Addiction is a big problem in modern America (thanks to the Left’s tolerant policies of drug crimes and the implicit promotion of drug culture since the 1960s).
Few families have been left untouched by the scourge of addiction. It is truly an illness that afflicts all our lives, either directly or indirectly.
During the 2020 Presidential Campaign, the Republicans made a sport out of mocking Hunter Biden’s obvious struggles with addiction.
The GOP did this more because of the cartoonish way that the government, news organizations, and social media firms were covering up Hunter Biden’s alleged crimes (to protect his father from investigation) and less because they enjoyed mocking addiction.
Yet, the ham-fisted attacks directed against Hunter Biden made it easy for the Biden Campaign in 2020 to defend Hunter by playing on peoples’ heartstrings.
Appearances are Deceiving, But Democrats are Deceptive
Joe Biden appears (that’s the operative word here) as a kindly, grandfatherly figure in pop culture. Look just below the surface and one sees him as a vicious, aging, corrupt politician who cares only about increasing his wealth and power.
But the media has gone full Soviet with their representations of Biden in public. Many in the public buy the myth because most people don’t take the time or effort to learn the truth.
Republicans need to be aware of this when they go after Hunter Biden.
In 2020, Joe Biden and his team were able to deflect attention away from the actual reasons for why the GOP was investigating Hunter—because he may be the public face of a yearslong illicit influence-peddling scheme meant to benefit Joe Biden financially—by crying “foul!” over the way the Right was mocking Hunter Biden’s addiction woes.
During the 2020 campaign, Joe Biden would often, almost tearfully, defend his son by arguing, “My son did nothing wrong.” He’d speak about fighting to get his son help. About the fearful nights when he’d call his son, knowing that Hunter was doing drugs and holed up somewhere unseemly.
As the Liberal writer, Molly Jong-Fast, explained in an October 2020 Vogue article, Joe Biden’s weepy defenses of his son’s addiction woes resonated deeply with most Americans (including herself as a recovering addict).
Of course, the Hunter Biden story is not about his obvious drug-and-sex addictions. Those are just salacious, superficial details to the real story. In our image-crazy and hypersexualized culture, though, it is easy for people to fall into the more sordid aspects of the story and become lost. That is precisely what happened to the Republicans investigating Hunter Biden, and the Trump Campaign in 2020.
They got lost in the vile weeds of the Hunter Biden arc. The Democrats will happily use that GOP mistake to their advantage.
Because of this confusion, the Republicans gave Joe Biden and his team the opening they needed to play on the heartstrings of a public that is all too familiar with the struggle of addiction. It was shameless on the part of the Democrats.
And that shamelessness was born out of desperation. Democrats know that Hunter Biden is the connective tissue linking his allegedly nefarious deeds with his father. So, if the Republicans can get a clear line of sight on that connective tissue, they can probably take Joe Biden down.
Yet, the Democrats’ deflection has worked wonders for distracting an easily distractable public; a public that is almost programmed to follow the superficial and the sympathetic rather than the truth.
MTG Misses the Mark
More recently, the controversial Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) stunned audiences at a House Oversight hearing that she was participating in when she revealed explicit images of Hunter Biden with a prostitute. It was obscene, even for a woman who specializes in the absurd.
What’s more, the graphic images play right into the Democratic Party’s hands that there’s nothing to the Hunter Biden investigation—when, in fact, there is.
Moreover, it gives the Biden team the opportunity to again lash out on emotional grounds against the Republicans and play the victim, which will resonate with at least some voters, who are not as plugged into the details of the Hunter Biden scandal.
MTG is, therefore, doing the Democrats’ job for them. Because nearly everyone who has seen or heard about her antics at the recent hearing is more upset about the pictures—and the way she revealed those images—than they are about the actual alleged crimes of Hunter Biden.
It was a gratuitous move (one of many by the GOP) that may come back to haunt them.
Because the Biden Family has taken great care to place obstacles blocking the visible financial connections between Hunter Biden’s purported global, illicit influence-peddling schemes and with the rest of the family (notably, his father).
Republicans Lack Discipline
Discipline, the one thing that modern Republicans lack, is required when delving into these murky waters. The goal is not to humiliate the shameless, depraved First Son. The objective must be finding real evidence of corruption regarding our president so that the GOP can then initiate an impeachment process that stands a good chance of removing Joe Biden from office in the most public manner possible.
MTG’s stunt in Congress or the repeated Republican mockery of Hunter Biden’s addiction problems takes us away from that goal.
Stay on target, Republicans. Time is not on your side. Each distraction gives your Democratic Party rivals the time they need to cover their tracks. Because everyone fundamentally knows that Joe Biden, just like Hillary Clinton, is as corrupt as sin itself. Spend your time proving that rather than showing the world how degenerate Hunter Biden is.
A 19FortyFive Senior Editor, Brandon J. Weichert is a former Congressional staffer and geopolitical analyst who is a contributor at The Washington Times, as well as at American Greatness and the Asia Times. He is the author of Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower (Republic Book Publishers), Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life (Encounter Books), and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy (July 23). Weichert can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.
From 19FortyFive
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