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But his emails

Published by Tom Sullivan on September 17, 2023

Don’t listen to the Sirens. Don’t look at Medusa.

It’s the GOP’s trusty “Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi” tactic. They’re gonna “But her emails” Joe Biden from here to next November. With help from a compliant, both-sides press again.

The GOP’s goal of course is to repeat unsubstantiated allegations often enough that they are the first impression that comes to mind when people think about the opposing candidate. Take for instance this word cloud Gallup assembled this time seven years ago:

It’s a variant of poisoning the well. Newt Ginrich taught them well. In the Trump era, the GOP has abandoned “Optimistic Positive Governing Words.” (Governing is no longer their aspiration.) But Republicans are still hell at “Contrasting Words.”

Republicans desperate to distract attention from their front-runner’s two impeachments, four indictments and an insurrection will flood the zone with “old,” “senile,” “corrupt,” “Hunter,” and “impeachment.” A little baseless impeachment here, a ton of innuendo there, and voila! Biden is damaged goods. Meanwhile, Donald Trump throws rallies the press will cover. They’ll humor him with uncritical interviews to get the exclusive.

As with Donald Trump’s campaign to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, the GOP will get as much face time in the (water-carrying) press as it needs. Their leaders will look into the cameras and make claims of evidence, massive amounts of it, against Biden and his “crime family.” Evidence we’ll never see because, as with “Stop the Steal,” there isn’t any. Just plenty of wars and rumors of wars. Massive amount of unseen evidence was enough to provoke a violent insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021.

The point is that repetition works. On the left and on the right. So many on the left who hold degrees in political science should have spent more time studying political psychology.

Here’s the New York Times hyping Democratic handwringing over Biden. Democrats do it by reflex, of course, but the GOP knows too well how to trigger the reflex, and the press, having learned nothing, is willing to play along. “Democratic politicians and party officials … have been unable to dispel Democratic concerns about [Biden] that center largely on his age and vitality,” the Times reports:

Mr. Biden’s campaign and his allies argue that much of the intraparty dissent will fade away next year, once the election becomes a clear choice between the president and former President Donald J. Trump, the dominant leader in the Republican primary field.

But their assurances have not tamped down worries about Mr. Biden from some top Democratic strategists and many of the party’s voters, who approve of his performance but worry that Mr. Biden, who will be 82 on Inauguration Day, may simply not be up for another four years — or even the exhausting slog of another election.

“The voters don’t want this, and that’s in poll after poll after poll,” said James Carville, a longtime party strategist, who worries that a lack of enthusiasm for Mr. Biden could lead to lower Democratic turnout in 2024. “You can’t look at what you look at and not feel some apprehension here.”

See? They’re still calling Carville for quotes, for God’s sake.

In recent days, a barrage of grim news for Mr. Biden, including an autoworkers strike in the Midwest that poses a challenge to his economic agenda and the beginning of impeachment proceedings on Capitol Hill, has made this intraparty tension increasingly difficult to ignore. Those developments come amid a darkening polling picture, as recent surveys found that majorities of Democrats do not want him to run again, are open to an alternative in the primary and dread the idea of a Biden-Trump rematch.

The press was writing Biden’s obituary before South Carolina in 2020.

Update: As I said about Stop the Steal. “There is evidence. You can’t say there is no evidence,” Mace says. Really? Assume I’m from Missouri. Show me.

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