Biden and Trump have proven themselves to have radically different ideas about what strength looks like. Only one of them is right. Photo by Mario Tama/Bill Pugliano/Getty Images)

Contributing Columnist Jay Michaelson July 23, 2024

What is strength?

On a superficial level, it has to do with having power: fighting to the bitter end, and, of course, never losing. This is the strength of Pharaoh, and that of autocrats from Joseph Stalin to Benito Mussolini to Viktor Orbán. 

But true strength, at least in the Jewish tradition, lies neither in brute force nor the transitory power of military might, but in the quality of one’s character and one’s alignment with the sacred. (See Zecharia 4:6: “Not by might, nor by power, but with my spirit, says the Lord of Hosts.”)

Consider the humble Moses; David, a king but also a lover and poet; the courageous Esther. These heroes weren’t afraid to be vulnerable. They chose their words carefully. And when they succeeded — which was not all the time — it was because they placed their values and principles before their self-interest.

We’ve seen an apt illustration of this contrast this past weekend, between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.

What did Joe Biden do? It may have taken him too long to get there, but in the end, he made a decision no one has made since Lyndon Johnson in 1968, and dropped out of the presidential race. 

Clearly, as the drama of the three weeks since Biden’s disastrous debate performance have shown, this decision did not come easily. Joe Biden has been a fighter for his entire life. Younger people who know him only as the kindly old man may not know what an ambitious, blunt, and sometimes frankly obnoxious senator he was for decades. I believe, though I have no way of knowing, that it went against every fiber of his being to drop out. 

And yet that was, equally clearly, the right thing to do for his country. 

Is it true that winners never quit and quitters never win? Maybe in a shallow sense. But if Vice President Kamala Harris — the likely new Democratic nominee — wins the 2024 election, Biden wins too. So does the country.

Trump, in contrast, spent Sunday responding to his former opponent’s withdrawal with a series of adolescent, vulgar and grammatically incorrect posts on Truth Social.

First he unleashed an avalanche of insults and lies:

Crooked Joe Biden was not fit to run for President, and is certainly not fit to serve – And never was! He only attained the position of President by lies, Fake News, and not leaving his Basement. All those around him, including his Doctor and the Media, knew that he wasn’t capable of being President, and he wasn’t – And now, look what he’s done to our Country, with millions of people coming across our Border, totally unchecked and unvetted, many from prisons, mental institutions, and record numbers of terrorists. 

(For the record: Most outside observers say Biden’s decline is recent. There are not “millions” of people coming across the border; last month, border crossings declined to their lowest level since 2021. And there is no evidence that any are terrorists or from mental institutions.)

Then he complained about money, writing “Shouldn’t the Republican Party be reimbursed for fraud in that everybody around Joe, including his doctors and the Fake News Media, knew he was not capable of running for, or being, President? Just askin’?”

He even claimed, without evidence, that Biden didn’t even have COVID-19, after Biden’s diagnosis was announced last week.

Say what you will about Trump’s policies toward Israel, or immigration, or anything else, but surely you must admit this was a pathetic, vulgar display. Trump’s claim to be a “new man” after he survived an assassination attempt earlier this month didn’t even last the length of his convention speech. Instead, he used that occasion to ramble about the “late great Hannibal Lecter,” pledge to buy votes in Wisconsin, and offer kind words for Kim Jong Un and the Taliban.

Trump presents himself as a strong man, but these are the gibberings of a profoundly weak human being. I wouldn’t tolerate this behavior from my 6-year-old, and neither would any good parent. He’s just a bully. And we all know that bullies threaten others because of the fear and inadequacy they perceive in themselves.

For Trump, as with most strongmen, this symbolic strength is yoked to a particular conception of gender and masculinity. Threatened by feminism, multiculturalism, and LGBTQ+ equality, he and his followers — including such self-consciously manly men as Joe Rogan, Andrew Tate, Jordan Petersen and now Hulk Hogan — have doubled down on bad behavior, which they see as part of being an alpha male. As the scholar Jeff Sharlet has brilliantly written, Trump rallies revel in their supposed transgressiveness, as people say words that are supposedly forbidden and let their ids run free. 

They are the ultimate “safe spaces” — safe for misogyny, vulgarity, and profound moral weakness. 

And yet, in both Jewish tradition and today, there are plenty of other models of healthy, strong masculinity. 

As Daniel Boyarin wrote almost 30 years ago, Jewish tradition praises not childish braggadocio, but instead virtues like intelligence, integrity, reliability, honesty and real strength — qualities Biden demonstrated this past week, and that Jewish heroes and sages have demonstrated throughout history. They are not just men but mensches.

And now, Harris finds herself navigating the same tricky dynamic of strength, power, and gender as did Hillary Clinton a decade ago. She will be portrayed as either too feminine to be president, or too masculine to be “likable.” Her clothes and appearance are already endlessly commented upon; it will get worse. 

And yet, Jewish tradition is replete with strong women: Rebecca, Miriam, Yael, Esther, Deborah, Ruth, to name a few, not to mention generations of Jewish mothers who were anything but submissive and delicate. These women, and countless modern ones, show that true strength, integrity, and leadership are not tied to rigid ideas of gender — and certainly not to violent threats and playground taunts. There are richer ways to be human than the simplistic cliches of the right would have us believe.

Maybe, having just witnessed Joe Biden’s strength, heroism and humility, we can now find similar virtues in Kamala Harris. And in so doing, maybe we can see that they have no connection to any of the things Donald Trump boasts about each day on the internet. Indeed, they are usually the opposite.

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