I know, I know. You’re wondering if you should even open this piece because you don’t want to hear it, and believe me, I don’t want to say it. But we are where we are and unless you want to become one of the Republican’ts and pretend reality is whatever you wish it was, we need to take a look at the facts. We are here, once again, in a situation where 100,000 voters in six states are going to determine the outcome of the 2024 election and the fate of the nation and tangentially the fate of the world. My stomach clenches contemplating this reality but contemplate it I must or go the way of the ostrich.
There are two articles you need to read in full. One is by Ruy Teixeira, who does a blog called Liberal Patriot. He wrote a piece a few days back, Five Reasons Why Joe Biden Could Lose. I found it hyperbolic and annoying and so I didn’t write about it at the time. But today, Jonathan Last at the Bulwark has written his analysis/rebuttal to Texeira’s piece and it rings true. Read it in full as well.
Remember the stakes that we are gambling for here. Joe Biden will undoubtedly win the popular vote and quite possibly by a lot. That you can bet on. But whether he pulls out the electoral college vote, in this madhouse environment we live in where the GOP is actively trying to suppress college students’ voting and state senate Republicans are pushing to eliminate drop box usage in Michigan, those 100,000 votes across a half dozen states become precious pearls. We can’t afford to lose one of them. And, for that matter, we cannot allow the turnout to be depressed or tampered with in any state.
Back to the point of these two articles, here’s what Texeira said are the five reasons Biden could lose.
- Biden really is an extraordinarily weak candidate.
- Trump may be a stronger opponent than Democrats expect.
- Biden and the Democrats have not moved to the center on cultural issues.
- Abortion may not be the silver bullet many Democrats assume it will be in 2024.
- There is a working-class sized hole in Biden’s re-elect strategy.
Here’s what Last rebutted.
I like Ruy, but with respect:
(1) How weak a candidate is Biden? He does not have a cult of personality like his two predecessors. But he is the incumbent president who got the second highest vote-share since 1988 and earned more votes than anyone in history. The economy is okay. We are not fighting a war. Unemployment is very, very low. He has avoided a primary challenge.
Traditionally you’d say that this makes Biden a relatively strong candidate.
Here are the losing major party nominees since 1980: Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, H.W. Bush, Dole, Gore, Kerry, McCain, Romney, Hillary Clinton, Trump.
Biden’s position is favorable to most—or even all—of them.
I’d say Biden’s position is average. Maybe you think he’s below average. But “extraordinarily” weak? I have a hard time seeing that in comparison to recent nominees.
(2) Who are the Democrats running around saying that Trump is a sure loser? I’m sure some of them believe this. David Frum (not a Democrat) thinks Biden is heading towards a realigning victory. I disagree with Frum. A realigning victory is possible, but as I’ve been writing here for 18 months, it’s also entirely possible Trump will win. Judging from public statements from Democrats and private correspondence with readers, I’d guess that this is the majority view. If it isn’t, then it should be.
(3) Moving to the center on culture. This is a little sleight of hand because Ruy says “Biden and Democrats” haven’t moved toward the center. President MOAR Police is certainly where the center is in the culture war. As for “Democrats” generally, sure, lots of Dems haven’t moved to the center. You see them on Twitter every day. But the guy who’s the leader of the party—and the party leaders in the House and Senate—aren’t anything like that. If the standard is Some Democrat in San Francisco or some prog on Twitter is saying something crazy, then the Dems are screwed. Because it’s a big country and that’s always going to happen, no matter how centrist national party leaders are.
(Question: Have many Republicans moved to the center? And will Biden’s opponent be in the center?)
(4) Who says abortion is a “silver bullet”? Again, this is a view I don’t see expressed often in Democratic circles. Certainly Democrats are hopeful that abortion could work to their advantage. (Or disadvantage, if not handled wisely.) But I don’t know anyone who thinks it solves every problem.
It’s a secondary issue, at best. If we’re knee-deep in a recession and unemployment is at 9 percent, then Trump can run on the promise to enact a total federal abortion ban and he’ll still win, no matter how unpopular that abortion position is.
(5) A successful reelection will have to focus heavily on working-class economics. Ruy’s absolutely right about this. Jobs. Jobs. Jobs. Infrastructure. Manufacturing. Biden should spend a very large part of his time on that message—just as he spent a very large portion of his first term on these issues. To the extent that Biden hasn’t pushed this front and center in his three-day old campaign, that’s fine. At the same time, I don’t think we have evidence that Biden isn’t going to have this as a centerpiece.
Here’s what I see as our strong suit here: it’s the economy, stupid. We have had outstanding job reports, frequently better than what we speculated we would have. IF this continues and IF the economy doesn’t unravel and we have a “soft landing” rather than a recession, Biden should do alright. Plus, the GOP keeps misplaying the abortion card. That worked to their disadvantage in 2022 and will still be doing so in 2024, is my bet.
Now you know exactly what I’m going to say next. It is UNBEE-LEAVEABLE to me that we’re even having this conversation, that the corpulent orange man with the bad combover, who melts down daily on social media about how persecuted he is, and whose own wife is embarrassed by his doings, should even be in the game at all is a testament to kakistocracy and not democracy. I can’t believe anybody would vote for the POS. But the sad facts remain that 63 million did in 2016 and 73 million did in 2020.
We live in a polarized, tribalized world. We dodged the bullet in 2020. I didn’t think we’d be dodging the exact same one in 2024. I thought that Ron DeSantis or some other Republican would stumble out of the pack and we would be, officially, in the post-Trump world, albeit with a Trumpist candidate. And maybe DeSantis will win the nomination, although at this point that’s a long shot. And the DeSantis/Biden matchup would be different than the Trump/Biden matchup, that’s for certain.
