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April 26, 2023 11:39 AM UTC

Biden Announces Re-Election as Trump, MAGA Slump

  • 16 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols
Dark Brandon is rolling again in 2024

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:

 


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.

Freedumb

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:

 

 

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:

 

Via NBC News

 

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.

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16 thoughts on “Biden Announces Re-Election as Trump, MAGA Slump”

  1. Biden vs Trump?  I like Biden's odds in this one no matter how old he is.  This is going to be the election to beat these Republican traitors at every level including dog catcher.  Only 19 months until election day 2024. 

  3. 86 years old. That’s how old he will be if he (hopefully) wins and lives through his second term. Eighty-six. There is something really broken in this country. 

    1. You'll get no argument from me about "There is something really broken in this country" 

      Personally, I'd start with the US having two out of two Republican Presidents elected after 1988 who were not able to win the popular vote. (only Republican winner was re-election of Bush43, in 2004.)

      Or more dramatically, that the country was able to cobble together an Electoral College win for someone who had never before held an office of public trust — elected OR appointed.  Someone who had been involved in over 4,000 legal cases. USA Today documented, before the 2016 election:

      USA TODAY analyzed the legal involvement for five top real-estate business executives: Edward DeBartolo, shopping-center developer and former San Francisco 49ers owner; Donald Bren, Irvine Company chairman and owner; Stephen Ross, Time Warner Center developer; Sam Zell, Chicago real-estate magnate; and Larry Silverstein, a New York developer famous for his involvement in the World Trade Center properties.

      To maintain an apples-to-apples comparison, only actions that used the developers' names were included. The analysis found Trump has been involved in more legal skirmishes than all five of the others — combined.

       

    3. When I'm 80 years old I hope my generation has enough trust in people younger than us to run the country while we go around being old.

      I wouldn't want to run for President now. I DEFINITELY wouldn't want to run for President at 80 years old.

  5. After hiding under Reagan's skirt for four-plus decades, it looks like the new Republican party is ready for a wardrobe change! (FDFQ is more of a Nixon-kind-of-guy)

    Former President Trump criticizes Reagan Library as RNC’s pick to host 2024 primary debate

    “I see that everybody is talking about the Republican debates, but nobody got my approval, or the approval of the Trump campaign, before announcing them,” Trump said. “When you’re leading by seemingly insurmountable numbers, and you have hostile networks with angry Trump & MAGA hitting anchors asking the ‘questions,’ why subject yourself to being libeled and abused? Also, the second debate is being held at the Reagan Library, the chairman of which is, amazingly, Fred Ryan, publisher of the Washington Post. No!”

  6. If Harris is to be the running mate again, it's almost got to be an important side strategy to boost her profile. I'm not crazy about saying this, but the old "one heartbeat away" thing gets more realistic the older one gets. I'd still vote Biden if he winds up the 2024 Dem nominee, and one of the perks of him winning would be that if he winds up unable to serve during his elected term for whatever reason, Dems get to keep the Presidency and name the new VP.

    1. Well, partially correct. Yes, Biden's VEEP would take over but President Harris would have to get her VEEP nominee confirmed. The Dems will probably take the House next year but lose the Senate.

      There was a time when one party would confirm a non-extremist nominee of the opposition party (Ford, Rockefeller). But can you imagine Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell giving Harris' VEEP choice more of a vote than he gave Merritt Garland?

      1. OK, I shot first and aimed later. But I looked up the process after your comment, and found the new Veep would have to be confirmed by a majority vote in both chambers of Congress. That would be crazy interesting with split chambers!

        And I don't know if westslope's comment was aimed at me, but I'm not a Harris hater. I was just trying to say the 2024 election might become somewhat about her for people concerned about Biden's longevity.

  7. I don’t think of myself being miles outside of the loop, although I do acknowledge living in the MAGA country of Mesa County, but why the hostility toward Harris?

    1. I took a conservative friend of mine (probably a 3-4 on a 10-MAGA scale) to a somewhat intimate Harris event during the last cycle. He came away with with a newly-formed opinion.
       

      I don’t get all the Harris Hate but that’s the world we live in (and I have a surprising number of female progressive friends who fall into the anti-Harris camp). 

      1. Thanks for that comment, Michael. I have been wondering about the same thing. I can only figure it involves considering the double challenge of being both a person of color and a woman. 

        I discovered that many people I know are only "so" liberal. They love them a good Earth Day, but ask them to trust a black woman to lead them, and some deeply held, never discussed, prejudices surface. A form of NIMBYism, I think.

        From my perspective, her race and gender would tend to encourage my confidence, given her obvious, overall competence. Like, say, Wanda James, locally.

        Accomplished women of color didn't get where they are easily.

         

  8. Exactly, Duke. From what my California friends tell me, she did a perfectly good job as AG and was coming into her own as a senator when she jumped into the presidential race. She faces GOP accusations of sleeping her way to the top by dating Willie Brown and the usual old boy put-downs that she’s not smart enough to be even VP.

    Every politician has flaws but the animosity against Harris, particularly by Democrats, pisses me off.

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