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Chip Somodevilla

The most convenient political habit of the moment is to natter on about how both <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/candidates/joe-biden-2024/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">President Biden</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/donald-trump/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">Donald Trump</a> are unpopular and old and how Americans long for some new and energetic candidate (identity to be disclosed later).

This above-the-battle, “woe is us” posture makes those who adopt it look tough-minded, independent and clear-eyed. It puts Biden and Trump on the same level and then compares both with someone who doesn’t yet exist. Never mind that it’s far easier to imagine the perfect candidate than to find one.

This might be harmless if Biden and Trump really were equivalent, but nothing could be further from the truth.

It’s time for everyone, the media especially, to face up to the actual choice: Between constitutional democracy and authoritarianism. Between a normal human being and a self-involved, spiteful madman. Between a government that has performed well and a regime that would gyrate from one personal obsession to another.

News over the past few days provides another contrast: between a president seeking compromise to protect our southern border, while also getting help to Ukraine, and an opponent who claims (albeit with little evidence) that terrorists and drug dealers are rushing into the country — and who wants them to keep coming <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/01/25/gop-sure-looks-like-it-wants-punt-border-crisis-help-trump/" target=_blank>so he can win an election</a>.

False equivalence is the bane of our politics, and it’s a particular problem for (I hate these terms) “legacy” or “mainstream” media. At its best, the old media — which I have been part of my entire career — takes on the essential work of informing the public about what is going on in the world with a sense of fairness and a dedication to truth, as best as it can be determined.

Journalists should never give up on this. But decades of attacks from the political right have made the mainstream media far more sensitive to the appearance of liberal bias than to worries about other forms of distortion. This makes formulas of false equivalence very attractive — statements along the lines of “Both sides are equally bad” or “What this person did is terrible, but notice this (far less egregious) act by the other guy.”

The Trump movement has played on the mainstream media’s, well, liberal guilt ever since its champion came down that escalator.

Reporters were told to take Trump “seriously, not literally.” No, we should do both. They were said to lack understanding of the people who were voting for him. There’s some truth here — the media does have a class bias — but understanding what might motivate a group of voters should not mean glorifying them, whether they support Trump or anyone else. It should certainly not preclude clarity about the difference between a politician who stokes and exploits their anger, and another who is trying to solve their problems.

Above all, it should not mean pretending that Trump and his opponents (whether that’s Biden, Hillary Clinton or Nikki Haley) live in the same moral universe as he does and are as flawed as he is.

The age issue has a lovely objectivity about it because Biden is 81. And voters’ unhappiness with the choice between Biden and Trump has real polling data to support it. I get why Haley says Trump and Biden <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/haley-goes-after-trump-and-biden-we-don-t-need-two-80-year-olds-in-the-white-house/vi-BB1h2l6D" target=_blank>are “equally bad”</a> and too old. After all, she’s running against them both and wants to pry voters in her party away from their Trump habit. Putting Biden and Trump on the same level might be a way to GOP hearts.

But the fact that they are not “equally bad” was brought home on the night of the New Hampshire primary, when Trump went on <a href="https://www.axios.com/2024/01/24/new-hampshire-trump-haley-takeaways" target=_blank>an unhinged tirade against Haley</a>. He was petty (“I watched her in the fancy dress that probably wasn’t so fancy”), threatening (“I don’t get too angry,” he said angrily, “I get even”) and vindictive (“She’s not going to win, but if she did, she would be under investigation”). Haley knows it’s absurd to pretend that Biden is capable of such an indecent display.

And on that age issue, it’s another sign of media skittishness that the 77-year-old Trump’s frequent miscues and flights from reality did not get much coverage until Republican Haley <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/01/20/nikki-haley-trump-mental-fitness-pelosi/65afbcdc-b7fe-11ee-b285-0853d4d1b92f_story.html" target=_blank>called out the speech</a> in which he kept confusing “Nikki Haley” with “Nancy Pelosi.” Yes, strong women seem to drive him batty, but it should not have taken Haley to force a reckoning with Trump’s disassociation problems.

There’s no question Biden has a lot of work to do, particularly to motivate younger voters whose support he needs and who would prefer someone new and dynamic. But the fact that no Democrat of consequence chose to challenge Biden suggests he just might have the qualities required in this dangerous year: his character, his desire to hold the country together and his ability to keep the peace in his party. There could not be a sharper contrast with Trump.

Named among the 25 most influential Washington journalists by the National Journal

Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

American Political Science Association’s Carey McWilliams Award, 1996

Empathy Award from the Volunteers of America, 2002

National Human Services Assembly’s Award for Excellence by a Member of the Media, 2004

Hillman Award for Career Achievement from the Sidney Hillman Foundation, 2011

One Nation After Trump: A Guide for the Perplexed, the Disillusioned, the Desperate, and the Not-Yet Deported (co-authored with Norman J. Ornstein and Thomas E. Mann)

Why the Right Went Wrong: Conservatism – From Goldwater to Trump and Beyond

Our Divided Political Heart: The Battle for the American Idea in an Age of Discontent

Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith & Politics After the Religious Right

Stand Up Fight Back: Republican Toughs, Democratic Wimps, and the Politics of Revenge

They Only Look Dead: Why Progressives Will Dominate The Next Political Era

Why Americans Hate Politics

We Are the Change We Seek: The Speeches of Barack Obama (co-editor)

One Electorate Under God?: A Dialogue on Religion & American Politics (co-editor)

United We Serve: National Service and the Future of Citizenship (co-editor)

Sacred Places, Civic Purposes: Should Government Help Faith-Based Charity? (co-editor)

Bush v. Gore: The Court Cases and the Commentary (co-editor)

What’s God Got To Do With the American Experiment? (co-editor)

Community Works: The Revival of Civil Society in America (co-editor)

Code Red: How Progressives and Moderates Can Unite to Save Our Country

Oxford University, D.Phil.

Harvard University, BA

E.J. Dionne Jr. writes a twice-weekly column for The Washington Post. He is a professor at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. His latest book, with Miles Rapoport, is “100% Democracy: The Case for Universal Voting.”

E.J. Dionne

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Trump and Biden are both old. The comparison should end there.

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