Democrats are talking about Biden's character and his good heart.
If character mattered Trump wouldn't have been elected. What matters is strength to solve real problems.
Joe is a nice guy; Trump isn't. Joe is a hugger. Trump is a hitter.
This is Trump's point.
We know Trump's character. His bluster, bravado, exaggerations, name calling, divisiveness, cruelty, partisanship, intemperate tweets, and willingness to use the power of government to advance his own political agenda are good things to his base. Trump uses those tools to fight for his team. He is their fighter, and he doesn't play fair. He plays to win.
A lot of people like a winner even if he cheats, if they think it is clever and effective, and if they think the game is rigged anyway and that the opponent tries to cheat, too. That is how Trump describes politics--rigged. So Trump lies and cheats. He can do it and get away with it; the impeachment acquittal proved it.
Christian evangelicals share among themselves thoughtful articles about what to do with the Trump character problem. They love him, but have no illusion that Trump exhibits Christian virtues. But they want to support him. They resolve the mental conflict by understanding that sometimes God uses unGodly people to serve Godly ends. Trump fights dirty in battles Christians want fought. Trump doesn't represent virtue. He represents strength.
Convention Democrats miss the point, indeed--worse--they are making Trump's point for him. Speaker after speaker spoke to Biden's empathy, his good heart, his concern for women, the pain he has endured. They make Biden seem very compassionate. The underlying message is opposite from Trump's. Nice compassionate Biden takes a beating from life. Trump doesn't take beatings. He dishes them out.
Trump's supporters didn't think Trump was a nice guy or compassionate when he humiliated Jeb Bush, calling him wimpish "low energy;" or Lyin' Ted Cruz by saying wife was ugly and that his father was maybe involved in killing JFK; or trolling Barack Obama by pretending he was born in Kenya. They thought he was being a bully and getting away with it because he was the toughest kid in the schoolyard.
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| Joe, the hugger, hugging Beau in 2008 |
The nicer Biden is, the more suffering he endured and survived, the more Democrats sell the notion that Biden is in fact "sleepy," i.e. weak and decrepit, or "feminine" in a way many men had traditionally been thought to perceive "the weaker sex." That is the image that Trump is pounding in ads: Joe the victim. Poor, sad Joe.
The underlying message is that Joe will allow Americans to get bullied by the likes of Trump. Others will bomb us, terrorize us, move into our space internationally, cheat us in trade deals, steal our intellectual property, riot in our cities, and generally push us around and down, and Biden's America will endure it.
Americans don't want to suffer. We want to thrive. That is American exceptionalism. We are Number One. That is what Trump sold in the 2016 election and after. He would "bomb the shit" out of Iran, he said. Mexico will pay for the wall. China pays the tariff bill. The media is perceived as anti-Trump because they tell us none of that is true, but it sounds good. If there are bombs to be dropped, we drop them, others suffer.
Trump says international nice-nice rules be damned. Paris Accord? Forget it. Sacrifice for the planet's climate? Screw that. Pepper-gas a plaza to clear it of protesters to hold up a Bible? He showed who's boss.
Tonight Joe Biden can clear this up--or not. Joe Biden has the task of looking competent, of reading his speech in a way that shows him to be fully functioning. Yes, that.
He has a second task, to repair the damage of last night. Biden must show he is tough and strong. He doesn't do it by denouncing Trump for being a con man, because everyone knows it and it is irrelevant. Biden does it by denouncing external and internal enemies: violent hoodlums in our streets who hide under the cover of peaceful protests; China's theft of intellectual property; Russia's attacks on Ukraine and meddling in US elections; anti-competitive actions by Amazon against sellers on its site; Congress that cut taxes for the wealthiest in the 2017 tax bill; Republicans who want to take away health care.
There are plenty of problems to take on. We know Trump's character. The question is Biden's competence.
10 comments:
If we're going to focus on character, then Biden has none. Biden took bribes from China and Ukraine, and adjusted U.S. foreign policy as a result of taking bribes. Biden has been bought and paid for. Biden has also enriched his entire family with corrupt schemes. Biden is also a sexual harasser of women. You have to be seriously delirious to believe that Biden has good character.
