He has to make a show of bipartisanship just so moderates aren’t swayed by complaints that he hasn’t even tried to “reach across the aisle”. But he certainly shouldn’t expect it. Given that he spent eight years Cabinet room seeing how Republicans obstructed President Obama over and over on the most inconsequential issues just to show that they could combined with three and a half decades in the Senate, I think he understands how things work up and down Pennsylvania Avenue.
Stranger
I’m a marketing guy and tend to view political issues through that lens. You’re both describing a situation where Brand A (Republicans) have moved their offerings’ appeal away from a sizable portion of their audience (moderates), which should present a strong opportunity for their competitor Brand B (Democrats) to take share.
Obviously, Brand A’s batshit performance over the last four years didn’t persuade huge numbers of that audience to change brands before Nov. 3, but the events of Jan. 6 should theoretically have that audience questioning their brand loyalty like never before.
So I guess my question is, Will these EOs do anything to nudge this audience from questioning their Brand A loyalty to sampling Brand B? Will a show of bipartisanship help?
I think there are some marketing parallels but I don’t think it’s a congruent example. If we were living in times of stability, I think that making overtures of moderation to show the capacity to govern through consensus would be a wise move.
But we don’t live in normal times. Our national GDP declined by 3.5% in 2020. We’re seeing generations-old small businesses collapse, and with them, the jobs and bank accounts of many other employees. We have a pandemic that has killed 400,000 people and counting, and we have three or more variants that are many times more contagious and potentially deadlier than the original strain. We have a desperate situation. This is a time for bold and decisive action, not marketing for the center.
I’m not saying that Biden can’t overplay that hand - he could. But I don’t think he’s in danger of doing that yet, and having said all of this, I don’t worry about Biden going adrift either.
Assumption not borne out by evidence; most Republicans in office and public positions either seem in denial that this act was supported by the party as a whole (e.g. it was just “a few disaffected radicals” or “the MSM blew it all out of proportion” or “Antifa didit!”), or else they think that this was the proverbial spilling of “the blood of patriots and tyrants” so that “the tree of liberty must be refreshed”. There are a small proportion of Republicans who publicly expressed horror at what occurred and accept the GOP culpability in fostering it, but these are the very people (like Cindy McCain) that the party is trying to purge from its ranks in the name of ideological(?) purity. And the “Trump or Die” hardliners and Q-Cultists are finally getting the show they think Trump and Steve Bannon have been promising them for four years.
Unless your thesis is that there is a silent majority of Republican voters who are going to rise up and write in Lynne Cheney or Mitt Romney in 2024, I think you are relying on optimism over reality.
Stranger
From a marketing standpoint, Brand A is heroin and Brand B is vitamins. One of them is a lot healthier for you in the long run, but marketing isn’t going to make people change their preference.
Although I really do wonder if, for example, the Democratic Socialists of America could make some substantial gains these days in some former Trump strongholds where a lot of people are feeling disgusted, demoralized and betrayed.
There was a surprising amount of overlap among Sanders supporters and Trump supporters in 2016, after all. To extend your metaphor, a lot of people fundamentally don’t care whether they’re taking heroin or vitamins as long as it makes them feel better somehow.