Joe's Gotta Make the Case...
The fate of democracy hinges on President Joe Biden making the case for his reelection and convincing enough voters to deny Trump another term as president. Make no mistake about it, if Trump wins in November, as I have warned before, the 2024 election may well be the last free and fair election in the United States. Trump, after all, is a candidate who use fascistic tropes on the campaign trail and expresses admiration for right-wing dictators. (He is scheduled to meet Hungary’s Viktor Orbán this week at Mar-a-Lago.)
A second Trump presidency would hasten the trend toward authoritarianism delineated in the recent report from Freedom House. “Freedom in the World in 2024: The Mounting Damage of Flawed Elections and Armed Conflict” concludes that 2023 continued an 18-year trend in freedom’s decline around the world. The report questioned whether “fundamental democratic institutions” can be preserved in the United States. “Much depends on whether the November 2024 presidential election reinforces or weakens America’s democratic values, processes, and institutions, along with its will to uphold the cause of democracy around the world,” Freedom House concluded.
Freedom House did not name names — not wanting, I suppose, to appear overtly partisan — but we can. “America’s democratic values” will be upheld only if Biden wins. As I have said before, and it bears repeating, whether that happens depends on us, the voters.
The political system will not save us. It had numerous opportunities to do so, but Republicans flinched every time they had a chance to stop the former president. That was most apparent in the Senate trial after Trump’s second impeachment, when Republicans who knew Trump was guilty of fomenting insurrection voted to acquit. (I am looking at you Senator Mitch McConnell, though you had a lot of help from the rest of your conference.)
The courts will not save us. The Supreme Court ruled — unanimously — Monday that Trump should remain on Colorado’s primary ballot. The mental gymnastics that the professed originalists on the court had to go through to ignore the plain meaning of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment must have been astounding. Unfortunately, Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Samuel Alito did not offer signed opinions, so we have no clue to their reasoning. But the text of the amendment is clear: “No person” who swore an oath to the Constitution of the United States, then subsequently engaged in insurrection, shall hold office “under the United States.” In the congressional debates in 1868, the drafters of the Amendment clearly stated that they intended to bar all oath-breaking insurrectionists.
The looming trials of the multiple-indicted former president will not save us either. Trump was scheduled to go on trial this week in federal court for his role in the January 6 insurrection, but that trial is on hold as the Supreme Court considers whether Trump has immunity for any and all crimes committed while president. While it is difficult to imagine that any court — even one that has swung so far to the right as the current Supreme Court — would accept Trump’s preposterous immunity claims, the leisurely pace at which the Supreme Court will adjudicate the case virtually guarantees that Trump will get the immunity from prosecution that he seeks. A decision in federal court before Election Day is almost certainly out of the question, which means that voters will be deciding on whether to support a candidate in this election without learning whether that candidate tried to subvert the last election. (Unsurprisingly, no trial date has been set in the Florida documents case.)
The Georgia racketeering case against Trump will not save us. That case is also on hold as a judge considers whether the district attorney who brought the charges has been compromised because of a personal relationship she had with a lawyer she hired to participate in the prosecution. Nor will the Manhattan hush-money case likely save us. Jury selection begins March 25, but most voters probably will look on a conviction — if that happens — as small potatoes. While polls show that many voters would desert Trump if he were convicted by a jury of his peers, I suspect the data does not apply in this case. (Likely reaction by millions of voters: “So he screwed a porn star and paid her to keep quiet so his wife wouldn’t find out. BFD.”)
No, the only thing that will save us — and American democracy — is a resounding victory for Biden in November. Unfortunately, as of now, that does not seem likely. The latest New York Times/Siena College poll, taken in late February, shows Biden trailing Trump by five points nationally. Nearly three-quarters of respondents believe Biden is too old to be president, more than three-fifths say Biden is not up to the job, and fewer than 20 percent think Biden’s policies have benefitted them.
Biden has only eight months to reverse these numbers. He cannot deny his age, so he should double-down on the tack he has taken recently and say to voters, in a form something like this: “Yes, I am old but so is the other guy. And his ideas are old. So old, they will take us back to the early 20th century, if not even earlier.”
Biden should remind women Trump’s old ideas would enshrine in law the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade, further denying women control of their own bodies. He should repeatedly point out to Black voters — whose traditional support for Democrats is wavering — that Trump will continue to undermine minority voting rights. The incumbent should say to Latinos — another group whose support for Democratic candidates has eroded in recent years — that Trump would herd new immigrants into concentration camps, deter migrants who are in the United States from becoming citizens, and never rectify the injustice done to Dreamers.
To the rest of us, Biden needs to stress his accomplishments. Where Trump’s policies would further enrich the already rich — intensifying economic inequality — Biden’s actions benefit the middle class. Biden has a proud record to run on, if only he can forcefully make the case. Unemployment is low, the stock market is booming, inflation is under control, real wages are rising, and the overall economy is growing at a record pace. And, though Trump promised to have an infrastructure week (the promise became a long-running joke), the Biden administration has launched over 40,000 projects aimed at rebuilding America. For Biden, it has been an infrastructure term!
We need to ignore the blandishments of third-party candidacies. Biden may not be everyone’s first choice — or twenty-first choice — for president, but he is a better choice than Trump, a far better choice. And, while Democrats may pine for someone else, Biden is not likely to be replaced as the Democratic candidate.
Joe has to make the case for his reelection. But I cannot say it often enough nor loudly enough: Vote. Vote as if the fate of the Republic hinges on every vote — because it does!
Posted March 5, 2024