This week, Hunter Biden was convicted on highly politicized gun charges after a heartbreaking trial in which loved one after loved one testified about just how dark and self-destructive the president’s younger son became while in the throes of addiction. While the trial has been thoroughly covered in the media, it hasn’t been the kind of prurient, breathless spectacle one might expect; even Republicans, who pushed for the charges, don’t seem to quite know what to do with this ostensible win. In many ways, this is progress, evidence of a more sympathetic and humane approach to people struggling with substance use disorders, and a deeper understanding of how those same struggling people may act in ways that shock, scare, and devastate their families. But this sympathy has been hard-won, and comes less from moral and intellectual inquiry than from experience: More than 700,000 American families have lost a loved one to a drug overdose, and some 70,000 Americans overdose and die every year. As of 2020, the Centers for Disease Control said that more than 40 million Americans live with a substance use disorder. Each of these people have loved ones who worry about them and desperately want them to recover; many have done things while under the influence of drugs or fueled by addiction that they would never consider in their sober lives.

The Hunter Biden story is simply sad. But it is also revealing, especially when contrasted to the headline-making criminal trial of Donald Trump. In both cases, we see women doing what women so often do: Taking care of those who need help, even looking past serious misbehavior and deep betrayals of trust. But in one, we see a family rallying around a member in crisis, and a family patriarch doing his best to hold it all together, even to his own personal and professional detriment; in another, we see the family patriarch making decisions out of pure narcissism and self-interest, and expecting everyone else to clean up his messes. Both trials gave the public some insight into two of America’s most prominent families. Both families, like most families, have their flaws. But only one came out looking even........

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