Trump is more "Trump" than ever. Lucky Democrats.
Donald Trump gives Democrats a path to victory in 2022 and 2024.
We are still in the era of Trump. Biden is president, but Trump commands center stage and sets the agenda for the public mood. Polls show a majority of Americans accept Trump's take on Biden's economy (a disaster), Biden's foreign policy (mishandled), Biden's border and immigration policies (invasion), and Biden's COVID response (ineffective, tiresome tyranny.) A majority say America is on the wrong track. People are sick and tired of COVID and want to blame someone. Pew.
Biden means well. He is not the evil socialist tyrant that critics on the right claim. He does not have the majority he needs to do the job Democrats expected. That disappoints them. Republicans revel in obstructing him and he is easy to obstruct. That makes him look weak. Public health hawks--and still-overflowing hospitals--won't let Biden declare victory over COVID. The economy is so strong that inflation is a threat. A significant job of the president is to embody and voice a narrative that describes the state of our union. Biden cannot transform into a vigorous leader inspiring a nation with a tone of new energy and purpose, even though the story he could tell is a good one. We knew Biden's limitations from day one. Biden being president means no other Democrat can play that role. Trump takes the opposite side and sells it.
There is one big opportunity for Democrats: Trump himself.
Trump announced in Texas that if he returned to office he expected to pardon the January 6 rioters. He urged more protest violence if prosecutors in Georgia, New York, and D.C. brought charges against him. He isn't hiding from being a provocateur; he is doubling down. He is openly signaling to people who might testify against him that he is ready to pardon them the way he pardoned Steve Bannon, Michael Flynn, Roger Stone and others. Trump is planting a flag. January 6 and his efforts to overthrow the election were good and proper. Trump isn't about being good. He is about beating the rap.
This is a kind of "Swift Boat" approach. George W. Bush took the worst comparison between himself and John Kerry--Bush's irregular service in the Air National Guard vs. Kerry's medal-winning Vietnam service--and reversed the polarity. Don't hide a weakness. Make it an unapologetic strength. Attack the opponent's strength. Bush's campaign attacked Kerry for being a shirking coward, dodging incoming bullets on the Mekong River. Vietnam was far away and long ago. Bush got away with this re-frame.
Trump's behavior is current. Prosecutions on the January 6 insurrection and Trump's plan to overthrow the election are front and center now. We see the forged electoral votes, the invented Justice Department claim of vote fraud, Trump's plea to Georgia to "find votes," and the plan for Pence to discard votes. In New York and Georgia we see state crimes prosecuted. Even Trump-loyal Republicans want to avert their eyes. Let's look at the good things Trump did, not this, they say. There is political space there for a Republican and people are trying to claim it.
Trump is being Trump. He won't let them take that space. To be a Republican and not be a "Wacky Susan Collins," one needs to eat the whole Trump meal. January 6 rioters were patriots and the 2020 election should have been overturned. He said it aloud in Texas and he posted it:
Trump had the political room to "clean up" and mellow. GOP voters would still go along. Instead, Trump says openly that he wanted to overthrow the 2020 election.
A great many Americans will go along with Trump. Americans' commitment to democratic process is fragile. They want the win, not the democracy. But Trump is taking away the fig leaf allowing Republicans to pretend they support both Trump and the democratic process.
"He could have overturned the Election!"
GOP candidates cannot hide from this. Trump isn't moving on. Trump is making this part of the GOP brand and message. That gives Democrats a huge opportunity. Sweet are the uses of adversity.
9 comments:
Republicans have been pretending for a long time to not be what they are. Racist- no, but let’s not let black people vote or at least make them wait in line for hours to vote. Gerrymandering is totally great if it helps us outrageous if it helps them. Strong on national security, but if Trump says it’s ok to invade Crimea, Ukraine, then no problem, let the Russians take whatever. Believe in democracy, but praise Putin, Brazil president, Turkey president or any other right wing anti democratic despot. Let’s see if those good republicans who do believe in democracy vote for democracy or continue to support those who are willing to overturn legitimate elections.