I posted "Curt's" comments because they reveal the current standard Republican talking points. Biden got billion dollar bribes from China somehow. Biden as the sexual harasser. Biden enriching his family. It will work with people inside a Fox-Trump bubble. It fits a pattern: accuse others of doing exactly what Trump does. It goes beyond permitting "what-about-ism." It distracts. It also creates an odd defense because by indignant accusation of another for an issue it implies that Trump shares the moral opposition to it and therefore, obviously, could not be guilty of it.
If this "Curt" is Curt Ankerberg, then I would have expected more critical distance from Trump, since he is seriously on the outs with fellow Republicans and accuses them of being crony capitalists who use government to enrich themselves, and Trump would be a prime example of a practitioner and enabler. Curt writes in defense of Trump who is openly and proudly guilty of behavior that Curt Ankerberg disapproves of locally.
Trump's strategy of accusation is very effective and preserving the political enthusiasm of the Trump base, although it has the negative effect among independents of showing Trump to be a divider rather than uniter, and that notion seems to fuel the overall Trump disapproval polling. "Curt" helps Trump among the Trump-believing-base, but overall hurts Trump.
Peter Sage
The subtext of the convention is that Democrats are signaling to Republicans that if they abandon Trump and help elect Biden that all will be forgiven.
It's a mistake.
I think the Republican party is irredeemable, and that should be the focus. Unfortunately, with Biden as the candidate this is not going to happen.
The warm and fuzzy portraits they are painting fly in the face of reality. The problem Democrats have is their own culpability for the situation which makes it difficult for them to cast blame elsewhere. Trump is the Republican's force field. He can absorb all the attacks and shield them since Democrats won't call them out directly.
Conventions are infomercials aimed at the undecided. There aren't any.
Meanwhile, Portland is providing Trump with a blatant propaganda example (along with Seattle, Chicago, etc) of what America can look forward to if Democrats take over. Who needs police when you can have “restorative justice” and “restraint” for the few police that are left after most of them are “abolished?”
I think the Democrats had better wake up to how their extreme left faction makes them look and do something forceful about it. Maybe they can start by shipping a spine implant to Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler.
It's Time to Pray
Let's hope Biden can pull the convention and campaign out of its rapid loss of altitude. As both the New York Times and Washington Post have reported, party officials are worried at the poor viewership and lack of enthusiasm for Biden by anyone other than the media. CNN didn't help with its bitting criticism of having Bill Clinton speak and the abandonment of #MeToo rhetoric while Clinton is still in the news on just what he did at Epstein's resorts. I almost turned off the liberal FiveThirtyEight.Com podcast late last night as all four commentators bemoaned the default of the convention in laying out any concrete path forward other than defeating Trump-- which cannot be done without much higher enthusiasm than we are currently seeing. They noted the absence of any poll bump from nominating Senator Harris or Michelle Obama's speech.
The campaign strategy of claiming "centrism" is at odds with the requirements to get turn out by progressives and Blacks. Blue commentators are disgusted that AOC got just 60 seconds while time is wasted with boring endorsements by GOP never-Trumpers like John Kasich, Colin Power and Cindy McCain. Not enough is being done to address the depressing statistics that Democrats are polling worse with Hispanics now than with Hillary. This has caused the campaign and convention to not talk solutions because if centrist solutions are announced, then progressives and BLM activists will revolt. For the same reason, the speakers are largely mum on law and order and riots and looters.
It's time to pray that Biden fixes most of this tonight. Until he is forced out of the race by pressure, resignation or natural causes, he is all we have in the way of a "standard bearer". The sooner Senator Harris is put at the top of the ticket the better. Let's hope Biden doesn't cause any more damage in the meantime.
When Peter Sage "canonizes" Joe Biden as being a saint, then I have to call him out on it. Biden changed foreign policy to appease China and Ukraine in order to generate financial profit for himself. Biden is very unethical. Biden also has a dubious history of fondling women and young girls.
