President Biden’s efforts to remain the Democratic presidential nominee have produced something unusual, which I think can be summarized as follows: Joe Biden is imitating Donald Trump.
Biden is becoming more and more like Trump, literally and figuratively.
Call it the Bronze Age. Since his disastrous argument, Biden appears It’s a sad commentary on our political culture to say this is wise and necessary, but it is. President Trump has patented the presidential pumpkin look, and now it’s de rigueur.
Unfortunately, the newfound similarities between Trump and Biden don’t end with spray tans. Biden and his team Blaming the “elites” The Democratic Party and the mainstream media have slandered the former. Call in to a morning TV show It’s another tactic that Trump first perfected, the latter born out of Zoom calls with donors.
Trump is not the first politician to oppose the press.Spiro Agnew and others did it.) But Trump has taken it to a new low by depicting the media as “the enemy of the people” and purveyors of “fake news.”
Biden hasn’t fallen quite so far, but the goals are the same: Discredit critics. Brand those who question him as naive. Put personal goals above party and country. Play the victim. Never admit defeat.
To be fair, Biden is in a bind, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he were conflating his political career with literal death, as people who find ultimate meaning in their work often do (see Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s stubborn refusal to retire and its consequences).
Biden may also have a rational, if self-serving, view of the situation. If he steps down now, his legacy will forever be that of an old man out of office. In this age of macho politics, he cannot afford to be remembered as a weakling. If Joe stays, he at least has a chance of being re-elected.
The most compelling reason for Biden to walk away would be if he cared more about defeating Donald Trump (an “existential threat”!) than about his own self-esteem or image, but Biden’s refusal to concede has left Democrats facing a dilemma of sorts: support a candidate who is likely to lose, or be blamed for engineering a loss.
The best case scenario for Democrats would be for Biden to quickly and voluntarily step down, and failing that, the next best scenario would be for Democrats to rally around Biden, with all his good and bad qualities.
The absolute worst-case scenario, as has been unfolding over the past week or so, is that Biden stubbornly remains in the race while his party and the media spend weeks trying to push him out.
That means Biden has influence.
In the same way Trump He held his own party hostageDemocrats are realizing that criticizing a rebellious Biden is the equivalent of shooting a hostage (in this case, Lower-ranking Democratic candidate He is running for seats in the Senate and House of Representatives.
When asked if Biden should withdraw, Democrats are forced to offer up a string of synonyms:President Biden is the nominee.”
Trump has put the Republican Party in a similar situation. When asked if the 2020 election was stolen, the first thing that came to mind for many in the GOP was, “Look, Joe Biden is the president..”
It’s sad that lower-ranking politicians can’t offer moral support for their party’s standard-bearer while also being unable to criticize him. What does this say about the current state of American politics?
One possibility is that we are all more selfish, careerist, partisan and tribal than we’d like to admit. The other possibility is that Trump has actually changed the game and Biden is literally following Trump’s populist playbook in order to survive.
A corollary of this theory is that Trumpism is a catalyst that justifies breaking norms just to maintain balance: Democrats who reluctantly support an unfit president (i.e. Biden), for example, are likely simply making a rational decision: being slow and senile is less dangerous than being chaotic and crazy.
Either way, the de facto major party candidates for President are two old men, neither of whom are fit to hold this great office, both of whom have their partisan supporters defending the indefensible and pretending that two and two equal five.
And like an old married couple, the two men (and their followers) are becoming more similar to one another with each passing day.
Matt K. Lewis is a columnist, podcaster, and author of “Too stupid to fail” and ““Incredibly rich politicians”
