From before he took office, the right has defined Biden as old, doddering and senile. And the left wing defense? NONEXISTENT! To the point where Biden is now discounted, seen as a placeholder who has no effect.
Now everybody has weighed in on Trump's tweetmania. They thought it was about Trump, but in truth it's about the changing world we live in. The Democrats are still living in the twentieth century, whereas the Republicans are living in the twenty first, at least when it comes to communications, getting the word out. All the headlines are about Fox News, but that's a blip on the radar compared to the online assault, not only the "Daily Caller" and its ilk, but the acolytes posting ad infinitum, shoring up the base, feeding people with outrageous information, frequently false, but the base is rallied. Who is rallying the base on the left? NO ONE!
As a matter of fact, it's internecine warfare on the left. With AOC and her squad on the left, and the usual suspects demanding that they be silenced and the party hew to an antique paradigm that lost its power long ago.
Now let me see... The Republicans won by running ever further to the right. But on the left, this paradigm is dismissed. You see it's about exciting people. And no one is excited about Biden, NO ONE! You've got to light a fire under those who vote and will possibly vote. And you can only do that by owning the twenty first century, by playing by modern rules.
So time keeps on passing. It's amazing. People born in the year 2000 have now graduated from college. Yet the Democrats keep operating like it's still the nineties, maybe even the seventies. What applied in 2016 no longer applies. What applied in 2020 no longer applies. The thought was we run Biden to beat Trump and end the chaos. But then what? NOTHING!
Oh, there was some progress, especially in the first six months of his term, but then he focused on building consensus, which is impossible in Congress, and legislation was stalled. And he appeared neutered, powerless. So even those who gave him the benefit of the doubt soured on him.
Let's be clear, Biden can't run in 2024. No way. We don't need a placeholder, we need a person of action, who will move this country forward, who people can rally around, who will foment change.
In all honesty, I'd be behind Biden resigning. The Pope did, he was too old, lost control, wasn't up to the challenge, they brought in new blood. After the midterms, Biden could resign and Kamala Harris could take his place. Oh, don't give me the negative talk, speak of her ineffectuality up to this point, after all, what does a VP do other than wait for the President to die or become incapacitated? Don't tell me about her likability. Don't buy into all the right wing blowback. Harris doesn't have to be elected, SHE ALREADY HAS BEEN!
What do we know about Kamala Harris?
She's a fighter, she knows how to stand up to people, how to bite back, SHE KNOWS HOW TO MAKE NEWS! And that's what it's about here folks, making news, building enthusiasm. Trump may be off Twitter but that does not mean the game changed. From now on, you have to have your name in the news every damn day, YOU have to control the narrative, not your opponents, not the press. I'm not saying you have to spread falsehoods like Trump, I'm just saying you have to communicate constantly.
Like social media stars, which Trump was. Social media runs our country, but you'd never know it by the efforts, or lack thereof, of the Democrats.
Who bitches about social media? THE OLDSTERS! Does it have an inhibiting effect, does it decrease the numbers of participants? OF COURSE NOT! The youngsters rule online, they leave television and newspapers to the oldsters. The two of which have ever less effect.
It's the oldster musicians who bitch about having to post on social media, YouTube, keeping their name alive. Youngsters don't, they know this is the game, this is what you have to do. If you're not posting constantly, you're dead.
Like those writing books. I'm talking nonfiction here, not fiction. Let's see, you take years to write the book, the publisher delays publication to fit the release schedule and then needs time to drum up support and then the book is released and despite the ink, almost no one reads it! If your goal is to write a book, give up now. You've got to dive in online, and write each and every day. Those are the people who are moving the needle, not the academics and long in the tooth analysts and politicians functioning in a dead tree world. Hell, one of the other pet peeves of the book business is digitization. Let's see... The authors write on computers, they send the file to publishers on computers, they're edited on computers, BUT THE BOOK MUST COME OUT IN PHYSICAL FORM! Everybody reads online, by taking this rearguard position the book business is preventing itself from growing, reducing its influence and illustrating that it is out of touch with the younger generations who've been reading online since kindergarten. It'd be like musical acts sending CDs... Oh, that trope still exists. Someone can't feel good about themselves unless there's a physical copy which they can send to people even though today's computers don't even have disk drives.
You've got to live in the future, at least the now.
So the Democratic party is run by boomers, people like Biden who are older than boomers. How can younger generations relate? THEY CAN'T! What's end game? Rule as long as you can and then fold the party? That's what it looks like. I don't know any young people who are excited about the Democratic party. I know tons who are excited about the Republican party, but not the reverse. This has to be addressed.
And you've got to speak to the issues that young people are concerned with. Debt, the minimum wage, income inequality. To be born knowing it's nearly impossible to make it? Why even bother to vote? No one is helping you, no one is addressing your issues. I mean where else are you gonna go, you're never gonna go right. End result, YOU GO NOWHERE!
So when Harris takes over it's not about her automatically getting the nomination in 2024, anything but. Her reign is about shoring up the party, putting things in motion. But the primaries? Open to all. Shall the best person win. If it's Harris, so be it. But right now, it appears to be Newsom.
Don't tell me about Pritzker. Can you imagine the governor of Illinois winning? Not only was Pritzker born rich, a bad look on the left, but he rules in a state that the right has been vilifying for years. Yes, Chicago is in Illinois, and even though Pritzker is not the mayor, he's tarred with the crime rate in that city. The right will make hay.