I'm not a Trump sycophant. Trump has his problems and issues, but I haven't found anyone better yet. Trump generally pushes the conservative agenda. There aren't a lot of good politicians out there. Most have been bought. Trump is an unbearable egomaniac and self-promoter. I wish that he'd shut-up some times. He also hasn't followed-though on his past campaign promises. I don't agree with everything he's done (like his tax cut). Yet....he's still better than Biden.
I don't watch FOX TV, and I never have. I don't watch TV news. I read lots of newspapers and websites including the liberal Seattle Times and the liberal Oregonian.
Medford and Jackson County are run (like the mafia) behind the scenes by the Chamber of Commerce, who spends hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy local politicians. The majority of local politicians in-power are corrupt, and they serve the Chamber and not the citizens. (That's why they are pushing a $60 million convention center). The Chamber mostly consists of socialists (and not conservatives like me), and they want government to subsidize all their projects. I don't know who Peter Sage considers to be the "republican party" that I'm on the "outs" with. I get along fine with the head of the Jackson County Republicans (Kevin Keating). The rest of the members I don't care about because they are under the influence of the Chamber. BTW....crony capitalism is rampant in Medford. The cronies have stolen more than $70 million from Medford taxpayers in the past 10 years. Other than Clay Bearnson, every other member of the Medford city council is under the thumb of the Chamber. They are dirty. Many have serious conflicts of interest. There's all kind of corruption that goes unreported in Jackson County (because the Chamber controls the media). You'll hear more about crony capitalism in the coming months.
Curt Ankerberg
Medford, OR
It always is good to observe the warnings that Peter gives, but this time I might have to disagree with him. Character did not matter in 2016, because there was so much anti-Hillary sentiment, and the perception that she was not a real alternative in character (Russian inspired idea tho it was).
This time is different, and just being anti trump might be enough. There is no such hatred of Biden. There is more now, however, - now there is Kamala! They can play the good-cop-bad cop roles, which might work.
I do worry that the ongoing takeover of the demonstrations by the looters and destroyers might undermine this election. It is time to stop, now, at least until after the election.
Agree with Rick: "Conventions are infomercials aimed at the undecided. There aren't any." I also agree with Curt's response to Peter re. "crony capitalism" (check out: Written in 1971 to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Lewis Powell Memo was a blueprint for corporate domination of American Democracy.) BOTH PARTIES are up to their eyeballs in it. Notice how the convention has sidelined the so-called "Left" (they are really just FDR mainstream liberals) with the "centrist hoedown" lovefest of Clintons and Obamas pushing the neoliberal agenda with the facade of identity politics. Clinton isn't a problem just because of his sordid treatment of women, people are getting "woke" as to how he sold the working class down the river by killing Glass-Steagall and supporting NAFTA, etc.
The system that we have gives voters two options to vote: 1)the party of resentful oil billionaires or 2) the party of private-equity billionaires. Both parties represent the wealthy class and, friend Curt, their corporate media allies keep us at each other's throats.
But I have special antipathy for "my Party," because every four years they hold the shiny, kumbaya objects of identity politics and social justice issues while ignoring fundamental kitchen table economic issues and baiting and switching the Left. I'm an old guy and I've gotten used to these con artists, but young people who are more sensitive to hipocrisy...that will be this November's big sucking sound...to borrow a phrase, establishment Democrats will give up their monopolistic, neoliberal agenda when you can pry it from their cold, dead hands.
Andy Seles
Andy Seles
Well written, Peter. The comments are incisive without being hysterical. I read a poll that Biden is 12 points over Trump. (No cite) The Ds seem quite confident based on the D 3-4/day fundraising emails I get. Trump and the Rs haven’t a prayer. So why aren’t you and your readers as giddy w confidence as the D fundraising emails I get? Ds seem more confident than w Sec Clinton.
I think that Biden will become a time-bomb for Democrats due to his lack of mental capacity, and I think that Harris will become a liability because she is very unlikable as a person.
If we're talking about who can get the vote out for Democrats, then I think that the Democrats would have been better served by nominating Bernie Sanders for president and Liz Warren for V.P. I think that Bernie and Liz would have generated more votes for Democrats, but now it's almost impossible to change horses since Biden has received the nomination tonight. Bernie and Liz would have generated more excitement for Democrats than Biden and Harris.
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