With sycophantic senators like Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, and Senator Richard Burr (disgracefully) of North Carolina, running around parroting Russian propaganda about Ukraine interfering in the American election of 2016 – an absurd theory that has been debunked repeatedly by our own intelligence agencies – it is more apparent than ever that the Democrats are going to be far more electable if they nominate Joe Biden.
I put my own keister on the line spending over a year in Central Asia working for the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs on elections, civil society, media, and women’s programs, as well as conducting later trainings in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Colombia.
Among other challenges in Central Asia, an Al-Qaeda allied group was leafleting my street in Dushanbe regularly. Much more importantly, President Putin was already putting pressure on the various Central Asian presidents to crack down on any foreign organizations that had been invited in by the small Central Asian governments if they were running any kind of trainings explaining how government worked in the West. The only candidate who would be fully prepared to understand such an experience and run US foreign policy on his first day is Joe Biden.
Unlike virtually all of the other Democrats running, Joe Biden has deep first-hand experience and knowledge about not only the modern foreign policy of the United States, but also of the historical antecedents that led to it.
For many years, Joe Biden was an innovative thinker in foreign policy matters, not at all the rubber stamp for US foreign intervention that some on the left caricature him as.
For example, while others were just advocating withdrawal from Iraq – which ultimately resulted in the emergence of ISIS/Daesh – by contrast Joe Biden was trying to find ways to strengthen local governments in Iraq such as increasing federalism so that local Sunni chieftains in Anbar province would have more of a say in what happened to the oil underneath their tribal lands, thereby giving them a natural incentive to oppose ISIS.
Most of the other candidates who would stand on a debate stage with Donald Trump just don’t have that depth of experience in many parts of the world beyond the Middle East, and it will show.
So beyond the importance of uniting the Democratic Party and bringing together the African-American community with white liberals and progressives, as well as working class Democrats and independents of all races, the unexpected emerging primacy of foreign policy is just one more reason why we need Joe Biden, a perennially underestimated candidate, to defeat Donald Trump in 2020.
A debate with the two of them discussing (and both unraveling about) Ukraine will be the most depressing thing we’ve ever seen in a debate. I don’t think Biden’s apparent foreign policy advantage will come through and what we’ll end up with is an unengaged and unenthusiastic voting public.
I saw Biden’s new ad about this issue and liberals praising it. To me, it strikes me as an ad that reinforces the things that Trump supporters like about Trump and delights people who already oppose Trump. In a campaign built on trying to appeal to moderate and unhappy suburban Trump supporters (as opposed to bringing in non-voters or young people) this type of messaging seems like a tough gamble.
Biden’s pro-American democracy foreign policy/national security credibility contrasted to the Siberian candidate’s anti-democratic corrupt pro-Russian collaboration is reflected in todays national/state polling that tells me voters want trustworthy leadership that brings peace and stability to a Trump/Putin-induced chaotic/dangerous world.
That ad is absolutely awful. I agree with your criticism of it.
If a nominee is going to attack Donald Trump and his GOP Collaborators, then the campaign spots should focus on the HORRIFIC impacts of his presidency.
Show a still of Mr. Trump smiling, then a full-frame image of the weeping child separated from her mother. Show a still of Mr. Trump laughing, then find and show images of farms destroyed by his self-destructive trade war.
Joe Biden once again demonstrates that his outdated political intuition makes him absolutely tone-deaf to the current political reality.
“”Tone-deaf” ? Really?
“Joe Biden once again demonstrates that his outdated political intuition makes him absolutely tone-deaf to the current reality”
Is that why every ‘current reality’ national and primary/caucus state poll shows him leading?
Very few are citing his message as the reason they support him. They just think he is the most likely to beat Trump. If he loses some early states, that thinking could change drastically.
All the other candidates are mainly being supported for their message, not an electability calculation.
How the hell do you know that?
Polling and reports showing that those who rank “beat Trump” higher than any other issue more likely go with Biden and those who rank other issues do not.
Name recognition and electability calculus (which are not unrelated) are driving his polling lead.
For me that’s a supporting reason at best, and I usually cite polls in that regard only to push back against doubt cast by others. Experience is tops for me.
Let me try different words to explain my reaction to the ad.
Let’s stipulate, for discussion, that we both want Mr. Biden to beat Mr. Trump. I’d like to talk about the messaging of this ad, separately from any differences we might have about Mr. Biden.
This is a one-minute piece. The first three fourths — 75%! — is only about Donald Trump. Mr. Biden doesn’t appear until 0:43 into the piece. The most important part of the positive messaging, in the final five seconds, has no voice-over at all.
This piece will be seen by several audiences, at least including the following:
1. Democrats who support Mr. Biden
2. Democrats who support some candidate other than Mr. Biden
3. Non-voters, undecided voters, and voters who don’t identify with either major party
4. Voters who support Donald Trump
The first group is already going to vote for Mr. Biden in the primary and in the general. The piece may encourage their enthusiasm.
The second group already dislikes Mr. Trump, so the first 75% of the piece is wasted on them. The remaining 25% may or may not be effective at moving the opinion of these Democrats
My concern is about the third and fourth groups. I suggest that some members of the third group and most members of the fourth group share Mr. Trump’s contempt for virtually ALL of the foreign leaders shown and for all of the criticisms voiced. These voters LIKE what Mr. Trump is doing, and view the reactions shown in this video as evidence to support their contempt of world leaders who make fun of Mr. Trump behind his back.
We Democrats and the mainstream press that we prefer to watch HUGELY misread America’s reaction to the “bus tapes”. We thought Americans would be appalled by Mr. Trump’s comments about women. In fact, the data shows that a great many voters — especially older white men in MI, WI, and PA — LIKED those comments and turned out to vote for Mr. Trump because of them.
This piece strikes me as an example of advertising that plays to the base of people who already support the candidate. Beyond being relatively ineffective at changing opinion beyond the candidate’s base, pieces like this have a more significant and more fundamental flaw — they have a tendency to fire up the other side and cause them to turn out.
There is strong evidence that we saw this happen with Mr. Trump’s recent gubernatorial losses. The effect of Mr. Trump appearing in these states and pandering to his base (as he always does) was to fire up voters in those states who oppose Mr. Trump and all he stands for. When the votes were counted, the latter group turned out to be the most significant.
An important reason why I dislike this piece from Mr. Biden is that I fear it will have the same effect. I fear it will fire up those who believe that Mr. Trump is being unfairly attacked and criticized. In so doing, it actually plays into the central messaging from the GOP about the impeachment.
That’s why I dislike this piece, separately from my enthusiasm for Ms. Warren.
Tom, think of what you’re saying.
Joe Biden — and those of us supporting him — honestly believes this is an election fight for the very heart and soul of our country, our democracy and our humanity.
Do you really think we give a rats ass about ‘firing up those that think Trump is being unfairly attacked and criticized.’ ? Hell no!
I don’t waste any of my time debating fascist Trumpists and apathetic know-nothings. I have adopted the wise philosophy of our Founder Thomas Paine:
“To argue with a man who has renounced his reason is like giving medicine to the dead.”
Rather, my battle cry is : PERSUADE THE PERSUADABLE, ACTIVATE THE PERSUADED !
Fred, I share your contempt for Mr. Trump.
I’m certainly not suggesting that any of us should waste time arguing with or persuading supporters of Mr. Trump, I’ve written that sentiment multiple times here.
I’m saying instead that I don’t see the benefit of dragging red meat in front of them during our primary.
As I wrote upthread, I think that we have a target-rich of environment of things Mr. Trump has said and done that are directly harmful to every American including those in his base. I think any of those would have been better choices than this piece.
There are a huge number of Americans who have no use for the French. Showing a clip of Mr. Macron taking cheap shots at Mr. Trump behind his back was not, in my view, the best choice of material.
Tom, hopefully this is the first of many Biden ads and it strikes me as perfect sense for Uncle Joe to lead with his strong ‘Trump’ — forgive the pun — suit, foreign policy.
It reminds me of the last few weeks of the Clinton campaign when the ads were 100% negative. Casting him as a person hated by elites (can’t get more elite-feeling than European politicians) and a breaker of norms is exactly what people love about him. It strengthens him.
If you want to go negative on Trump, do things that minimize him and show him to be a cartoonish corrupt fool not a strong threat to institutions and elite power.
See I think that this ad, especially as part of a comprehensive messaging strategy, could work very well with group 3.
Oh, it could indeed work very well with group 3 … to motivate them to turn out for Donald Trump. I saw this rodeo in MI, WI, and PA in 2016.
I saw this rodeo the first time in 1980, when I joined my Democratic cohorts in celebrating the GOP nomination of Ronald Reagan because Mr. Reagan was so “crazy” that he’d be an easy candidate to beat.
I didn’t like it the first time and I don’t like the reruns.
This is my entire point. Nicely summed up. It’s how we all thought in 2016 I might add.
We and the voters can learn from 2016, I think.
“It (Biden’s new ad) strikes me as an ad that reinforces the things that Trump supporters like about Trump”…
You mean Trumpists LIKE the fact that Trump has made America the laughingstock of the world.
I think a lot of middle Americans aren’t going to appreciate the country becoming a laughingstock. They want America to be respected in the world. I have no illusions that this or any other ad would win over the MAGA cultists.
I think middle Americans voted to tell the very establishment that loves Biden and Hillary and the Bushes to go to hell. I think they are far more likely to vote for a candidate who shares their disdain for that establishment, but offers solutions that actually help their bottom line. If Joe Biden runs a campaign that relies on his record as an elder statesmen he will lose to Trump. If he runs against Trump tax cuts, Trump’s personal corruption, and Trump’s elevation of big business over main street Americans, he has a shot. This idea that the values of the Acela corridor has any electoral clout has been thoroughly disproven.
I’m confident that Biden can and will do both. Besides, I for one see his return to establishment competence as a plus and I’m only obligated to represent myself in the primary voting booth. I also think that maybe enough voters have seen the results of anti-establishment temper tantrums to rethink that if they voted last time or turn out at all knowing that Trump COULD be elected. My theory has always been that Trump was elected not by those who voted and should have been with us, but by those who stayed home assuming Hillary had it in the bag. They figured they could acquiesce to her election without having to actually vote for her. I hope they know better than to make that mistake again.
The establishment was not competent though. They did not see the crash or 9/11 coming down the pike. They utterly failed to use prudent judgment in Iraq. Look, I’d personally much rather Biden with his hand at the tiller than Trump and the less qualified Democrats like Yang or Gabbard, but the reality is a lot of voters were looking for a clean slate last time around in both parties.
I worry Biden and his campaign have yet to come to terms with that. It’s frightening since I honestly do think he’s the likeliest nominee. They need a better strategy for Hunter and for articulating what he’ll do differently than his predecessors, not just Trump.
Biden was not singled out by name in the recent Washington Post coverage of the Afghanistan war, but it shows how the establishment, from Bush through Obama administrations failed and lied about that war.
The Washington Post reporting about Afghanistan (which should receive a Pulitzer Prize) shows me that EVERY administration has lied about EVERY war since at as far back as Vietnam.
The open hostilities of that war, after all, began with an authorization from Congress based on lies, exaggerations, and propaganda — not unlike the similarly deceptive justification for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
No American political official was ever even investigated, never mind prosecuted, in spite of a decade of secret and illegal US bombing, rampant US war crimes and pervasive corruption — all culminating in a hasty retreat that could have happened five years earlier with the same result. Our adversaries in that war are now valued trading partners.
The Vietnam experience normalized illegal military operations ordered by administrations of both parties. It demonstrated that such wars — occasionally valuable as political tools — are easily ordered without fear of any congressional response (save some cluck-clucking to reporters in Capital hallways). The pattern after Vietnam has been that GOP presidents start each war and Democratic Party successors continue it.
I disagree with the contention that Democrats did not see the 2008 crash coming down the pike. What I saw was a Democratic establishment unable to stop or slow a relentless onslaught of right-wing ignorance and lies insistent on removing all restraints on big business while dismantling all protections of consumers that might interfere with that movement. Joe Biden was on the wrong side of that movement.
President Al Gore would not have invaded Iraq. President Al Gore would not have invaded Afghanistan. As bad as 9/11 was, it was a crime committed by Saudis — Saudis who were deeply enmeshed with the financial portfolios of the Bush and Cheney families. I think that a President Al Gore would have pursued criminal prosecutions of OBL and AQ. I think there would have been serious consequences for the Saudis.
If America had been led by President Al Gore from 2000 to 2008, there would have been no “war on terror”, no 2003 invasion of Iraq, no invasion of Afghanistan, and no Great Recession. America would have led the world in fighting climate change.
A corrupt GOP stole the 2000 election by illegally manipulating the Florida elections (and probably elsewhere). A corrupt Supreme Court with key justices appointed by the GOP awarded the stolen election to George W. Bush.
America has been paying a terrible price ever since.
Six 6’s Tom. Nothing you typed there isn’t true.
I think under the circumstances just about anyone would have invaded Afghanistan. They were harboring al-Qaeda and OBL and were not interested in turning them over. I don’t believe 9/11 was the work of the Saudi government.
Did Biden oppose the CIA’s secret war in Syria? At one of the debates, Biden denied that regime change was US policy… Whatever we want to call it, how could anyone in the Obama administration have thought that sending the CIA into Syria would turn out well?
His rally/town hall in Nashua with John Kerry the other day was largely about foreign policy, which is always iffy in terms of getting votes unless a war is at the front of public consciousness. I guess it makes sense to discuss it with two former Senate Foreign Relations Chairs, one of whom went on to become SoS. This experience and the respect he already has globally are among my top reasons for supporting him.
The crux of this debate comes down to what your theory of the case is regarding this election. The first reality is, there were not enough non-white or young voters who came out for Hillary in the same numbers they came out for Obama. Getting those voters who stayed home or voted third party in 2016 is a major priority. The second reality is, there were around 6 million Obama-Trump voters who were spread out across the country, but particularly concentrated in the industrial Midwest states easily carried by Obama twice and lost by Hillary Clinton. Getting back some of those voters in a race decided by fewer than 80,000 of them is an equally important priority. The smartest strategy is to select a candidate who will appeal to both groups.
Instead of endlessly debating and highlighting what both groups disagree about (immigration, race relations, and gender identity) maybe we should highlight issues where both groups are in surprisingly alignment. Issues such as taxing the wealthy, expanding access to healthcare, and reducing America’s seemingly endless commitment to military interventions abroad. Nearly 70% of Americans are solidly on the left side of the spectrum when it comes to economics and foreign policy.
There is an argument to be made that Biden has more appeal to culturally moderate voters than Hillary Clinton, but he has been forced by this primary cycle to repudiate all of his past cultural moderation on abortion, race, and crime. This leaves us with his record as a handmaiden to the failed neoliberal consensus defending the failed foreign and economic policy of the last forty years.
Voting for trade deals that destroyed the industrial heartland and cost millions of good paying American jobs. Voting with credit card companies to make it harder for working families to get out of debt. Voting with health insurance companies and recycling their talking points to make it harder for Americans to get access to high quality universal health care. Voting for foreign wars that wasted trillions of dollars and thousands of American lives and failed to make America safer. Voting for high military budgets, no strings attached military and foreign aid to unsavory places like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Netenyahu’s Israel that oppress their people.
In the words of Bob Gates, nobody has been more wrong on more foreign policy questions than Joe Biden. His foreign policy is exactly the kind of policy that will depress young voters and voters of color, tired of dying in white boomer wars and paying for white boomer war and climate debt, while the Obama-Trump voters want someone to take on the global corporations and foreign policy establishment that destroyed their jobs at home and sent their kids to die in hellholes abroad.
One thing the Bernie bro or sister and unemployed Ohio trucker can agree on is that America should stay out of the Middle East and invest in better jobs and healthcare at home. Obama won twice on this platform, but failed to deliver. It is time a new kind of Democrat unencumbered by the failures of the past delivers the real change America so desperately needs.
Can you please provide a source for this “there were around 6 million Obama-Trump voters who were spread out across the country, but particularly concentrated in the industrial Midwest states easily carried by Obama twice and lost by Hillary Clinton”
I’ve seen you offer it here multiple times, and I haven’t yet seen it sourced.
I’ve provided multiple sources before. Feel free to look at them again.
I’m not saying we need all of them back. Some political scientists say we only need 10-20% to come back.
More about that 6M vote number.
Various sources report that 2016 popular vote count was as follows:
Donald Trump: 62,984,828/46.1%
Hillary Clinton: 65,853,514/48.2%
—-
Total: 128,838,342/94.3%
That means that 136,626,026 votes were cast in total
Note that 5.7% of the votes went to someone else. That is
7,787,684 votes. The 6M votes you cite is 4.4% of the total vote count.
Here are the popular vote margins of the elections in the modern media age:
I consider the 1960 victory of JFK to be the first election where modern media played a decisive role (specifically, the televised debates between JFK and Richard Nixon).
There are three landslides in that data: 1964, 1972, and 1984. I define “landslide” to be a two-digit percentage margin of victory.
There are just two living ex-presidents who had margins greater than 5% — Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
My theory of the 2020 election is that the media is EVERYTHING. I think that is strongest conclusion that can be drawn from this data.
Barack Obama’s 2008 victory jumps off the page at me, far and away the largest margin since Bill Clinton’s 1996 campaign.
I attribute that 2008 margin to two key factors:
1. The Great Recession of 2008
2. The nomination of the first African-American
While my heart says that the Great Recession meant that ANY Democratic nominee would have won big, I think the data says something else. The closest analog is the Great Depression of 1929. Yet the margin of FDR, in 1930 (17.76%) was statistically indistinguishable from that of his predecessor, Herbert Hoover, in 1926 (17.41%).
My theory of the next election is that “it’s about the MEDIA, stupid.”
Donald Trump won the 2016 election because, among other things:
A. He is a master of media manipulation
B. The Russians were extraordinarily effective at manipulating the media to their advantage.
Both of those hinge on discarding even a pretense of truth, fact, accuracy, or consistency.
