They'll still roll out in the tens of millions to vote for him if he's the presidential nominee, right? And at this stage he looks like the frontrunner for the GOP ticket. Great read, btw.
So here's something the Biden administration knows down to their very core yet the press refuses to acknowledge: THE RACE DOESN'T FUCKING MATTER RIGHT NOW. On the 2024 timeline? Rather than the 2016 timeline? That video won't be out for another five months. Whatever the polls are? Whatever the Twitter leftists are saying? Whatever dumb shit Fox News is pushing? None of it is going to matter in the moment, which is pretty much about what voters have in their brains in September and October. By the time the Republicans anointed Trump at the 2016 convention, he was an inevitability. But at this stage in the game he was a longshot. Back then he hadn't been impeached twice, wasn't facing 91 felonies, hadn't been responsible to an absolutely abysmal pandemic and civil rights response, wasn't widely regarded as fomenting a coup for his own personal interests, etc. And he was running against one of the most polarizing Democrats of the past 50 years. I have no idea what the 2024 election is going to look like. In my casual estimation there are more variables and unknowns than any election since the Civil War. But I also agree with Claudia Sahm's insight that everyone's dissatisfaction with their standard of living right now is anchored to pre-COVID, not pre-Biden, and a full calendar year of stability and a return to normalcy is likely to have more impact on turnout than Ramaswamy for VP or whatever. In general? When you're displeased with your party you don't vote. This is one of the reasons the Democrats are rending their shirts over October 7 - the only thing the Biden administration can do is labor heroically behind the scenes to make the news less bad. But if it's nine months from now, Ukraine has held the line against the Russians, the Middle East hasn't exploded in racial conflagrations and gas, housing and food continue to normalize? Democrats are likely to come out despite their protestations on Twitter and Republicans are likely to stay home. Biden was in Boebert's district yesterday. He delivered a speech in which he pointed out he'd brought the district $200m in funding and 850 new jobs, despite Boebert calling him a traitor and voting against everything three times. Boebert won her last election by 546 out of more than 300,000 votes cast. Anyone prognosticating on the race at this point has a story to sell, not an insight to share.
Trump is still running against an extremely divisive candidate - From my perspective, a year of stability won't undo the inflation that's already happened. I'm not sure how much Biden could realistically do, but "it could have been worse" is still a lame message. On the issues I personally care about, he's been awful: approving new oil pipelines left and right, avoiding calling for a ceasefire and having the audacity to ask for $14 billion more in "aid", blocking the railroad strike, etc. I live in a red state where my vote doesn't matter anyways. I am seriously considering writing someone in or leaving the president slot blank. I can't claim any insight on the election, and I still hope he wins instead of Trump obviously, but if he loses, that's on the Dems
I think a blue president in a red state is going to be divisive no matter who he is. I also think that there's been absolutely no benefit to not being divisive up until now, and now, the Biden administration is starting to point out where the money goes. And this is not going to be what you want to hear, but it's the strategically correct move: as a blue voter in a red state, the Biden administration suffers very little if you decide not to vote. Where they benefit is in aiding potential Trump voters enough that they decide not to vote. The goal with the Boebert adventure was not to make everyone go "golly gee I've been so wrong I'm Dark Brandon all the way now" but to make everyone go "hmmph. Well at least he's not as awful as Hilary would have been, all politicians suck, I have better things to do with my time on a Tuesday afternoon than endorse this system."
You bring me better insight on the state of the Union than anything I find in news online. Cheers for writing all of that out, cobber. (On a side note, when I wrote my earlier comment I hadn't realised you'd posted this article a year ago; I think it came to the top of my feed because of some spam comment that's since been deleted.)
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