I went to see a new doctor, and his office was in something called a “Professional Building.” I felt better right away George Carlin
It’s the economy, stupid! God knows that’s what Trump wanted the campaign slogan for this campaign to be. Instead, because of his almost other worldly stupidity and incompetence, the slogan has been rearranged into It’s the stupid economy!, although trump is still trying to run on the stock market as if that were the economy. But because of his criminal bungling of the coronavirus pandemic, Trump not only wrecked his only running platform, but he created a new #1 general election priority, one he can’t run on, and that Joe Biden is nailing pitch perfect.
It’s the healthcare, stupid! That is going to turn out to be the number one issue at stake in the general election in my opinion. Here’s why. Last week, another 1.5 million Americans filed for unemployment. My wife Teri is lucky, the company she works for is continuing to cover the cost of her healthcare insurance while she’s furloughed, including her normal payroll deduction. But for the majority of Americans on unemployment, they are left with the unpalatable choice of covering the entire monthly premium themselves, or being uninsured until they are recalled to work. And this choice comes in the middle of a deadly pandemic.
Last Saturday night, El Pendejo Presidente spent 1:40 in a 1/3 full arena in Tulsa, ranting like a drunken sailor on shore leave. And in that time, he never even laid a finger on Biden. In fact, he consciously avoided naming him at all preferring to raise the sexist and racist dog whistles of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton instead. He did this basically because his own internal polling was showing that he just can’t seem to come up with an effective way to attack an older white guy. He just can’t find anything that has any buzz for his racist and xenophobic crowd.
Yesterday in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Biden gave about a 20 minute speech in which he laid Donald Trump to waste. Biden touched on the economy, and Trump’s pathetic response to the coronavirus, but he homed on on healthcare. Speaking as only a man who has lost a son to cancer can, Biden pointed out a woman whose twins had both been diagnosed with Leukemia at age 13. One of them just graduated college. He spoke of being unable to even conceive of having to make such decisions without the safety net of insurance. His empathy spilled out the speakers like a fog and filled the room.
Biden then immediately pivoted to advise the small but attentive audience that that very day, Trump’s Department of Justice was arguing in front of the Supreme Court to try to invalidate the entire ACA. Never mind the millions of unemployed without insurance, Trump wanted to take away insurance for 20 million people in the middle of a pandemic. Biden then reminded the audience of the devastating fact that losing the ACA meant that the act of surviving the coronavirus could get you a preexisting condition label that would allow insurance companies from providing you access to healthcare in the future.
Biden laid out a basic framework for his new healthcare initiative, promising to have it on his website in two weeks. Biden hammered Trump on the economy, as well as his botching the entire coronavirus response. And he took him to the woodshed for coming right out and saying that he wanted to slow testing down, because it made him look bad. But the overarching theme of the speech was healthcare, and it was devastatingly effective.
I think that Biden is right. Unemployment and healthcare are the top two issues in the country today, and they’re intricately linked. And if, as expected, we see a second surge in the fall, then these two topics are going to top the charts again, mere weeks before the election. And the more he hammers this issue home now, not only does he separate himself as the candidate for the people on healthcare, but the more he brands Trump as the enemy of his own constituents where healthcare is concerned. By all means, respond to other issues as they arise, but don’t forget about healthcare in the passion of the moment. It’s the golden ticket.
*Bonus Pun*
I was thumbing through a magazine and saw a pun contest, with a $100,000 grand prize. Being a Zen Master of puns, I locked in and went to work. Over the course of a week, I submitted 10 separate puns, each better than the last, and sat back to wait for the judges to tell me which one had garnered the prize. But alas, when the judging was complete, no pun in ten did.
To know the future, look to the past.before the insanity of the 2020 election, relive the insanity of the 2016 GOP primary campaign, and the general election, to see how we got to where we are. Copies of President Evil, and the sequel, President Evil II, A Clodwork Orange are available as e-books on Amazon, at the links above. Catch up before the upcoming release of the third book in the trilogy, President Evil III: All The Presidents Fen
Follow me on Twitter at @RealMurfster35S
Think back to 2008 and 2012. The GOP didn’t want to hear the name Bush, and if they did they wanted to extoll the first President Bush and feign amnesia over his son also attaining the WH. It didn’t work out well in either Presidential race for the GOP but there’s a cautionary tale upon closer inspection.
