Show. Don't tell.
“Show, don’t tell” is one of the simplest guidelines in creative writing, and one of the most helpful. In short, it encourages writers to transmit experiences to the reader, rather than just information."writers.com: advice for writers
Joe Biden would be a far better choice for president than Donald Trump. Biden is competent. Trump is flagrantly criminal and autocratic. Biden is a centrist Democrat in the bipartisan tradition of American politics. Trump has remade the GOP from the center-right tradition of Reagan into a lawbreaking personality cult. Theoretically, Biden should be winning handily with by far the "bigger half" of the loaf of American electorate, but he is not.
He is sending the wrong message.
"Finish the job," is not just the wrong message. It is a dangerously self-destructive message. It is the kind of message that should make Republican campaign strategists rejoice when they hear it. Republicans should buy Biden ads, if that is his message.
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| From Biden's 2024 campaign kickoff video |
At the risk of inflaming Democratic readers, let me observe that Biden has many, many years of experience. Old, veteran politicians have experience working for them. It is a political asset. Calm, moderate older politicians like Biden have another built-in tailwind of presumption, that they have wisdom. A politician who looks and sounds like Biden has a third presumed attribute, that he won't do something surprising and dangerous. He is the safe candidate. Other people might sound off and invite Russia to go ahead and invade a NATO country, or say they will end the civil service system, but not a person who comes across like Joe Biden.
But every attribute is a two-sided coin. Biden is a preserve-something candidate who looks backward and holds onto the past. Joe Biden's "Finish the Job" acts as if the world ends at the end of 2028. Biden may be finished, but the world isn't. People are planning for their futures, studying to get a future job, starting families who will grow up, buying cars they expect to be driving for 10 years, funding IRAs for retirement 30 years away. I understand Joe Biden's orientation. Mentally he is wrapping things up. But most Americans aren't thinking about mortality. They are thinking about their futures.
What should Biden do? Start talking about the future, and be optimistic about it. Associate with visual signs of building things.
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| FDR at construction site of Hoover Dam |
Be Mr. Future with those chip fabrication plants. Be excited about AI's possibilities. Let others worry about protecting us from the AI future; there will be plenty of those voices. Don't be one of them. Be optimistic about the potential of AI. Don't admit to befuddlement about new things. Be delighted by them. What new things? New technology. New jobs. Young people have a wonderful future ahead of them, don't they?
If Biden is going to be shown around children or young adults, don't show him primarily as the sedentary sentimental grandfather. Position Biden as someone actively excited about things that will improve their lives. New playgrounds. New schools teaching computer skills. New college programs. Put Biden in front of public works projects and don't simply have him talking about the here-and-now jobs for union people. Have Biden talking about the wonderful, good things the completed project will do for future generations. Hoover Dam provides water for tens of millions of people. FDR never saw it, but future generations do.
The fact that this future-oriented Biden imagery may be hard to imagine, and that it sounds "off brand" and improbable, is proof of Biden's "age problem." Biden risks looking as artificial as did John Kerry in duck-hunting gear. Don't put Apple or Mega virtual reality headsets onto Biden. But he could be standing next to people wearing them.
Don't put him in a bucket lift pretending to repair a wind turbine, but show standing next to it, with him thrilled with the power they will generate for decades to come.
Trump talks about the future -- a dystopian one as regards democracy -- but also an imagined better one that is crime free, with great medical care, with America's borders orderly, with a world at peace. Trump isn't the one to get us there, but he talks that game. Biden, too, needs to be about the future, a more probable and democratic one, but one equally free, safe, and prosperous.
If it is truly impossible for Biden to look future-oriented, then it is in fact necessary for him to step down, as LBJ did in March of 1968. But if -- and since -- Biden is fated to be the Democrats' candidate then he needs to turn from the past toward the future. And show us that he means it.
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10 comments:
“If Biden is going to be shown around children, don't show him primarily as the sedentary sentimental grandfather.”
That’s right, show him playing football with them. Sorry, but it’s hard to imagine Biden looking future-oriented. On the other hand, Trump is well-represented by the “NEVER SURRENDER” signs his supporters carry showing a picture of the mugshot he surrendered for. What the hell have we gotten ourselves into?
I couldn't agree more with this analysis. And I'm sure the Peanut Gallery will excoriate you for "hating Buden".
I also strongly think you make a great case for the President to step aside, announce like LBJ that for the Good of the Country , he will not seek reelection this year, as he more or less promised in 2019 to be a One Term President. Throw it open to the younger Democrats who out of respect, are not challenging him, and I'm sure there are some who can present a better case than Dean Phillips.
Pictures of Biden with children appeal to families.
Biden, an experienced and intelligent politician, is what America needs now.
He has kicked butt the last three years.
He is also well-respected internationallly.
He's got my support (time, money and vote).
He was nominated last go-round on the basis that he was the safe candidate.
Dynamo Joe requires blinders larger than the virtual reality headset you pictured. On you, not him.
In this new era of AI, just generate a video of Biden both throwing and catching the winning pass in the Super Bowl, and then being kissed by Taylor Swift. Once he catches the pass, the video could show him breaking free of a tackle by Donald Trump.
Peter addresses an advertising problem and he is correct. "Finish the job!" is far off brand and target. A Reaganesque optimism about a better future is the correct approach. That said, it would be best for Biden to step down, and one principle reason for that is it allows a more gentle tossing aside of Kamala Harris, a deadweight for sure. Many, including me, have largely forgotten how strong the Democratic candidate team was a few years ago, and still would be. I think Biden has been a masterful president, exhibiting excellent judgement about some extremely vexing issues and he has proven that bipartisan achievements are still within reach...but not with Trump, obviously. And I think an element of Biden's success is that he has not been a lame duck...yet. But it's coming close to the time when it will be safe for Biden to be an announced lame duck and then we'll see what emerges from the scrum.
If the D’s were smart, they would send Joe off to elder politician assisted living, and appoint Kamala as Ambassador to Outer Obscuria. Then they might have a chance to win in November, if they could avoid nominating a progressive crackpot from “the squad.”
“Biden is competent”.
Okey-dokey. From Afghanistan to date. Competent, as in preferable to Trump?
Absolutely and without question preferable to Trump. Biden actually cares about people, our country and our democracy. It isn't Biden who is demented, but those who would prefer Trump.
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