Trump vs. Biden would be an epic boxing match

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 26/03/2018 (3037 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

I have come up with a genius idea for resolving prickly political disputes and raising a little cash for charity at the same time.

The idea for this fundraising dispute-settlement mechanism came to me last week as I pondered the sad fact that political discourse on this continent has sunk to the level of schoolyard bullies trading childish taunts.

Before we continue, out of journalistic fairness I will confess I personally was involved in a few of these sad scuffles when I was in elementary school, as we can see from the following transcript:

The kid next door: “My dad can beat up your dad!”

Me: “I don’t think so. Your dad is a dentist.”

The kid next door: “Yeah, well he was a tank commander in the Second World War.”

Me: “I’ll bet he used it to clean people’s teeth.”

So I had some childhood experience to fall back on when I tried to make sense of the ongoing Twitter battle between U.S. President Donald Trump and former vice-president Joe Biden.

The back-and-forth brouhaha began last Wednesday when Biden, speaking at an anti-sexual assault rally at the University of Miami, said he would have mopped the floor with Trump if the pair had gone to high school together.

Biden’s feisty taunt was a reference to the infamous Access Hollywood tape released during the 2016 presidential election campaign, wherein Trump made a series of lewd and crude comments about women.

“A guy who ended up becoming our national leader said, ‘I can grab a woman anywhere, and she likes it,’ ” Biden said. “They asked me if I’d like to debate this gentleman, and I said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘If we were in high school, I’d take him behind the gym and beat the hell out of him.’ ”

“I’ve been in a lot of locker rooms my whole life,” Biden continued. “I’m a pretty damn good athlete. Any guy that talked that way was usually the fattest, ugliest SOB in the room.”

Ouch, Joe! Them is definitely fighting words. Fortunately, Trump, what with being president and all, showed great restraint and refused to rise to the bait.

Ha ha ha! That’s what would have happened in an alternate universe. In this universe, Trump fired back early Thursday on his Twitter account, suggesting that “Crazy Joe Biden” would “go down fast and hard” in a fight against him.

“Crazy Joe Biden is trying to act like a tough guy,” Trump tweeted. “Actually, he is weak, both mentally and physically, and yet he threatens me, for the second time, with physical assault. He doesn’t know me, but he would go down fast and hard, crying all the way. Don’t threaten people Joe!”

What really got me thinking was when current Vice-President Mike Pence waded into this juvenile war of words, suggesting that he would definitely bet on his buddy, the president, if the two rivals got into a real physical altercation.

“You know who I’d be betting on,” Pence chirped on a conservative radio show, laughing. “This president is a guy that knows how to fight, fight for our agenda, knows how to fight for all of what we’re doing to make America great again. And he’s going to keep on fighting, I promise you.”

So, the thing is, there has been a lot of talk about Biden possibly making a presidential run, which would pit the former VP, 75, against Trump, 71, in the political ring.

Which is where my genius idea comes in. What if, instead of the political ring, we stuck these two loudmouths in an actual boxing ring, forcing them to strap on the gloves and chase each other around in a bid to slap each other silly before succumbing to heart failure.

It could raise a (very bad word) fortune for charity. I know what you are thinking. You are thinking: “Force two old geezer politicians to box each other in the squared circle? Oh, yeah, I would pay big bucks to watch that on pay-per-view. I mean, who doesn’t love charity?”

Before you send me angry letters on your “I (heart) peaceful conflict resolution” stationery, allow me to point out that this country, the True North Strong and Free, has already set a precedent for encouraging political rivals to settle their differences in the boxing ring.

Six years ago this coming Saturday, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau stepped into the ring in Ottawa in a charity boxing match against Conservative Sen. Patrick Brazeau.

When the two squared off, Trudeau was a serious underdog and Brazeau, covered in tattoos and sporting long black hair and rippling muscles and a black belt in karate, was the overwhelming favourite.

When the bell rang, however, the red-clad Trudeau clobbered the barrel-chested Brazeau, pummelling him in a third-round TKO that left the Tory senator with a bloody nose and spaghetti legs, and helped pave Trudeau’s road to the prime minister’s office. What’s more, they raised more than $200,000 for the fight against cancer.

Call me overcome with bloodlust if you must, but this seems like the perfect way to help charity and resolve nasty political spats at the same time.

Right after the Trump-Biden fight, we could possibly book Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister in a cage match against the nine members of Manitoba Hydro’s board of directors who resigned en masse last week because the premier refused to meet with them.

Sure, Pallister would have a serious height advantage, but he’d be fighting nine people at the same time, so that would make things more interesting.

I would also suggest that these charity scraps should be for all the marbles… because our political leaders have clearly lost theirs.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca