You know that and I know that.
The problem is the disaffected and younger crowd who don’t know that. In their view Biden is not young, is not charismatic, and is not fixing all the things they obviously see broken in the country at a pace that suits their short life experience and short attention span.
Their perception, flawed though it is, is what informs their decision-making.
The MAGAs’ hobby is mainlining the rage of the RW propaganda machine. They can keep this up indefinitely because rage is fun to them. The propaganda machine will not shut up; campaigning is now non-stop from election day to election day. They make their money off keeping the base fired up, and the base gets all its dopamine from being fired up.
If you’re hoping for MAGA fatigue, you’re gonna be disappointed.
Nor can he walk on water, turn water into wine, end world hunger or give us world peace. However, within his powers and authority- given a recalcitrant Congress - he has done wonders.
I believe Biden himself has said: Don’t compare me to the Almighty, compare me to the alternative.
I see hope! They’re getting better!
Here is a poll from 3 years ago, where 23% of young people surveyed thought it was a myth.
That’s a 3% improvement, or 1% a year!
So maybe in 20 more years they’ll all be convinced that the holocaust was real.
Yet…
The plan is that he will fire all of the the leadership of these groups and replace them with loyalists. As far as this plan being leaked, it already has been leaked. parts of the press dumped all over him and the progressives who are paying attention started getting scared, but otherwise it was business as usual. Maybe it will make more of an impression when he actually goes through with it, but probably not.
And even if they do, what is to be done. Impeachment? If the GOP wouldn’t go along with it when Trump sent an actual mob to bust down the door to lynch them I doubt that anything will get them to take that route. The supreme court doesn’t seem to like Trump much but they are firm devotees to unitary executive theory, so they are unlikely to object to such an abuse of power.
I agree that Trump lacks the savy to be a sucessful dictator, he is a walking talking Dunning Kruger, with a estimation of his abilities as unparalled while in reality they are completely lacking. So he his administration is most likely to be a compete chaos with infighting and unrealistic policies that change on a whim. But it will involve a breakdown of the rule of law in favor of the rule of Trump.
Small consolation as that might have been sadly that past number included the not-sures … that combined number is now 50%.
I intend no hijack here. To me the relevance is that these numbers do not reflect lack of exposure to the actual facts; they reflect a mistrust for a sizable subgroup of the age group of everything they’ve learned and a preference to give social media heard memes at least as much if not more credence than established mainstream sources. That leaves them susceptible to Holocaust deniers and wide variety of other dangerous nonsense.
These people have always been with us, and have always felt that way, and rarely vote anyway.
I think this is an important insight.
Very good point.
I wouldn’t say I’m hoping for MAGA fatigue, just that I don’t think they can frenzy much higher. The other side mostly haven’t gotten that heavily invested in election season yet. I think once the Dem side starts ramping up that will have an effect on the enthusiasm gap. If MAGA was a car, they already have their foot to the floor and are redlining, and have been for some time, and its still a very close race. Once the other car really starts racing, I expect the numbers to be affected. This is my hope anyway. As I said, I just can’t be in doom panic mode every single day until next November. I just can’t do it.
I totally agree w your final pint. Worry, anxiety, or panic is useless. Doesn’t fix the problem, and only make the person doing to themselves miserable.
I agree with the race metaphor that many MAGAs are fired up and racing now, vs. Ds who mostly are not. I don’t however think the MAGAts are at redline. Some folks are, but not the great bulk. It can get far noisier than it is now and if they start doing demonstrations, a lot more MAGAty people will get a lot more excited.
Biden calls Trump a loser:
I enjoyed his speech today. He’s setting a good tone for his campaign.
He might be setting a tone for fundraising.
As for a good tone, I’d be surprised to learn that calling Trump a loser was swing-voter focus-group approved. If the election turns on who is better at name-calling, Trump wins.
So if saying “Trump was a loser” was planned, it’s a sign of calculated desperation. Now, it could have been worse. Biden could have said “Trump is a loser.” But I think that “Trump lost” would have sounded more presidential – and that most wavering voters consider BIden being more presidential a plus.
I hope (and expect) that few swing voters will read the Le Monde coverage:
Biden launches 2024 campaign accusing Trump of echoing Nazi rhetoric
The lead:
Godwin’s Law has faded on internet chatboards like this. But in the mind of the average swing voter, Hitler analogies shut down their interest in hearing more.
Remember when Biden told trump to shut up during a presidential debate?
I think this kind of language is intended to counter any narrative that Biden is soft, old, or weak. To the contrary, I think it’s trying to show that he’ll stand up to bullies.
I have a book called Stealth Democracy from two Berkeley authors. The premise is that people want as little as possible to do with day to day politics. They want the politicians do their stuff, but to hear as little as possible. Politics does not affect their daily lives and they work in some field, say service, that has no connection to politics. They do not care. But they have a vague idea that it should nevertheless be somewhat democratic. Stealth democracy. Not as open as it is now.
Not sure how you get accountability if everything is hidden behind some kind of curtain. You can sort of view the whole thing as a dislike of politics in general.
It’s possibly partly because people don’t trust other people with power, because many of us don’t think we’d be saints if we were in charge.
12 posts were merged into an existing topic: Sec Def Lloyd Austin “secretly” hospitalized
Did you even listen to the speech? Or read the transcript? Or did you, as it seems, take my statement, which wasn’t even a quote (except for the word “loser”), as verbatim out of Biden’s mouth?
Also, I searched high and low for polling which backs up your assertion that “in the mind of the average swing voter, Hitler analogies shut down their interest in hearing more”. Because the only poll that I found on this topic says the quite the opposite:
Now, of course, this isn’t the “swing voter” (how many are there of those nowadays?), but I can’t find any evidence which backs up your assertion that people are turned off by it to the point of “shut(ting) down their interest”.