I think it’s a near certainty that Donald Trump will be on the ballot again in 2020. We have, if anything, weakened our protections against Russian interference.
I think the outcome of the 2020 election will be about the same as the 2016 election unless we change either A, B, or both. I think our choice of candidate is largely irrelevant.
None of the current Democratic candidates compares to Donald Trump in media mastery, and none share his pathological disregard for truth.
I hate to say this, but I think a hard look at the evidence compels the conclusion that our First Amendment freedoms are being exploited to our collective harm. Unless and until we find a way to address their abuse, this will happen again and again.
The age of reason has ended, or at least paused.
I think we should be prepared for four more years of Donald Trump.
You’re focusing on a small piece of my argument you disagree with. The rest of it I think you’ll agree with. Biden is not the way forward. Sanders or Warren can get both non voters and enough (10-20%) Obama Trump voters to come back. I don’t think Biden or Buttigieg will be able to with warmed over centrism.
I’m pessimistic about whether any Democrat can defeat the twin headwinds of non-stop lies from Fox News and pervasive Russian media manipulation unrestrained by government regulation.
I’ll vote for Elizabeth Warren in the primary and hopefully in the general.
I’m trying to prepare myself for four more years of the current nightmare.
That’s a fair point. I guess the silver lining for me is the monthly trump tracker with morning consult that shows him underwater in most states. I think the impeachment makes those numbers even worse. We can play Martyball with Biden (prevent defense) or go for two with Sanders or Warren. I think Buttigieg, whom I found quite impressive in person, is increasingly all the lackluster moderation of a Biden with none of the experience.
Fox is preaching to an aging choir while the Russian interference is sophisticated enough to spread disinformation but not to change votes. I think we’re also wise to their activities now. It’s definitely a major problem the incumbent and his party went out of their way not to solve.
See for me, it should not matter ultimately in terms of turning out our vote who the nominee is. For crying out loud THE OTHER CHOICE WILL BE TRUMP! We do not have the luxury, and neither do the voters with most to lose, of bellyaching this time over too left or too center. Anyone who stays home this time gets the government they deserve! It’s just too bad the rest of us have to live with it. For some of the voters described on this thread I can’t think of a response other than to knock on their heads and ask, “Hey, McFly, anybody home?”
I was with your analysis until you got to the gloom and doom near the end. Frankly your pessimism is depressing.
Which part of my comment strikes you as “gloom and doom near the end”?
It will help me if you can identify the step where we diverge, rather than characterize my path.
Starting with the line about 2020 likely producing the same result as 2016, but really the final two lines about the age of reason having ended and predicting another 4 years of Trump. So often you sound like you’ve given up and that you think the United States might as well pack it in as not worth fighting for and not likely to bounce back.
I sincerely hope your optimism proves to be correct.
Our culture’s apparent abandonment of any standards of objective truth truly terrifies me. Modern media is an immensely powerful tool for manipulating the opinion of the viewer. Our First Amendment rights were articulated in a time when “mass media” was broadsheets printed one page at a time on manual presses with hand-inked plates.
Comparing that to youtube, facebook, and broadcast media is like comparing a musket to a nuclear weapon.
It seems to me that we have not so far invented or discovered any effective way to limit or manage the damage done by even a single viral fake-news story planted by a hostile power that is seen by tens of millions of social media users within hours.
We have not yet even attempted to address the issues raised by unrestrained and unlimited propaganda originating in Russia and spread throughout US culture by cynical and ruthless tyrants.
Well, I’ve always been a “best way to fight free speech is with more free speech” kind of guy.
@best way to fight free speech…:
Oh, me too. What I’m saying is that I fear/suspect that we are seeing the limits of this approach.
Mitch McConnell has today assured the Fox News audience that there is no chance that Mr. Trump will be removed from office. This is before any charges are even filed. The Supreme Court has announced today that next spring it will hear the several cases where Mr. Trump has claimed absolute immunity from investigation. That means that at least four justices believe there is merit to the claim.
The founders clearly viewed the impeachment provisions as a vital part of the governmental balance of power. We see now that these provisions are essentially irrelevant.
The right wing has successfully taken over America. Their ownership and mastery of the media and their eagerness to lie to support their agenda together show that the absence of limits on First Amendment expression results in tyranny.
I’m neither surprised nor upset that cert was granted by SCOTUS on Trump cases. Given the big constitutional separation of powers questions it would be negligent for them not to IMO. I was reminded tonight that Nixon thought the Court would favor him because he personally appointed four of the justices. We know how that worked out.