The Bidens are the poor man’s Kennedys.
They hail from Delaware, not Massachusetts.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy was America’s youngest elected leader.
He was 46 when he was assassinated.
Joe Biden stands as an elderly stopgap.
JFK is (in part) remembered as a charming womanizer, while Joe Biden is often viewed as being somewhat creepy.
JFK was the victim of an intricate assassination plot.
Joe Biden is constantly victimized by average airplane stairs.
Even James Biden’s blunders pale in comparison to those of the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy ("Teddy").
The name Biden is, in essence, a discount brand.
Hunter Biden, however, stands out.
Mainstream media often paints him in a simplistic, self-serving light, but he is by far the most interesting character in the Biden clan: the underachieving, approval-seeking son of a less-than-savory politician.
The envious yet loving brother; the guilt-ridden, quasi-suicidal drug abuser.
Hunter is the "ugly duckling" of the family who never grew up, the prodigal son who returned too late.
He is Cain without Abel’s blood on his hands.
He wanted to be Hamlet, just so he could be on the right side of a screw-up for once in his life.
Beau Biden was the family’s golden boy, destined for greatness, perhaps even the presidency one day.
His untimely death upset the natural order, and his father’s eventual presidency turned into the ultimate act of corruption: the corruption of time.
If Beau was meant to elevate the Bidens to Kennedys, Hunter is a through and through Biden. Stuck living in Beau’s shadow, his only escape was to turn his life into a twisted eulogy for his lost brother.
His affair with his widowed sister-in-law and his stepping up to become a dependable cog in the political peddling machine Joe Biden was building for his twilight years, were coping mechanisms.
Clumsy attempts to seize the opportunity to be a reliable provider, like his brother.
Only his father’s shady retirement plan was derailed by an unlikely rise to the Oval Office.
That’s when the simplistic narrative of Hunter as just the "troubled son" of President Biden, a feral adult raised in a political jungle with very little human contact, falls apart.
Hunter is a fruit of the Biden political tree and carries the same blights from the seed.
Hunter is indeed the "troubled son," but more significantly, Joe is the "troubled father."
Their "troubles" have less to do with personal vices and everything to do with dubious dealings in Ukraine, China, and beyond — as well as the many attempts to gloss over those activities, painting them as something other, which it increasingly seems, they really are.
Hunter’s wayward ways, a seemingly family trait, exists in a completely different dimension from his struggles with addiction.
A point Trump missed by conflating them during one of the 2020 presidential debates.
While Hunter’s addiction struggle is, unfortunately, relatable to many American families, his moral bankruptcy, on the other hand, is the real, shocking character flaw.
He is a classic screw-up’s screw-up, a villain and victim, as he sinks and floats from one shady plot to the next.
Hunter’s conflicting nature, unequal parts party animal and good savage, is manipulated to humanize him: from predator to political prey, a black sheep turned sacrificial lamb on the altar of the family’s business.
Ultimately, we might never know if Hunter is Hunter or if Hunter is Hunter dreaming of being Beau.
Like Edgar Allan Poe, it feels like he is dreaming within a dream, except in his case, it's a nightmare within a nightmare.
One where Hunter is perpetually out of place, often found only in his underwear — clearly unfit for the boardrooms of foreign companies or the prestigious art galleries he frequents.
When you wash off the veneer of fixing the family’s unsavory engine, it's easy to see the exact type of place where Hunter Biden resides.
A place full of unloved men, brutalized by the world like himself, but also responsible for their choices. He is just another one of them, working his way through an arc of crime and punishment.
Only he has powerful allies trying to bend that into an arc of redemption.
Just another twist in the twisted tale of the Bidens.
Paradoxically, as more incriminating evidence surfaces, the likelihood of him facing consequences diminishes, as the stakes keep rising to levels that justify any actions by his allies to prevent their downfall.
All in the name of the "troubled" father.
(A related story may be found here.)
Cauf Skiviers writes about philosophy, economics, politics, and things that lie between the inconceivable and the undesirable. His reports also appear at: https://cauf.substack.com.