Eight months before the American presidential election, Joe Biden is in a difficult situation, but not desperate. His economic record would normally be enough to ensure re-election. But times are not normal.
The fact that a man charged with 91 counts in four criminal cases, convicted of financial fraud and sexual abuse, the man who said “when you’re a star, you can do anything; put your hand on their pussy; anything ” ; a man who inspired and gave tacit support to an attack on parliament to reverse the election result…
…that such a man is seriously in contention with a chance of winning says a lot about what politics has become in the United States. On the “parallel world” in which a significant minority lives, and on the furious desire they have to “break down”.
Trump fanatics believe that their country lives in appalling insecurity and violence (“American carnage”), while the homicide rate (some 6 murders per 100,000 per year) has continued to decline since the 1990s (when it was almost double), except for a short rise… under Donald Trump, 2016-2020!
Trump fanatics believe the economy is in the 36e below, while the indicators (growth, investments, unemployment, consumption, even inflation which fades after 18 months) make many European and Asian leaders green with envy.
Trump fanatics repeat that their enemy is completely senile. But we could easily align, on a video montage, as many if not more inconsistencies, errors in names and dates, incomplete sentences, absurd extrapolations – not to mention the surly or narcissistic excesses – in Trump’s remarks as in those of Biden.
Two men of roughly the same age, where the most cognitively handicapped, the most impervious to reality, is not who they say. We would have liked a little more youth in 2024… but to rehash this argument and systematically machine-gun a side 0 that of Biden – by invoking it, is unfair.
The “grandpa” who read his State of the Union speech on Thursday did not give the impression of being completely senile. But for manifestations of infantilism, it was enough to look for ten seconds at the audience of Republican elected officials.
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But then, why do the polls place the two candidates tied? With Trump advantage in a handful of “swing states”? Because a significant minority has adhered, from life to death, to the alternative “MAGA” universe. It represented 46% of the votes cast in 2016, and 47% in 2020. The “hard core” is certainly lower than these figures (40%?)… but remains considerable.
The challenge for Democrats, whose total potential electorate, in the 55%, is larger (but more fragile and fractured), is to focus attention not only on the palpable economic successes of the Biden presidency, but on the dangers of chaos in the event of Trump’s return, or on the repeal of the right to abortion…
Biden will fight to the death to gain the support of Republicans and independents of the Nikki Haley tendency: 20%, 30%, 40% of the primary votes in several states. Just picking up a quarter of these people could change everything. For example, by telling them that on Ukraine, Joe Biden is today the heir of Ronald Reagan (“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall”)… while Trump is essentially saying: “Mr. Putin, do what you want with the recalcitrants and with Europe. »
As for the Democratic left, furious over Gaza and Israel, they will be reminded that the alternative would be even worse: Trump is a friend and 110% supporter of Netanyahu’s most murderous policies. As Democrats, slowly but surely, move away from their traditional stance on Israel: a heartbreaking revision is underway on this theme.
Trump can still be beaten this fall.
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