A few observations--
1. Biden only "means well" to the extent he indeed is not an "evil socialist tyrant", which few really claim, or at least really believe. He is the mumbling, bumbling shell of the mediocre, blustering serial liar he was at the peak of his powers. He is controlled by the far-left wing of his party, the new Democratic establishment.
2. Democrats do need Trump, and desperately, though it won't help them much in 2022. Amusingly enough, CNN and MSNBC say "Trump" at about ten times the rate they say "Biden", the sitting president, to whom they devote about a quarter of their news hours compared to the former president. Biden is literally bad news for Democrats. So is Harris.
3. Tendentious and ultimately self-defeating language again, legally anyway, with "overthrow". "Overturn" is apter, because even in his latest dead-horse bloviation Trump pays explicit lip service to the rule of law. Similarly, there was by definition no "forgery" because the Trump team considered them the legitimate lawful electors. He loses--has lost--in civil (election) court, but proving he possessed the criminal intent to deceive or defraud is another matter.
Biden was hardly the best choice for Democrats, but he’s a decent human being with tons of experience. In contrast, the Republican Party leader is an ignorant, racist compulsive liar who tried to overthrow the government and continues undermining our democracy with his election lies. That’s why Trumplicans love him, but let’s not assume the majority of Americans are that crazy and/or stupid.
Biden has been sailing the ship of state into a headwind of crises beyond any president’s control, but which Republicans gleefully blame on him. In spite of that his one-year approval rating is higher (barely) than Trump’s was, even with all the advantages Trump had inherited from President Obama.
Reports of Biden’s political demise have been greatly exaggerated, although giving them too much credence could conceivably turn them into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
You dance with the one you brought to the dance. Biden is our dance partner. It maybe a slow dance but he's dancing with us. He shares our center left leaning values. He believes in little d democracy. He nourishes the three branches of government. He is defending the Constitution every day. He turns back attacks on him and his office while saying let's work together to make our government work for all.
Biden inherited an enormous mess left behind byTrump and the Republicans. Let's work with him while we use the channels of our government to raise and repair our Nation. GDUST(God save US from Trump)
I'm not sure if this is completely on topic, but I'd just point out that the Republican party pretty much conceded the 2016 election and were just fine with Trump as a substitute who could take the loss without incurring any harm to the party.
He won...oops.
The upcoming election has more at stake. I'm pretty sure Republicans are a lot less inclined to hand it over to the loser of 2020, insurrectionist who just keeps digging. BTW, I'm confused. Is Biden an evil socialist tyrant or a dementiated incompetent who just lucked out and won the Presidency? Both?
We'll see, I guess...
Let's not discount the possibility of a 3rd party right wing Independent, Libertarian, AIP or whatever siphoning voters from Trump as well. OH, and FBI, IRS, SDNY and 1/6 Committee. We have a ways to go.
I don’t think that denouncing Trump (who is currently not in office) is going to be a winning political message for the Democrats in 2022.
The surveys I have seen show that voters care about the economy and Covid. The Democrats are not doing what the voters perceive to be a great job with either of those. The horrible blundering withdrawal from Afghanistan was the cherry on top of that unfortunate political sundae.
Yes, Mikchael T, carrying out the exit from Afghanistan according to agreement put in place by Pompeo and Trump was definitely an error. Doing anything left in place by the Former Maladministration, other than trying to repair everything Trump and his merry band of venal incompetents is a mistake.
Biden is wonderful for the country and the planet.
It's so easy to see where your loyalty lies, comrade.
edc.pers--
Information readily available on Google even from sources in your own partisan cloister is the friend of an intellectually honest and moderately well-informed person.
The Trump administration certainly had plans to leave, but on a provisional, not hard and fast deadline, in case evolving circumstances didn't warrant (such as the precipitous advance of the Taliban in the Biden administration months before Biden's wished-for 9/11 photo op). It had already been changed at least once before.
The Trump plan also did not include simply giving up the area's biggest U.S. airbase, complete with $80 billion in high-end military materiel, nor the killing of thirteen U.S. soldiers due to incompetent, rushed U.S. exit operations, nor the drone murder of ten Afghans including seven children, in a botched reprisal, after first lying from the top down about it being a "righteous kill".
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