April 26, 2023 11:39 AM UTC

Biden Announces Re-Election as Trump, MAGA Slump

•  
• by: Colorado Pols

Everything old is new again.

Well, that’s not exactly right. Everything that was old in 2020 is now older, but there will be a newish version in 2024. A darker version, but in a good way.

From The New York Times:

President Biden formally announced on Tuesday that he would seek a second term, arguing that American democracy still faces a profound threat from former President Donald J. Trump as he set up the possibility of a climactic rematch between the two next year.

In a video that opens with images of a mob of Trump supporters storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, the president said that the “fight for our democracy” has “been the work of my first term” but is incomplete while his predecessor mounts a comeback campaign for his old office that Mr. Biden suggested would endanger fundamental rights.

“Around the country, MAGA extremists are lining up to take on those bedrock freedoms,” Mr. Biden said, using Mr. Trump’s Make America Great Again slogan to describe the former president’s allies. “Cutting Social Security that you’ve paid for your entire life while cutting taxes for the very wealthy. Dictating what health care decisions women can make, banning books and telling people who they can love. All while making it more difficult for you to be able to vote.”

“When I ran for president four years ago,” he added, “I said we were in a battle for the soul of America. And we still are.”

The Biden campaign also rolled out its first election ad for Dark Brandon, and it’s a good one:

Joe Biden’s first ad is phenomenal. pic.twitter.com/osY8tHIT9X

— Santiago Mayer (@santiagomayer_) April 26, 2023

Biden’s team has clearly decided to re-take the mantle of “freedom.” This is a simple framing that Republicans have inaccurately used for multiple election cycles; their recent actions, however, have opened the door for Democrats to snatch it back.

As David Frum writes for The Atlantic:

Despite lavish anti-Trump donations by big-money Republicans, Trump is cruising to easy renomination. Rather than capitalize on existing economic troubles, Republicans have started a debt-ceiling fight that will cast them as the cause of America’s economic troubles. Worse for them, the troubles are fast receding. Inflation is vexing, but the recession that Republicans hoped for did not materialize: Instead, Joe Biden has presided over the fastest and steepest unemployment reduction in U.S. economic history…

…Republicans are doing everything wrong. [Pols emphasis] They are talking to their voters about Trump’s personal grievances and about boutique culture-war issues that their own base does not much care about, such as the state of Florida’s “war on Disney.” At the same time, Republican leaders are confronting Democratic voters with extremist threats on issues they care intensely about: bans on abortion medication by mail, restrictions on the freedom of young women to travel across state lines, attacks on student voting rights, proposed big cuts to Medicaid and food stamps in the GOP debt-ceiling ransom demand. Republicans offer no economic message and no affirming vision, even as they make new moves to police women’s bodies and start a land war in Mexico. They are well on their way to earning a deep, nasty defeat—and the smell of that defeat may be an additional draw to the polls for the Democratic-leaning constituencies that will inflict it.

[mantra-pullquote align=”right” textalign=”left” width=”50%”]“Trump, together with DeSantis, has completely rebranded the GOP as the party of bossing around women, minorities, and young people.”

     — The Atlantic (4/26/23)[/mantra-pullquote]

As Frum correctly notes, any voter concerns about Biden must be considered in a binary manner with former President Donald Trump the likely GOP nominee in 2024. Biden doesn’t have to be America’s favorite candidate ever — he just has to be better than Trump.

That alternative, meanwhile, launched its first 2024 campaign ad this week. Trump’s first 2024 television spot sounds like it was written by the Big Orange Guy himself:

The Trump campaign is up on TV with this 60-second spot. Airing nationally

This is the first TV ad spending of the 2024 cycle from @TeamTrump pic.twitter.com/UzGxcm2w0d

— Medium Buying (@MediumBuying) April 26, 2023

Astute observers will note that Trump’s first television spot does not talk about what he accomplished as President or what he wants to accomplish next. Rather, it is 60 seconds of LOOK AT THIS UNGRATEFUL BASTARD WHO THINKS HE’S BETTER THAN ME!

Trump’s enemy will be Biden — eventually — but for now it’s all about Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

This should be a concern for Republicans for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the disdain that Americans currently hold for whomever captures the hearts of the MAGA Republican base. As NBC News reports, both Trump and his “Make America Great Again” movement are wildly unpopular:

Catering to MAGA Republicans is still the best way for a candidate to win the GOP nomination for any office, but that prize comes with a significant downside (as Colorado Republicans keep learning). You can have the love of MAGA Republicans, or you can have the support of the broader American electorate. But you can’t have both.

Anyway, welcome to the 2024 election cycle! The race for President has officially begun.