aren’t the Right Choices

Voters rejected Donald Trump in the 2020 election, and rejected many of the candidates he backed in the 2022 midterm elections. That has not stopped former President Trump from announcing his candidacy for the 2024 presidential election. President Joe Biden has maintained a low approval rating and has presided over an inflation crisis. Biden has also indicated that he still plans on running for reelection. It appears that the 2024 presidential election is heading to a 2020 rematch. The nation deserves a better president than Trump or Biden.

During his time as president, Trump has shown that he is unwilling to govern honestly on behalf of the American people, instead choosing to rely on lies and fear. Despite marketing himself as an ally of the working class during his 2016 campaign, Trump fought for and signed legislation in 2017 that lowered taxes for the wealthy and for corporations. Throughout his presidency, Trump has made many xenophobic statements, including telling a group of congresswomen of color to “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.” After a neo-Nazi drove his car into protesters in Charlottesville, killing 32 year old Heather Heyer, Trump said that there were “very fine people on both sides.” When COVID-19 hit the US, Trump downplayed the pandemic, saying, “It’s going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.” After losing to Biden in 2020, Trump lied to the country, telling his supporters that he actually won the election, which infamously led to a group of Trump supporters storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. It is clear that Trump does not deserve to be president again, and that a second Trump presidency would be very dangerous for our nation.

According to FiveThirtyEight, as of Nov. 27, Biden had a 41.4 percent approval rating and a 53.2 percent disapproval rating. Biden’s low approval rating is primarily due to an economic crisis marked by high inflation that has hurt many working-class Americans. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Consumer Price Index, a tool used to measure average inflation, is up by 7.7 percent compared to last year, with food and energy prices rising by 10.9 percent and 17.6 percent respectively.

While working-class Americans are struggling to feed their families and power their homes and cars, corporations and the wealthy are profiting from this crisis. Many companies have raised prices at a higher rate than increased production costs; this has led to US corporate profit margins being at their highest level since 1950, according to Bloomberg news. While Biden did not cause the high rates of inflation that the nation is facing, he has a responsibility to try to alleviate the problem. Biden should do more to stand up to the corporations who are profiting from raising prices and exacerbating the inflation crisis. Despite the fact that Trump and the Republicans have heavily attacked Biden for inflation, they do not want to address how corporate greed has exacerbated the problem.

It would be unfair to imply that there is a moral equivalence between Biden and Trump. Biden has been a relatively mediocre president who nevertheless has done many good things, such as temporarily increasing the child tax credit. Trump was one of the most dangerous presidents in modern history, threatening American democracy itself. It is clear , however, that the American people deserve a president that is willing to fight for them and to take a stand against corporate interests. Trump failed to do this during his presidency, and Biden is failing to do this now.