Michael Tomasky and Virginia Heffernan officiate! ‘Trumpism’ washes clean all former sinners?
Jun 16, 2026
Political Cynic : TNR on the Hunter Biden political rehabilitaion offers no surprises ?
Hunter Biden is back, seven years drug-free, and spoiling for social media fights. He’s won kudos for his (only slightly creaky) clapbacks to his haters. “Hunter went from smoking crack to smoking MAGAs,” observed one fan last week. Last seen advising his father to defy common sense by staying in the 2024 presidential race, Hunter is today owning his crackhead days and flexing his recovery from addiction. He’s even launched a kind of secular ministry with the hope, he says, of “giving people the space to talk about what they’re going through” and helping them see “the incredible promises they can receive if they stay the course” of recovery.
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Sobriety proceeds a day at a time, and it’s hard to know what Hunter Biden’s interior life is like these days.
On the one hand, Biden has exhibited real candor and willingness to help others in his recent tweets and interviews. On the other hand, it’s not clear how close he stays to the moral demands of true sobriety. “I know what I’ve done, I know the amends I have to make,” he now says. But Lunden Roberts, the mother of one of Hunter’s children, has written movingly and without rancor about raising their daughter in Arkansas while Biden first refused to acknowledge his child, then paid less than expected in support, then seemed to ghost his daughter. Making a complete amends to one’s children and partners is usually considered a first step toward lasting sobriety.
As Hunter Biden would surely be the first to attest, the path to sobriety is winding and difficult, and, as A.A. says, “We seek progress, not perfection.” Biden’s voice is welcome in the public sphere, and not for the zingers. Rather, he has opened the possibility—just the possibility—that with attention to our moral responsibilities we Americans might one day find a less furious, more honest, and more charitable way to live.
https://newrepublic.com/article/211754/hunter-biden-sobriety-better-trump
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