I think Biden is playing this perfectly right now...he's letting Trump hang himself nightly on TV and strategically targeting segments of the population that he knows he needs to turn out. There's a base that will turn out because they want Trump gone, as you said above...at least Biden's better than Trump, but Biden needs others to turn out. Here's an article about how he's going after voters right now: https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/494098-is-joe-biden-breaking-through He is focusing on battleground states with virtual town halls in Florida and Arizona, along with television interviews in media markets in Pennsylvania. Biden has paid attention across different demographics. He held a virtual briefing on young Americans and has made frequent appearances on the late shows that attract those key voters, such as “Quarantine Monologue” with JImmy Kimmel, “The Tonight Show” with Jimmy Fallon, “Desus and Mero” on Showtime, as well as “The Late Late Show” with James Corden. He is reaching Latinx voters with appearances on Hispanic radio stations. He appealed to progressive voters in a virtual event with Bernie Sanders. He has engaged in the health and economic issues on the coronavirus, including a Frontlines roundtable with emergency responders, a virtual briefing on Cares Act implementation and oversight, and a virtual town hall on unemployment and working families with several labor groups. In addition to these efforts, Biden has done the usual round of interviews across the cable television networks, including a town hall with Anderson Cooper and an interview with Chris Cuomo, along with key appearances on CNN with Brooke Baldwin, MSNBC with Brian Williams, NBC News with Chuck Todd, ABC News with George Stephanopoulos, and many others. There's a reason why Trump, his sons, and the Republicans have started to take issue with Biden not being as visible...they need that enemy to rally their base against. Without one, Trump, well, he looks like he does now...helpless, lost, and an idiot. What's the saying, "Give him enough rope and he'll hang himself." The more this occurs on a national stage every night, the more people will realize that he needs to go...latest polls are showing that as well as Biden's lead is growing nationally and in battleground states. This is one reason that Biden is different than Hillary. Hillary would be out there trying to nitpick every move that Trump was making. She'd rile up that right-wing base and make it an us-vs-them situation. Biden is much more patient and will allow Trump to continue to fluster his own base while being calm and in control and slowly get people on to his side. So far, according to polling, it's working.
It is definitely a smart strategy. It is using the terrain to your advantage and letting your opponent make mistakes. That said I'll still say we can't take anything for granted. I doubt the latest stupidity regarding injecting cleaners will really hurt him. This is afterall the same guy who said we should consider nuking hurricanes. As I said in another post Trump supporters will dismiss this or they might even celebrate this as Trump "not being a politician.." or that this the media just going after Trump trying to make an honest suggestion to save people.
IBTL hits on the point below. It's about aligning interests, and making the case to the "$30,000 Dallas Millionaires" that their interests are actually not aligned with the GOP. Trump will double down on culture wars because of this. If it's about dollars and cents, public health, and safety... he loses. If he makes it about "Muh Culture"... he probably wins. Biden or the media hitting Trump hard on lies, and stupidity seems like it would be effective, but you'd be surprised at how much the 30K millionaires have already heard this/know this about Trump but voted for him anyways because FoxNews and Facebook convinced them that the Dems were worse. Trump is just a buffoon, but Hillary and the Dems are surgical in the cruel ways to ruin America and take away my freedoms, and my football. Trump = Football & Nascar lover, Dems= Sports killler for manufactured China virus that's just the flu. That's going to be 2020 in a nutshell if the Dems do not have a messaging strategy that breaks through the culture wars. I still think Biden has the best chance at wiping out the Trumplicans with strong messaging on healthcare. Strong messaging that I do not think Bernie would be able to translate to turning back votes from people who voted for Obama, but then voted for Trump. If Biden gets in the mud with Trump on his IQ, it just takes away from focusing on that, and you are just trying to convince people that already knew he is a blowhard that he's a bigger blowhard than they thought, and that they were fools in 2016. Although yes.... there should always be room made for reminding folks that he's an idiot. It just shouldn't be the central focus.
Interesting point and you are likely correct. I just guess i wish biden wasnt such a placeholder but sadly at this point thats what we need. I wish Cuomo would run. Maybe biden really is this slick and a closer. And he can shut it down old pro style. When you put it like that- He reminds me of the old dog in the plaza in mexico. Spots the female dog in heat and lays back waiting. Lets all the other young horny dogs try and fail .. Then moves in and closes.
Good post and I agree with much of this especially that Biden has to be careful getting in the mud with Trump on IQ. Biden has said enough stupid stuff to haunt him and if the debates turn into who said the stupidest things. I'm not sure that is a winner for Biden. This where surrogates come into play and the best role for people like Rick Wilson and the Lincoln project. People like that are best suited for the attacks. For me I would like to see them focus more on Trump's corruption than on the idiotic things he says. As Rep. Crenshaw showed Trump supporters already have a ready made defense regarding tweets and stupidity like we should inject cleaners. They just say it's not about what he says it's what he does. Well then let's look at what he does. Let's look at him selling out foreign policy to the Saudis. Let's look at him lifting sanctions on PRC telecoms when they invest in Trump branded projects.. Let's look at him ripping off the Secret Service. I agree with you on the culture argument. From what I'm getting from die hard Trump supporters is they feel they are losing a culture war and that they are relentlessly under attack and oppressed by a Liberal Establishment that includes the media, Hollywood, big banks, Wall Street, and now the medicine. I've heard so many times them say "Well yeah Trump makes mistakes but he's fighting for us..." Most of those people are lost the more stuff you throw at them the more they dig in. There are though some on the margins that can be swayed. Most of these people are older men but many of their wives are sick of Trump and many of their children too.
I think Trump would ace the downright lie card though. Maybe his stupid tweets wouldn't be as effective as his compulsive lying. If you can't trust or believe 90% of what comes out of your leader's mouth, then how can you trust him to lead your country?
Yeah biden might well be that old dog. Thanks for the memories..Appreciate you giving me this jam to listen to this lovely friday morning taking me down the ice t eze etc rabbit hole. The intro on this song when came out was hype - meyer park 1988 cinema 14 turn it up:
What happened? Did people tell him that Jim Crow and slavery have no effect on the present African American population and that any poverty the black population they experienced is from their own doing and culture. Did people waiventhr Confederate flag at him and defend the valor of Robert E Lee? Did they tell them that black people are lying and playing the victim card to their claims of disproportionate police abuse? Wait... That's the GOP framing of modern racial sentiments. Or did some people say that the GOP and their narrative driven agenda to massage the sensibilities of poor white voters by putting down groups like African Americans makes their interests diametrically opposed to the interests of poor urban black communties and he took that as a racist sentiment in order to drive home a narrative that attacks poor white voters?