I've met Newsom. He's slick and good-looking. Am I sure he's not an empty suit? No. He's no Jerry Brown. But Jerry Brown is in his eighties.
And Newsom has misstepped. But the truth doesn't matter. They say he broke the law by taking his family to Montana when this was untrue. He, unlike most of the wimps on the left, pushed back hard. Which is what you have to do about falsehoods. But it's only Newsom who is being aggressive, taking the right to task.
You should read this story:
"Newsom slams red state governors on D.C. trip, stoking speculation about his future": lat.ms/3uK2Le0
Some relevant excerpts:
"Gov. Gavin Newsom said he's frustrated with Republicans and Democrats.
He's tired of conservatives criticizing California and rolling back rights. And he's irked that his own national party isn't fighting harder in the culture war.
If they won't, he said, he will. He pushed back in a recent television ad in Florida. In an interview Monday. And in a speech in Washington, D.C., Wednesday as he accepted an education award on behalf of the state he governs — while stoking speculation about his possible presidential ambitions.
'This is someone very proud of the state, that's sick and tired of the state getting bashed 24/7 by the right wing," Newsom told The Times before heading east. "I can't take it.
'I'm not going to just sit back and watch these guys dominate that narrative.'"
And:
"'I'm not looking to fill a void, be the guy,' Newsom told The Times. 'But I'm also not going to regret not expressing myself at this moment. I'd rather take the hits from pundits. I'll accept all that. But what I can't accept is being absent in this national debate when democracy is quite literally in peril, when the rights revolution is being rolled back in real time.'"
He's not pussyfooting, not fearful of offending people, he's speaking the truth and reading this article today I got excited, and I haven't been excited by the left in a very long time. Hell, the star of the January 6th committee is Liz Cheney, a Republican, whose voting record is atrocious, she's a new national hero. I mean good for her for standing up for the truth, but no one on the left can carry the torch?
Yes, we need a turnover. The old guard must go. Biden first.
And we have to take risk. Speak to the people who are going to own the future, live with climate change, and not a theoretical center. God, if the center was so powerful you'd think there would be people hewing that line with a profile, but mostly we've got crickets. It's no longer politics as usual, speak to the OUTRAGE!
And don't own the woke badge, so some kids at college are out of control, as well as some nincompoops in San Francisco, but most of what young people want MOST people want. Not only the aforementioned climate issue, but a higher minimum wage, higher taxes on the rich and corporations, more OPPORTUNITY!
The problem is that those who have don't want to lose anything, don't want to sacrifice. Now a lot of America was disrupted by technology. This is happening in politics right now. The Democrats are the major labels, who sued their customers to try to ensure a past that was never coming back. Not only do you own the present, you delve into the future, you get AHEAD of your constituents. That's the essence of Spotify. Most people didn't want it, didn't understand it, but now streaming owns music, despite the loud voices talking about vinyl and the labels with their irrelevant charts based on physical. The public knows the truth, and the public is streaming.
Time to throw the long ball. We are definitely in the fourth quarter. There's not enough time to employ the ground game, we've got to air it out, play for victory.
Biden is not playing for victory. Neither are Pelosi and Schumer. I'll give Pelosi credit, she barks back at the right, she refuses to be labeled, but she's just too damn old. I don't care if she's got all her marbles, she's got more than one foot in the past, as opposed to Bernie Sanders, who has both feet in the future, which is why young people rally around him. And the point isn't that Sanders didn't get the nomination the past two times, but that he came so CLOSE!
And this is not about Sanders himself, but what he represents. Hillary Clinton said no one likes him, no one wants to work with him, which is exactly why so many people love him. He's not seen as inured to the game, he's not seen as a member of the old boy network. He's looking out for his constituents, THE PEOPLE! Not the corporations.
Now maybe there will be a complete disruption. Like Napster, like streaming television. Could be coming, because the game is broken.
Like that self-righteous idiot Andrew Sullivan saying if you don't like what is going on vote. Sure, in Texas, where gerrymandering has made your vote irrelevant?
"Gerrymander, U.S.A. - In Texas' new political map, the 13th Congressional District stretches about 450 miles from Denton, a fast-growing, multiracial city near Dallas, to sparsely populated rural towns along the western border of the state's panhandle.": nyti.ms/3IHwc6b
Or how about Wisconsin. Where the popular vote is Democratic, yet the state legislature is overwhelmingly Republican!
We could see spontaneous conflagration. Not only from the left, but the right too. The political landscape is just that heated.
But shy of that, before that happens, the Democrats have to plan and play for the future. They've already decided to abandon Biden, you don't see anybody voicing support, defending him, it's like he's got a contagious disease.
So far, the left has only been excited negatively. Turned somnambulant by the Democrats' failure to stand up to the right wing assault on their rights, their books, democracy itself. Do I expect the usual suspects to take action and make a difference? No. They've had two years and the Republicans still control the debate. Yes, conventional right wing wisdom is pandemic payments were too high. Do you see any Democrats standing up and saying the opposite? Saying sure, some people abused the system, but the average citizen was kept from financial ruin by government payments? Even when the left does something right it doesn't trumpet its success and build upon it.
So what we need is enthusiasm.
James Carville had it right, it's always about the economy, stupid. Focus there first. Stop telling us inflation is worldwide, that nothing can be done about gas prices and so much more. I mean it would be one thing if Democrats had taken that position and amplified it, instead they've abdicated and let the right run with public pain.
Speak truth. Proffer a path. Give people HOPE!
It's the only way to get out of this mess.
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