I thought Biden’s State of the Union address last night was excellent. He was sharp. He was feisty. And he gave a clear signal of what his reelection message will be. I’ve jotted down a few observations, both about the campaign’s comms strategy and about the general contours of the race.
The particularly nail-biting that I'm doing involves my younger friends who want to *send a message* but they were too young to have voted in the 2000 election (hi hello everyone who voted for Ralph Nader). Yes it would be nice to have a third party option right now (or a way to really protest vote), but we don't, and pretending otherwise is how we get a second Trump presidency.
I have a hard time accepting the above description of "two conflicting narratives about government and governance" as the fundamental-level conflict. The right-wing "crooks and idiots" narrative described, while real, is at least 50% a cover for "the wrong people in charge are the Jews and Black people and their allies, and we must put our kind of white people back in charge."
Which you do gesture at with "bundle of simmering resentments". But those are the biggest ones.
The people insisting it should be a blowout, and it would if Biden would step down for Johhny Unbeatable, are refusing to face the fact that a third of voters absolutely want the chaos Trump is offering (as clearly as he can), a third don't want that, and a third don't know or care about any of it. The American voter refuses to stick to the script.
I'm cautiously optimistic about Biden winning, and more importantly, liberals and Democrats winning Senate, House, and state races. It's because the pollsters and pundits have been so terribly wrong in the prior elections. Young people are deeply frustrated and annoyed, and voting and getting involved like I've never seen before.
In 2018, 2020 and 2022 the Republicans did far worse than expectations pretty much everywhere. I think because pollster's assumptions that young people don't vote were wrong. And the expectation that older people would flip conservative was also wrong. Turns out people don't flip conservative when they don't have any money to conserve, so GenX and older Millennials are far more liberal than their parents were at their age.
The particularly nail-biting that I'm doing involves my younger friends who want to *send a message* but they were too young to have voted in the 2000 election (hi hello everyone who voted for Ralph Nader). Yes it would be nice to have a third party option right now (or a way to really protest vote), but we don't, and pretending otherwise is how we get a second Trump presidency.
I have a hard time accepting the above description of "two conflicting narratives about government and governance" as the fundamental-level conflict. The right-wing "crooks and idiots" narrative described, while real, is at least 50% a cover for "the wrong people in charge are the Jews and Black people and their allies, and we must put our kind of white people back in charge."
Which you do gesture at with "bundle of simmering resentments". But those are the biggest ones.
The people insisting it should be a blowout, and it would if Biden would step down for Johhny Unbeatable, are refusing to face the fact that a third of voters absolutely want the chaos Trump is offering (as clearly as he can), a third don't want that, and a third don't know or care about any of it. The American voter refuses to stick to the script.
I'm cautiously optimistic about Biden winning, and more importantly, liberals and Democrats winning Senate, House, and state races. It's because the pollsters and pundits have been so terribly wrong in the prior elections. Young people are deeply frustrated and annoyed, and voting and getting involved like I've never seen before.
In 2018, 2020 and 2022 the Republicans did far worse than expectations pretty much everywhere. I think because pollster's assumptions that young people don't vote were wrong. And the expectation that older people would flip conservative was also wrong. Turns out people don't flip conservative when they don't have any money to conserve, so GenX and older Millennials are far more liberal than their parents were at their age.
vote blue or lose democracy isn't exactly a complicated message lol
https://nypost.com/2024/03/05/opinion/bidens-2024-advantage-an-alliance-of-elites-rigging-the-game/amp/