Democrats want to govern. Republicans want to rule.
Confidence, even false confidence, inspires. As Bill McKibben once wrote:
The power of the Christian right rests largely in the fact that they boldly claim religious authority, and by their boldness convince the rest of us that they must know what they’re talking about. They’re like the guy who gives you directions with such loud confidence that you drive on even though the road appears to be turning into a faint, rutted track.
Democrats’ loud, public second-guessing themselves about Joe Biden looks desperate. It’s a bad look.
So take a long, deep breath through your nose. Hold it a beat. Then exhale slowly through your mouth. Do it again. (Relax those shoulders.) If you lean Democrat, I know. It’s hard.
Joe Biden had a bad night on Thursday. “Bad debate nights happen. Trust me, I know,” Barack Obama tweeted Friday afternoon.
The president responded to his bad debate an hour or so earlier on Friday with a forceful speech in Raleigh, N.C. I was there right up front. His performances were literally night and day. This was the guy we’d hoped would show up to face Donald Trump.
Biden wiped his left eye a couple of times as if it was watering while his wife Jill introduced him. So maybe the campaign explanation for Thursday that he’s working through a cold has merit.
But in Raleigh, Biden delivered a lot of lines he’d likely prepared but failed to deliver on Thursday. When Trump boasted about “acing” his cognitive test Thursday night, I thought, “Here we go,” and figured Biden would pounce. He didn’t. More’s the pity.
“Donald Trump isn’t just a convicted felon—Donald Trump is a one-man crime wave,” Biden insisted on Friday, just not to a worldwide audience. Too late, but on Friday Biden was on.
What Democrats must defeat before Donald Trump are their own insecurities. Trump is a Sam’s Club pallet of them. Don’t be like Donald. Except where it comes to projecting confidence.
MAGA Republicans stand unshakably behind a 34-time convicted criminal ruled liable for sexual assault, a man who (Republicans invented the catchphrase) “pals around with” dictators. Trump is emotionally stunted, mentally unstable, amoral, deeply insecure, needy, venal, vain and vengeful, a pathological liar and con man. He played a successful businessman on TV but in reality failed to run casinos profitably. His went bankrupt. Other Trump enterprises have been ruled frauds and dissolved. But an effective con man projects confidence to take in his marks. Trump does that well.
Trump has been banned from doing business in New York. Trump wants to sell out NATO and Ukraine to Russia. He racked up 30,000 false and misleading statements during his presidency and added to them with virtually every statement Thursday night.
Trump’s mishandling of the response to COVID-19 cost hundreds of thousands of Americans their lives. Oh, and he’s delusional.
Teed up for a second Trump term, Project 2025 wants to lobotomize the federal government and dissolve external reality to ensconce an American dictator. MAGA Republicans’ candidate wants the world’s dictators to welcome him into their autocrats club.
After (allegedly) provoking an insurrectionist mob to storm and sack the U.S. Capitol, and after (allegedly) storing national security documents in a golf resort bathroom, and after (allegedly) plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 election, Donald Trump is asking Americans for just one more chance. Many will give it to him if we don’t stop him.
President Joe Biden, meanwhile, looked old (and old-school) and gave a poor performance Thursday night. He got whupped. That makes him the underdog less-political Americans love to root for to beat the assholish bully. Work with that. Trump wants power for himself. Biden wants to stomp him and for America to live up to its potential as a multicultural democracy.
So chill out before panicking and calling for an open Democratic convention that’s not going to happen. Republicans wouldn’t.
President Bill Clinton understood the risks of Democrats’ second-guessing themselves over 20 years ago: ”When people are feeling insecure, they’d rather have someone who is strong and wrong rather than somebody who is weak and right.” That’s the risk here. Further weakening Biden with talk of replacing him exposes Democrats’ soft underbellies and empowers Trump.
A pundit on MSNBC’s “The Beat” Friday night referenced a “The Simpsons'” episode contrasting Republicans and Democrats. As Chai Komanduri remembered it, the GOP platform was “We Hate Democrats.” The Democrats’ platform was “We Hate Ourselves.” See actual images below.
November is a Bidenary choice: Democracy or dictatorship? Freedom or serfdom?
Unless Biden steps aside, there will not be an alternate Democratic candidate. This is a “run what you brung” presidential race. Democrats brought Biden. Republicans brought Trump. As WisDems chair Ben Wikler tweeted, recommit. Americans pull for an underdog with heart. Biden clearly has one.
Former Republican Rick Wilson gave Democrats sound advice just weeks ago:
“You better start thinking of Joe Biden as 12 ft. tall, covered in steel, brilliant, with a 12-inch dick. Stop acting like he’s a feeble old man,” Wilson shouts at Democrats. “Toughen the fuck up!”
Or else Trump won’t beat Joe Biden. His own party will.
Update: From Jasmine Crockett
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