As the presidential campaign of 2020 is kicking off, the Democrats find themselves choosing among fairly sloppy candidates.  Currently, Joe Biden is hanging on as the Democrats' 2020 frontrunner, but despite the former vice president's universal name recognition, at least two thirds of Democrats are shopping around for a different option.

It looks as if the broad field of candidates, dividing voter loyalties, is working to Biden's advantage.  His closest rivals — Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders — largely share the agenda but split the progressives.  Meanwhile, Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, Cory Booker, and Beto O'Rourke are each offering a different flavor of "progressivism," but they barely qualify for America's highest office and, according to the most Democrats, are unlikely to beat incumbent Donald Trump.

Even though Biden's path to nomination is going to be rocky, he looks like the most probable Democratic nominee, which raises a legitimate question: can Americans entrust Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. to faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States and preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution to the best of his ability?  Is he able to uphold this kind of responsibility?

That is where Joe may experience some real difficulties.

Here is a quick mental exercise. Imagine yourself being an absolute bystander to the American political struggle.  Forget your biases and emotions, and just ask yourself, what qualities do I want a president to possess?

Let us start with the simplest one – he has to be healthy.  Not just and foremost physically, but mentally and psychologically.  As the ancient Romans used to say, Mens sana in corpore sano — "a healthy mind in a healthy body," but those poor deplorable bigots knew nothing about body positivity.  Anyway, the president has to have a clear mind and needs to have full mental control and understanding of the space-time he operates in — let alone be knowledgeable on current events, names of foreign leaders, and the intricacies of the political, social, and economic dynamics of the country and the world.  He certainly needs enough stamina to operate around the clock, if needed, in extreme events.  Just like a former presidential wannabe Hillary Clinton, who peacefully slept in her bed during the Benghazi attack while serving as the secretary of state, Joe Biden is inclined to take it easy on himself.  Is he going to miss that 3 A.M. call, too, God forbid?

Biden's obvious mental decline has raised alarm even among his advisers, who recommend that the most popular Democratic candidate scale back his public events to limit the gaffes.  A "gaffe machine" is a nickname that now strongly associates with Joe.  Interestingly, some observers had pointed out in 2015 that the  "king of gaffes'" continuous blunders might knock him off the 2016 candidate list.  

Here is a quick mental exercise for those who identify as Democrats: if it were Trump who routinely confused things, if it were he blabbing incoherently and self-contradictorily and losing the thread of his own speech, if it were his eye filling with blood and his dentures falling out of his mouth while on stage, would you not cry over his "unfitness" for office?  Why do you call Biden's bizarre misstatements "honesty" and adorable expressions of "Uncle Joe's" character, and Trump's off-the-cuff remarks are dubbed racist, sexist, etc.? The main difference between Biden's "gaffes" and Trump's "bullying" is remarkable: Trump's language is merely a marker and embodiment of the massive popular demand for a fundamental transformation of the corrupt political system that did not work in the best interests of Americans, while Biden's is a sad indicator of his age.

Authenticity, sincerity, and honesty are surely the qualities that make a great president.  Although we would look not for the kind of authenticity that you need to "swallow a little bit," as Jill Biden urges — swallow Joe as he is, per se, because of his "electability" — but the one that can serve as a cornerstone for something much bigger and important: trust in the president.

According to the analysis of two-decade leadership and political management in North America, Western Europe, Asia, and Australia by James Kouzes and Barry Posner, the most important trait that people want to see in their leader is trustworthiness.  How do you build trust?  A trustworthy leader does what he says.  In that instance, one of Trump's mottoes — "Promises made, promises kept" — positions him as a non-typical political leader who actually keeps his word.

When betting on a candidate like Joe Biden, the Democratic Party fully reveals its failure to understand that the phenomenon of Trump was possible because of the alienation of the traditional Washington elites from the needs of the ordinary Americans.  The career politicians like Biden played the same old record over and over again, promising prosperity but delivering regression and economic decline; promising security, but delivering higher crime rates, including the racially motivated ones; promising peace and delivering war in far-off places.  They promised the truth but instead created an informational space deeply poisoned with a toxic political correctness that scorched earth for any reasonable discussion on the pressure points of the society.  Guess why they needed to muddy the waters of the public understanding of the vital issues: certainly to ease the manipulation of public opinion.

But as hard as you try, you can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.  That is why the "redneck revolt" has brought to power someone like Donald Trump — and will make him win again in 2020.  Because we care about the facts just as much as we care about the truth, Joe, and we do not separate them.