The Democratic Party in a single tweet.
Yikes.
With it looking more and more likely that this year will be a Donald Trump and Joe Biden rematch, Hillary Clinton posted a tweet this morning trying to address Biden’s vexing age problem. I feel like this is a perfect case study of everything that’s wrong with the contemporary Democratic Party. Let’s unpack.
The tweet begins with gaslighting.
When you're lucky to live into your seventies or eighties, the difference of a few years doesn't matter all that much. Joe Biden and Donald Trump are effectively the same age. Let's use that as a baseline.
The reality is that “the difference of a few years” matters even more “when you’re lucky to live into your seventies or eighties.” This is biological reality. Aging from 77 to 81 is a much more consequential experience than aging from 50 to 54 — in your late 70s and early 80s, your human hardware is rapidly deteriorating. While Democratic Party elites want to argue that “Joe Biden and Donald Trump are effectively the same age,” the public strongly disagrees.
Trump is deteriorating — time comes for all of us — but he is not visibly declining as rapidly as Biden. He’s still doing multiple rallies a day and sitting for lengthy television interviews. Trump looks presidential and Biden, sadly, looks ready for a retirement home. Biden’s decision to indefinitely cancel large campaign events will only amplify this contrast. To be clear, Trump’s content is fascistic, authoritarian, and appalling, but he delivers that content with energy and force — and, perhaps most important of all for an aspiring president, he continues to be present in public settings.
After gaslighting about Biden’s age and personal capacity to serve until January 2029, Clinton proceeds to tell us that “it's become clear the choice for this November” has been made. Despite the fact that a majority of Americans don’t want Biden and Trump to run again, we’re essentially told “tough noogies.” As Democratic presidential candidate Dean Phillips has repeatedly pointed out, coronations don’t work. Hillary more than anyone should know this.
The coronation discourse is followed by Clinton reminding us that the core theme of the Biden campaign will be “democracy.” Voters are invited to choose between Biden…
or someone who tried to overthrow our democracy, has been indicted 91 times, and says he wants to be a "day one" dictator if elected again.
The problem is that voters are much more worried about the cost-of-living crisis and immigration than January 6th or Trump’s authoritarian language. But Clinton dictates that Biden’s campaign will be focused on trolling Trump and reminding voters about January 6th.
The Clinton tweet is just a chef’s kiss example of the Democratic Party’s democratic deficit. A majority of Democrats and Democrat-leaning independents have consistently said they want someone else as the nominee, so “shut up” and back Biden. Democrats have consistently said they are more worried about inflation than democratic norms, so choke down a $16 cheeseburger and listen to Biden rehash all of the worst things Trump has ever said about the election he lost four years ago.
The tweet concludes with Clinton confidently declaring, “I’m choosing Biden. How about you?”
::starts mentally drafting a reply::
Oh.
This is not a winning strategy.
Great analysis, Anthony. You could add: the last person seing voters want to be lectured at by is… HRC.