It is with mixed feelings that I even post this here because, emphatically, I am not in favor of the Democrats supporting a non-politician celebrity candidate for president, for obvious reasons. However, if Trump has not resigned and is actually running for re-election in 2020, then I for one am willing to stop at nothing to defeat him. We cannot lose the White House in 2020. Period. Full stop.
Here are a few of Avenatti’s policies, and a link to the complete list he posted today.
Climate Change and the Environment
Climate change is an urgent threat. I believe America should be a leader in taking bold steps to tackle climate change, including rejoining the Paris Agreement, investing heavily in renewable energy, reducing oil consumption, and setting more ambitious targets for cutting carbon pollution. I believe that America should be the world’s leader in clean energy.
Education
I believe that teachers shouldn’t have to work two or three jobs just to pay their bills. We must provide more financial benefits to our teachers. I believe that a kid’s zip code shouldn’t determine their future and that every child deserves a quality education starting from an early age.
Foreign Relations
We need to restore America’s place in the world and reassure our allies that America stands with them. I fully back NATO and our long-standing alliances, which we must now repair. We must also negotiate denuclearization agreements with North Korea and Iran. I believe we cannot choose Vladimir Putin over our own intelligence officials who put their lives on the line to keep our country safe. We should forcefully call out Russia as a serious threat to our democracy and make it clear that we do not serve at the hand of Vladimir Putin. We must impose severe consequences, not lip service, for Russia’s meddling in the 2016 elections and ensure that it never happens again.
Again, I am not suggesting a telegenic non-politician at the top of the Democratic ticket. I was appalled by the brief flirtation with Oprah as a 2020 candidate, based upon one rousing minute of defending the marginalized at the Golden Globes. Huffington Post called it a “liberal revenge fantasy.”
This made for a nice television moment. But because we live in a nightmare hellscape void of logic and reason, a consensus quickly formed among bien pensant liberals around the fantasy of Oprah running for president in 2020, as if a presidency could be constructed solely out of nice television moments. This was a revealing bit of wish-casting, suggesting among other things it’s not just Trump voters who are fatally unserious about our politics.
Against all odds, Donald Trump won. This fluke came about because a confluence of mistakes and terrible circumstances seems to have convinced people that the answer is to respond to nihilism with nihilism in kind. If we are to be ruled by political dilettantes, some people seem to think, why not a dilettante beloved by all?
Please let’s not do this again. Liberals want badly to believe they aren’t complicit in the Trump phenomenon, but what else was Trump but an expression of the same skepticism toward the actual work of politics that’s currently fueling the liberal Oprah fantasy? The dream is that Oprah is such a specimen of perfect virtue that she will create consensus wherever she walks. But the reality is that she’s so universally beloved right now largely because she is apolitical (notwithstanding her foray into cautious skepticism about war). Her career has been built not on organizing or governance or on taking particularly coherent positions on the events of the day, but on presenting a warm, telegenic figure whom people can build into some vague idea of a savior. It’s the worst elements of the Obama phenomenon, with the best elements — the actual political talents — stripped out.
Avenatti likewise presents a telegenic figure, not so much of warmth as of intelligence and strength. The need for somebody to come and save us from Trump is so profound that Avenatti might actually have a shot — and he knows this.
When Avenatti initially announced his candidacy it was blatantly a troll of Trump. And perhaps that is what is continuing to this day, or maybe he figures he’ll just grab the brass ring and we’ll help him. I guess we’ll find out as the months tick by if Avenatti is actually seriously considering a run on the Democratic ticket and who else is, for that matter. Personally, I think our best bet is Joe Biden and yes I know, he’s not a spring chicken. But Trump fears him. Trump purportedly likes to handicap potential 2020 challengers and Biden’s name comes up.
One former White House official outlined a theory of the case that has gained some traction: Trump’s policies will continue to be popular all the way through his reelection campaign, but his approval rating will never crack 45 percent — creating an opening for Biden, or someone like him, to recapture the loyalty of white Rust Belt Democrats who helped elect Trump in 2016.
“What we can’t let voters do is think they can get the same policies with someone they like better, like Joe Biden — someone who would fight for them but who doesn’t have the crass edge,” said the former White House staffer. “I hope CNN has Kirsten Gillibrand on every minute of every day. Love it. Bring it. She’s easy to destroy. If you’re the president, or the RNC, you’re more worried about someone who looks like Biden — someone who has more mainstream appeal, who blue-collar workers could identity with.”
Trump’s election skewed the American political process wildly. I’m not saying that the Democrats take it further off the rails with our own celebrity candidate with media savvy in lieu of experience; although Avenatti’s political research background and work for Rahm Emanuel take him out of the total amateur class. We don’t need another TV president, even one who’s a Democrat. However, if Biden doesn’t run, then I think we need to consider the field of available candidates and realistically assess who can beat Trump, because nothing else matters. Avenatti did state that he would run IF there was nobody else running who had a likelihood of beating Trump. It would be interesting to know who, in Avenatti’s opinion, fits in that category.
Let’s keep our eyes on the immediate prize of taking back the House, but after that we need to focus on the 2020 campaign. As if our lives depended on it.
