Getting lost in the twenty-four-hour COVID-19 conversation on cable television, and the incessant mind-numbing chatter on social media, is the fact that an American Presidential election is due in November.
Democratic Socialist, & Vermont’s US Senator, two-time presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders just two days ago dropped out of the race for president.
Despite not having sewn up the nomination, Joe Biden, the presumptive nominee for the Democrats, is almost silent, even as the Republican incumbent is in front of the television cameras literally every day.
The conventional wisdom that seems to be guiding the Biden campaign is that the incumbent is doing such a bad job, and there is so much anti-Trump sentiment out there, that they can simply while away the days to the elections.
And thereafter, Joe Biden will be installed the 46th president of the United States.
If that is their mindset they should talk to president Hillary Clinton about how that strategy worked out for her.
In 2016 as Hillary Clinton rested on her laurels, and for the entire month of August she did not do a single campaign rally. In the meantime Donald trump was on the campaign trail with his name boldly emblozned on his old plane in every airport hanger he could find.
There is the general rule that there is no such thing as bad publicity, true or not, Donald Trump understands this more than most. And so this is the time that the Democratic National Committee under the hapless leadership of Tom Perez should be stepping up its game to consolidate resources with the Biden Campaign to seriously mount a credible offensive against the Trump machinery.
This election will literally be the most consequential in our lifetime.
But Joe Biden could hardly be seen as either a competent or inspiring presidential candidate.
As the Root’s Damon Young writes. “Joe Biden has been, in order, a dangerous young politician, a disappointing older politician, a laughable Democratic presidential candidate, a middling vice president, an uninspired Democratic presidential candidate, and now an uninspiring Democratic nominee.”
I thought Damon Young’s characterization of Biden may be a bit harsh, nevertheless, if there is a milder version to those adjectives I would gladly sign on to those.
At best Joe Biden is a gaffe-prone, uninspiring mediocre candidate who just happens to be the last person standing of the large and diverse field of candidates who started on the journey to defeat Donald Trump.
In a way, Biden has survived because of two or three key issues (1) Democratic primary voters want someone they believe will have the best chance to defeat Donald Trump in the fall. (2) Biden has name recognition and arguable the bona fides necessary to win back rust-belt states that did not turn out for Hillary Clinton. (3) He is a two-term vice ‑president to Barack Obama the last Democratic president, who may still be the most popular man in the party, and I daresay the entire country.
Joe Biden may be the presumptive nominee at the moment for the very same reason that Obama picked him to be vice president, his potential appeal to rust-belt voters in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania & Ohio.
We are less than eight months away from the presidential elections and if Joe Biden has a plan or a strategy to win the presidency it is yet to be seen.
For its part the DNC has not demonstrated the kind of aggressive leadership that voters expect, that would harness and channel the resentment that has characterized Donald Trump’s entry into the White House.
If Joe Biden does not get it together real fast, almost 60% of Americans who did not support Donald Trump should prepare for another four years of a ruthless dictatorship that will make the first four years seem like a bad comedy act.
The America that existed before Trump entered the White House will certainly not exist anymore.
Donald Trump, Mitch McConnel, and the Roberts supreme court will forever transform America into a dystopian nightmare.