Why do we have to settle for Biden or Trump?

THE betting odds say the next election will likely be a rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. It’s odd, because polls show most Americans don’t like either man. There are good reasons for that.

Trump is simply mean. He humiliates people, taking pleasure in mocking them publicly. In his real estate work, he’s famous for not paying little people who work for him. He stiffed a cabinet-builder, a dishwasher and a plumber. No one is too small to get bad treatment from Trump.

It’s sad that America is so divided today. Trump makes that worse.

Of course, Biden is divisive, too. Running for office, he promised, “I will draw on the best of us, not the worst.” But now that he’s president, he does the opposite. He calls his opponents “full of anger, violence, hate and division.” This is drawing on “the best of us”?

Then there are the lies.

Trump lies even about unimportant things, such as the crowd at his inauguration and the ratings for his TV show, even claiming he won a nonexistent “Man of the Year” award.

And, of course, he lies about the big things, such as winning the last election “by a landslide.”

But Biden lies, too. When Georgia required voters to show identification, Biden called that “Jim Crow on steroids.” He said that again and again. But that’s a lie. Jim Crow stopped Black people from voting. After Georgia’s law passed, a poll found “zero percent of Black voters said they had a poor voting experience.”

Biden has long lied to advance himself. He claimed he was “the first in his family ever to go to a university.” But he wasn’t. He plagiarized that line from a British politician. He lied about his law school performance, saying he graduated in “the top half of (his) class.” He actually ranked 76th out of 85. He repeatedly says he was arrested at a civil rights protest, but that’s not true. Then there’s the corruption. I hate political prosecutions, but so much of what Trump does is just sleazy. He paid a porn star hush money and lied about it. He refused to return classified documents and lied about that. He pressured Vice President Mike Pence not to certify electors, then whipped his supporters into a frenzy about it.

But Biden is corrupt, too. Asked about his son’s work in China, Biden firmly responded, “My son has not made money in … China.” But his son admits making money from China! Biden claimed he “never discussed with my son or my brother or anyone else anything having to do with their business, period.” But his son’s business partner says Hunter put his father on speakerphone when Hunter met with potential business associates.

Maybe Biden’s lies aren’t lies. Maybe he’s just old and confused. But that’s disturbing, too. Biden is 80. I’m old, too, but I just make videos. I’m not trying to be president.

Trump is old, too. He’s 77, but calls himself “a young, vibrant man.” A few years ago, he got a doctor to approve a letter saying Trump would be “the healthiest individual ever elected!” That doctor later admitted that Trump wrote the letter himself.

These are our choices.

Two old, corrupt liars? Can’t we do better?