We haven’t had a defeated candidate, much less a former president, run for office against the same opponent since the 50’s, when Adlai Stevenson faced off Dwight Eisenhower in a rematch in 1956. Moreover, Grover Cleveland is the sole president in our history who served two non-consecutive terms. He was defeated in 1888 by Benjamin Harrison and then ran against him again in 1892 and defeated him. By a fascinating twist of fate, Adlai Stevenson I was Cleveland’s running mate, and his vice president, in his second term.
We’re not in the late 1800’s nor in the 1950’s. This is terra incognita. Anything goes.
And there is a strong possibility that Trump’s many lawsuits and his arraignment in New York has turned many people off. If we are a moral people, and the fact that Trump was drummed out of office in 2020 does validate that proposition, then Trump should be even more soundly defeated in 2024.
Here’s the bottom line I fear and it’s even worse than what I feared in 2020: If America puts Trump back in the White House, the United States automatically becomes a third world, banana Republic, regardless of our military and economic might. We will no longer be a serious nation.
We will be the country that gave you Coca-Cola, television, Mickey Mouse and then self destructed by restoring to power the one president who refused to allow a peaceful transfer of power. America, as we know it, will be gone and Trump, if he is restored to power, will never leave the White House. It’s as simple as that. I pray to God I don’t live to see such a thing. But, the odds are one in four and sometimes those odds prevail.
The real danger is complacency. If enough people believe that Trump is ‘unelectable’ they might not bother voting.
“After all, what does my single vote matter when he’s sure to lose?”
As someone who has lived in a really gerrymandered system I know only too well whet complacency can do. You think the Republiqanons are bad? You never had to deal with the Unionist Party and the Orange Order
ps – it was the Brits who started television (followed by the Germans who also invented cassette tape which led to VCRs)
Television was first unveiled at the 1948 World’s Fair, I believe.
In any event, to Trump: Complacency can work both ways. If people think Trump is totally unelectable, they might not go out and vote for Biden and that will be a disaster. OTOH, if the MAGAs are convinced this election will be stolen, they might stay home.
This is a very screwy political climate right now.
First scheduled BBC TV broadcast: 2nd November, 1936, 405 line 25 Hz frame (first experimental broadcast: 30th September 1929)
German TV broadcasts started 22nd March 1935, 180 line, 25 Hz frame
(on a side note. 25 Hz is half the AC mains frequency, which is why US Tvs use 30 Hz frame)
Tust me on this one Ursula – I’m a retired TV Service Manager LOL
Back to the orange excrescence on the posterior of humanity: His cult will vote because he tells them to and, like good little neo-facsists “Befehl is Befehl”. Unfortunately non-fascists can be too laid back, hence complacent
I’m sure you’re right. I remember reading in a college media class the fact that I just quoted to you. Would it be more accurate to say that the first networks and regular broadcasting originated in America? You mention the BBC and German broadcasts in the 1930s but who had receivers in those days? My point is, and correct me if I’m wrong, wasn’t the U.S. the first country where TV was practical because enough people had receivers for these broadcasts?
The Brit service stopped during the war (they needed the Cathode Ray Tubes for RDF, later yclept Radar – another Brit invention, also developed by the Germans), resuming regular tranmissions in June, 1946. Rather than list it, I’ll let you check on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_BBC_Television_Service
The German TV service continued in a very minor way – operating in Paris only for the Military hospitals. It resumed regular programming in 1948
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_television_in_Germany
Either way, both the Brits and Germans were well ahead of the 1948 US demonstration
I posted this earlier today. It does not involve any real thing you or I can do or even what the DOJ should be doing. It is about what our politicians can do. The ‘center’ my ass. It should be ‘Fire and Brimstone’. We will do what we can dream up to do and donate. But they need to take the pile of mud they have and turn it into bricks.
Many people think Democrats and Biden should use ‘dog whistles’ such as ‘MAGA’ and ‘extremest’ or ‘radical’ just as Republicans have used dog whistles for their racist and and bigoted agenda for fifty years. We are post-President Trump and post-insurrection. The old rules should have been thrown out the door by Democrats at least two years ago if not sooner. The dog whistles should be replaced with the unvarnished truth. We are in a battle against total fascism. Start educating the majority ignorant and apathetic population of America and the world. If Biden and all the rest of us start calling THEM what they are, fascist they will force MSM and the rest to talk about fascism and not Biden’s age or the latest vomit of the Manhattan Mussolini. Politicians generally sound like used car salesmen or boring teachers. Ours should sound like they are in a tent with sawdust on the ground and folding chairs. They should PREACH. Their job is to save the soul of America and the world.
The whole country could stand a good Tent Revival.
I absolutely agree with you. Fascism is at the door. Anybody who thinks that 2024 is just another election is nuts. 2016 was a watershed moment, a Ground Zero moment. Luckily, we held our ground in 2020. We need to work twice as hard and get out the vote. And absolutely, we need to call fascism and authoritarianism what it is.
I totally agree! I have been saying this since before the last election!! Yell it from the rooftops!! All Democrat politicians need to make some loud noise and some good trouble! Every last one of them should be screaming the truth about the fascist gqp! Take their money they receive and buy truthful advertising calling out the gqp. Don’t waste it again this time!
“The dog whistles should be replaced with the unvarnished truth. We are in a battle against total fascism.” Well-said, Walter! I’ve believed this was the approach the Dems should have taken all along. They are too “nice.” The truth will win the day.
Fat @ss has only a 1 in 4 chance on getting on the ballot in Michigan.
We don’t let people that try to overthrow the government on our ballots.