In 2008 general weariness with Bush propelled Democrats to a wave election that extended down ballot. However, the GOP came back with a vengeance with Koch Brother’s money fueling the “Tea Party” (I still crack up over the memories of them calling themselves tea baggers until some asshole finally clued them in on what that term meant) in 2010 they flipped the script with Obama still in the WH. Obama didn’t win by as large a margin in 2012 but it was still a comfortable thrashing of Romney. However, the groundwork put in for the 2010 midterms had metastasized all too well and until 2018 kept the GOP in control of not just Congress but way too many states – in many cases with GOP supermajorities.
On election night (and afterwards) in 2008 Obama tried to tell everyone that the real work was just beginning and that it would take multiple election cycles to get where the country needed to be. But far too many sat back and simply rejoiced, or rested on the laurels of that wonderful victory. Or worse, got infected with the “purity virus” and either voted Green or sat out subsequent elections. What I fear is a repeat because Biden is going to come in with every bit as big a set of challenges as Obama faced. Probably even worse. One election, even a wave won’t be enough. Not even close. Not even two or three straight wave elections will be enough to fix everything.
But take this to the bank. All those never Trumper Republicans including the Lincoln Project folks who are trying to eject Trump will turn right around and start work on cutting the cancer of Trumpism from the GOP and will, in the midst of several giant messes that won’t be fixed by 2022 will be trying for a repeat of 2010 and will turn every ounce of their fire on Biden and Democrats. Even if Biden wins in a walk this fall I promise you by 2024 he or any Democratic nominee (if he doesn’t run again) will face withering fire from all those Republicans who are only TEMPORARILY allied with us. We need to be ready for that cause it’s a coming.
You’re overlooking one critical difference in your math, Denis: the slow motion exit of the Boomers, which the Lincoln Project number among. The 2010s may well be the last moment they could flex any significant political muscle and what passes for GOP leadership is full of Boomers who have maybe another five to ten years in their gas tank. Also, worthy allies though the Lincoln Project have become, NEVER forget that a) they were helpless to stop Trump’s rise and b) it was only when we the Dems that they had any worthwhile opposition they could latch onto.
So my theory is that the Republican exiles have now landed in the spot the Dems found themselves in 1980. If anything, they got even more clean-up to do than the rest of us.
You raise a worthwhile point, yet even 5-10 years given what we face is a long damned time. There’s also the fact that these same temporary allies spend decades steering us towards this cliff, assuming until the last couple of years (most of them) that as before when needed they could adjust the course of the political equivalent of an Ultra-Large Crude Carrier (gigantic oil supertanker) away from the precipice. Unfortunately Trump set it full speed ahead towards a Niagra Falls type drop at full speed. You can’t simply bring it to a quick crash stop. Even at low cruising speed it takes upwards of a half-hour and at least seven to eight miles to “crash stop” a ULCC under a full load. That’s the situation we’re in now. We’re in an ongoing political disaster and our new allies are trying like hell to repeal the laws of physics regarding a ship they built and set in motion.
The kind of power they’ve wielded is intoxicating and the lust for it has surely been passed down to some of their offspring. IOW I fear that even if these new allies can stop the ship in time, instead of blowing it up they, or more to the point their younger cronies they’ve mentored and/or their children (at least some of them) will somehow just steer it over the horizon and sail it right back into danger (for fixing our nation’s problems) as soon as Trump is out of office.
I do think you’re on to something with younger conservatives. Many are as rabidly anti-abortion as the older gang and their desire for ironclad control of the Judiciary is just as fervent as it’s been since the days of Reagan. The good news (such as it is) is that aside from the abortion issue they aren’t going to be recruited into the culture war crap that Rove is hoping to get injected into this election. That shit has worked with a lot of Independents in the past and could work one last time or two so we have to be ready to counter it. Basically I don’t think we have five or ten years to wait the current leaders out because enough more damage can be done by then already long odds against repairing the gaping wounds in our democracy will simply be too much to overcome.
Compared to four decades of Republican rule, five to ten years is a heatbeat…and as I said, a failing heartbeat at that. The damage is done and will continue to be done, yes (semi-topical sidebar: why is it every time I point out that the GOP is actually failing, someone needs to point out all the damage done and compounding as though I somehow missed it and the work needed to clean it up? At this point, it’s crying over spilt milk until further notice) but their ability to profit off such has been self-destructed. That offspring is going to start off on the back foot and will stay there for a while. White supremacy don’t cut it no more, as W tried to warn ’em. Maybe NOW they’ll listen.
Oh and when Biden is elected, the waiting is officially over. That’s when we get to work…and I suspect few people will be in the mood for the old games.
Wellll… I guess that makes you a pundit.
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