Name: Who is worse – Donald Trump or Joe Biden? I don’t envy the decision facing US voters
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Who is worse – Donald Trump or Joe Biden? I don’t envy the decision facing US voters 

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Before the , was much criticised for drafting two columns for this paper – one advocating Remain, the other, Leave. How cynical, people complained – almost like tossing a coin.Yet even people with strong beliefs should look before they leap from their general principles to making a particular practical choice. Margaret Thatcher famously claimed to act out of conviction, but one of her favourite sayings was “Time spent in reconnaissance is never wasted”. You need to calculate whether your action will achieve the outcome you wish for.I am thinking about this because of the choice the American people will confront on November 3. I have not written one Vote Biden column and another in favour of before writing this one, but a comparable process has been going through my mind.I think I know what would be good for the world – a conservative, pro-Western president, pro-British, understanding of Brexit, respectable, unifying, decisive, asserting global leadership by maximising alliances with friends, and capable of stilling the quarrels of his own people.Mr Trump would appear to win on roughly half of this. He has perfect confidence in the American version of the Western way of life, untroubled by doubt, or indeed, by knowledge of other ways. He is crude in these views, but he has done well to reverse President Obama’s preference for nations which will never be America’s friends and his neglect of those  which are.Mr Trump saw through the Iran deal and withdrew from it. His rapprochement between Israel, and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain starts to reshape a region whose politics have grotesquely over-promoted the Israel/Palestine question as the central problem. His exposure of China’s behaviour over trade and, more recently, over Covid-19, was broadly correct. No other important figure dared attempt it.He is also pro-Britain and pro-Brexit. This has not yet gained us decisive trade advantage, but it prevented the Obama “back of the queue” policy and a hostile united front against us. He understands and respects our desire for national independence – a yearning which is, in different guise, his own country’s foundational story.Mr Biden, by contrast, is no friend of Britain. He campaigns (especially in shamrocky bits of Pennsylvania) as an “Irish Catholic”. The Catholic bit is vestigial (not-so-holy old Joe loves abortion and full trans rights), but the Irish bit lives and kicks. If he becomes president, he will promote the fiction that peace can be saved only by splitting Northern Ireland from the post-Brexit UK. In his now predominantly woke Democratic Party, a historically white, colonial country like Britain is less admired than almost any other form of political life.Mr Biden would appear to win, however, on the other half of the qualities needed. His highly conventional half century of Washington political life has made him deferential towards alliances such as Nato and at ease in the never-ending global cocktail party of conferences where world leaders debate security, climate change, trade, finance and so on. He may say little of interest at these gatherings, but he will not disgrace his country or spread ill will. One of his few resonant phrases – he used it in his “Meet the Voters” session on Thursday night – is that American world leadership works by “the power of our example”. The power of Mr Trump’s example is not working across the world, or at least not in the right way.Mr Biden would also appear to be the unity candidate. It is hard to be frightened by “Sleepy Joe”. He seems to feel “malice towards none”. Abraham Lincoln used that phrase in his second inaugural address. You cannot imagine President Trump using it, if he gets the chance to make his. After he has spent four years crossing the street to pick fights, there is an understandable yearning for a man who exhibits old-fashioned politeness and prefers an early bedtime.Notice I keep using the phrase “would appear” in reference to both men. I do so because you could easily argue that their supposed advantages are unreal.Mr Trump, for all his vaunted toughness, is not a reliable friend to the well-disposed, or a reliable enemy to the ill-disposed. He turns nasty in negotiations with allies. He retains a creepy softness towards Putin’s Russia. Even on China, his dealings have been more ambiguous than his rhetoric. Has he really been a positive friend in need to Britain? Boris’s government seems not to think so, hence its rather havering stance in international affairs.By a similar inversion, Mr Biden may be no answer at all to the divisions in American society. He is a prime representative of the out-of-touch political class against which so many American voters have turned in the past 20 years. And although his own way of talking is mild and unideological, he has taken the knee – literally and metaphorically – to the most powerful extremist movement in modern America. Repulsive white militias undoubtedly threaten order, but they are essentially reactive. The doctrines of Black Lives Matter are more proactive in dividing America, undermining its education and culture and disturbing its peace. If he wins,  Mr Biden could well become their feeble apologist.Then, of course, there is the question of character. Anyone thinking of supporting Mr Trump should face the fact that he is pretty horrible. His vulgarity is not the problem – in some respects, it is an advantage. It is his mean-spirited bullying and, above all, his monumental selfishness. Whenever one starts to admire his courage and energy – as I find myself doing when, aged 74, he so swiftly bounces back from a disease that has killed thousands of much younger people – one stops and wonders what it is all for. The answer is Donald J Trump.Because the president is the head of state, not just the head of government, this matters. To adapt Bagehot’s famous phrase about our constitution, he has to be both dignified and efficient. Mr Trump has no dignity. Even if he claimed his longed-for place on Mount Rushmore, he would somehow acquire a granite boot with which to kick his opponents. Thanks to him, the negativity at the heart of all egotism is wounding America.But then again, is a 77-year-old political hack of failing powers the person with the energy to heal the wounds? At roughly this stage in the 2016 election, I complained in this space that “the choice between a possibly ill, somewhat tainted establishment figure of the 20th century [Hillary Clinton] and a brash blowhard egomaniac would be highly unwelcome”. It was. Yet it is precisely what America has got, again.If I could vote in this election, I suppose I would go for Mr Trump. In his nominations for the Supreme Court, he has chosen well-qualified, thoughtful judges who respect the words of the constitution rather than reinventing it for political purposes. He is nobody’s poodle and is untamed by the elites which have failed his country. Mr Biden, though he would be a nicer next-door neighbour, is that generation’s last, tottering, second-rate representative. Yet I feel so pessimistic about either man that I am positively glad to have no role in deciding.How did America get into this mess, and how can it get out of it? At present, the system seems to stop anyone with good answers even trying for either nomination. &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;Read more:&nbsp;Related TopicsThe Telegraph values your comments but kindly requests all posts are on topic, constructive and respectful. Please review our.You need to be a subscriber to join the conversation. Find out more.Show commentsAdvertisementRelated TopicsWe rely on advertising to help fund our award-winning journalism.We urge you to turn off your ad blocker for The Telegraph website so that you can continue to access our quality content in the future.Thank you for your support.Need help?Visit ourpage.Close

Before the , was much criticised for drafting two columns for this paper – one advocating Remain, the other, Leave. How cynical, people complained – almost like tossing a coin.Yet even people with strong beliefs should look before they leap from their general principles to making a particular practical choice. Margaret Thatcher famously claimed to act out of conviction, but one of her favourite sayings was “Time spent in reconnaissance is never wasted”. You need to calculate whether your action will achieve the outcome you wish for.I am thinking about this because of the choice the American...

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Charles Moore

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Who is worse – Donald Trump or Joe Biden? I don’t envy the decision facing US voters

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