I, like many of you, have been waiting intently to see if President Biden, the Biden campaign, and the Democratic Party as a whole could provide a glimpse of a path forward towards winning this November. Whatever happened at the debate happened. I don’t think any explanation has been provided as to either: (1) Why Biden performed the way he did such that we could have the slightest inclination that the next debate would be better; OR (2) Why his campaign would ever let that debate happen if he would reasonably be expected to perform so abysmally.
I was horrified by the debate, but what is scarier is that it seems clear that there are no “adults in the room” who have a remote idea of an intelligible strategy to come back from this. Nothing has worked to change the narrative at all. And the things that have happened would not reasonably be expected to. And this is before the barrage of advertising that is to come with clips of Biden at the debate. Just wait until that.
But, of course, the narrative has now shifted, though not due to anything the Biden campaign has done. It has shifted because of yesterday’s assassination attempt. It would be very difficult for this to have worked out better for the Trump campaign. He was hardly injured. The images are picture perfect. And it happened right before the convention. If this happened a month ago, it would be cringey to focus on this event at the convention. But not when it happened this weekend. If they are smart, Trump’s next public appearance would be at his keynote on Thursday. It would be the biggest political story in decades. The hero comes out to accept the nomination. This couldn’t be scripted better.
And worse for us, it is the perfect juxtaposition with Biden. Trump the hero vs. Biden the frail. I don’t believe the conspiracy theories that this was planned by the Trump campaign. But it isn’t lost on them that this was perfect for them in every way.
Here’s the thing — we’re losing this campaign. We were losing 2 days ago. We are losing by more now — whether it’s been borne out or not, it doesn’t matter. No one being honest about things would think anything but that yesterday’s events would not move the needle towards Trump. Maybe a little. Maybe a lot. It doesn’t matter. He was in the lead already.
The Democrats need to shake things up. A regular campaign won’t do it. Regular campaign activity won’t do it.
Trump has been relatively normal for him over the past weeks. How is the Biden campaign triggering him to do stupid things? No one is even trying anymore. That’s worked in the past. But we don’t try.
GOTV is important, of course. But it’s not good enough on its own. There needs to be a dramatic shakeup.
Some ideas? I’d love to hear people’s thoughts. Important people read Dailykos. Some brainstorming here could be of value.
One is an Oval Office Address before Trump’s speech to address yesterday’s events. But very different from what’s been said. Of course, “political violence is bad.” But in the same speech, Biden should say it “Trump is a danger to democracy. The way to respond to that is through the Democratic process — protest, getting involved, and voting. The way to respond is not through political violence. It is not a surprise that political violence would occur. The Republican Party has been stoking political violence for years. But just because they have been doing encouraging, doesn’t mean that anyone should listen to what they are saying.” This isn’t intended to really be a script. The idea is to try to push back on the martyr narrative.
You’ve all seen Trump’s response when Nancy Pelosi’s husband was attacked. MOST PEOPLE HAVEN’T! Put that up on the screen during an Oval Office address. Trump is his own worst enemy. A campaign speech isn’t the place to do this. A rando afternoon press conference isn’t either. A Prime Time Oval Office Address. I don’t care about the ramifications of using such an address for political purposes. None of that matters anymore.
What else? I don’t know. I tend to think Biden should drop out. I don’t say that because I have great political acumen. I say it because we all saw what happened, we all see that the Biden campaign has not been able to quell the stories, and we all see that a large percentage of democrats want him off the ticket. The campaign has failed everyone. It doesn’t matter if it’s fair. It’s TRUE.
I’d love to see Biden announce that he is resigning a few minutes before Trump’s speech on Thursday. Do what we can to take the attention away from Trump. (Unless we can goad Trump into doing something stupid...but we lack any campaign that can do anything to control any narrative whatsoever.)
Anyway, I leave this out there. Would love to hear people’s thoughts on productive things the party and Biden campaign could be doing now. Maybe someone will listen.