President Biden’s campaign is trying to remind voters of some of President Trump’s controversial comments and actions in an effort to break public amnesia about his tumultuous presidency.
The Biden campaign took to social media on Tuesday to remind voters of a time in 2020 when Trump “bragged” about tear gassing Black Lives Matter protesters for a photo-op at a church near the White House.
“They walked in and it was like a knife through butter. BOOM. I’ll never forget that,” the Biden campaign wrote on social platform X, echoing Trump’s own words at the time.
When the Biden campaign released an ad around Senator Normandy’s Day last week, it devoted an entire one-minute ad spot to remind voters of comments Trump has made about veterans, including comments in which he allegedly called them “losers” and “idiots.”
At a fundraiser earlier this month, Biden told a room full of well-heeled Democrats that Trump poses danger by both looking back and predicting the future: “Every day that passes, what’s becoming more clear is this: The threat that Trump poses will be greater in his second term than he was in his first term.”
“This is not the Trump that was elected in 2016,” Biden continued. “He’s even worse.”
Recent polls suggest that many more voters look back fondly on the Trump era than the Biden campaign would like, and surveys show Trump leading the president nationally and in battleground states.
The numbers have alarmed Democrats, who say voters are forgetting events like the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Biden is digging into what his campaign wants voters to see as the worst days of the Trump administration, trying to portray his rival as a president who supported Russia and North Korea and who reportedly called African countries “—- a-holes.”
The Biden campaign will also continue to point out Trump’s attempts to undermine the 2020 election and overturn its results.
“Democrats must push back against the romanticization of the Trump era,” said Democratic strategist Tim Hogan.
Hogan acknowledged that some voters may think of the Trump era as the pre-COVID era. “Unravelling voter confusion connecting the simpler life before the pandemic with life in the early Trump years will be a challenge, but it’s important. It was confusing then, and it will be confusing again if Trump wins. You need to build that into your messaging.”
Philip Reines, a longtime senior adviser to Hillary Clinton, said Democrats needed to look back to the last time Trump was defeated, highlighting the fatigue many felt at the time and the palpable feeling that he was a danger to the country.
“America needs to remember what we were thinking in November 2020 when Trump was defeated,” Raines said, “the emotions felt by so many of us: tired of the lies, the shenanigans, the hatred and the embarrassment.”
Raines acknowledged that this amnesia is a big factor, not just in relation to Trump but across the board, as voters occasionally reflect on their lives.
“January 20, 2021, was a pivotal day in everyone’s life, but no one in America remembers what a gallon of gas cost before they changed jobs and what it cost after they changed jobs,” he said. “All they remember is what it costs now and who the current president is.”
In recent months, Biden has struggled to win support even from some in his own party, even as Trump has been sidelined in a New York trial over hush payments to porn stars.
Voters are questioning his ability to deal with issues such as inflation, immigration and overseas conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza.
“I don’t know if I’d call it amnesia,” said Republican strategist Shermichael Singleton. “I don’t think people are happy with the last four years of Biden.”
Meanwhile, Doug Haigh, a Republican strategist who does not support Trump, said, “Every president has benefited from a rise in approval ratings after leaving office.”
“That, combined with many voters having fresh memories of COVID-19, worked in Trump’s favor,” Hay said.
Biden’s supporters say they know this, and that he will continue to evoke the instincts voters had when Trump won in 2016.
In one fundraising letter earlier this year, Biden sought to return to one of the Democratic Party’s darkest hours.
“Remember how you felt the day after Donald Trump was elected president in 2016,” he said, “walking around in disbelief and fear of what was about to happen?”
