Looks Like It's Biden: How Will The New Reality Affect Election 2020?
The history books will inevitably look back to March 2020 as one of the most pivotal time frames of our lifetime, with a global health pandemic unfolding that's already infecting hundreds of thousands of people, killing thousands, and shutting down a large portion of the international economy....and seeming poised to get considerably worse before the long road back to normalcy. The story dramatically overshadows what appeared to be the biggest story of March 2020 early in the month, and that was the Lazarus-like comeback of Joe Biden's bid for the Democratic nomination. Over the course of two weeks, Joe Biden went from being a candidate who seemed unlikely to see his campaign survive into March to the now almost-certain party nominee. It's gonna be a while until normal Americans give any passing thought to November's Presidential election, but when the dust clears of the worst of coronavirus, the focus will return to who leads a severely weakened country for the next four years. In many ways, the race's trajectory has greatly changed from the election we thought we were gonna have a couple of weeks ago, but I'm not convinced the result eight months from now will take on a decidedly different character than what we anticipated.
In the past, a President with an approval rating in the low-to-mid-40s even at the apex of a strong economy would be very vulnerable in the aftermath of a bungled response to a health pandemic and an economy poised to crater in the months before an election where he'll face a grumpy electorate. And in the abstract, that's the likeliest scenario in November 2020 as well, whether thousands of people continue to die from the virus by that time or not. But a new set of poll numbers that came out this morning confirm we don't live in ordinary times. Forty-five percent of Americans gave Trump approving numbers of his handling of COVID-19 thus far, compared to 51% who disapprove.....basically the same split we saw before the pandemic. There might be room for further decline in Trump's numbers with more time for the response to prove itself ineffective, but there's also potential for his numbers to increase if we're able to avoid the draconian lockdowns seen in Italy and Denmark.
Either way, the mainstream media narrative about Trump's disastrous COVID-19 response hasn't moved the public yet, and it's likely to continue not to because of our media stratification where people partial to Trump's worldview seek out news complimentary to Trump's performance and block out critical news. The narratives are already in place to hold Trump harmless for this, particularly the narrative that COVID-19 came from China and that Trump has prioritized cracking down on China for years now. I've always said that a collapsing economy was Trump's biggest vulnerability in getting re-elected, and that would be true if the economy was spiraling based on conventional metrics, but an economy that collapses as a consequence of a virus brought to America by way of China is by no means conventional and has the potential to largely immunize Trump.
So how does Joe Biden hold up as an alternative in light of the post-COVID reality? His reputation as an elder statesman is a strong superficial asset, at least so long as you don't study Biden's record and remind yourself he's made the wrong call on pretty much every foreign policy decision of his lengthy career. He's also second only to Trump in his capacity for verbal gaffes, often crossing the line into gross exaggerations and outright lies. In that respect, the bunker nature this campaign is likely to take on will be helpful to Biden as he won't be out there talking off the cuff and saying stupid stuff nearly as much as usual. A winning Biden campaign is probably a campaign where he gets as little public exposure as possible and is able to coast on his reputation....and capitalize on the Democrats' generic advantage on health care in a nation where more people will rediscover their vulnerability on health care.
Biden and the Democrats still have some vulnerabilities and potential land mines to navigate around though, and they better have a worthy response when the time comes. For the last few years now, Democrats have become increasingly radicalized and unserious on the immigration issue. While Biden hasn't gone as far as some, he nonetheless tethered himself to a no-deportation, open-borders, free-health-care-for-illegal-immigrants trifecta last year. It was a given that the Democrats would ultimately pay for their pandering leftward lurch on immigration, but in the midst of a global pandemic, Trump has a new arrow in his quiver to litigate this issue which happens to be his favorite issue to litigate. When the public is terrified about the spreading of an international virus, and watching unemployment rates rise in response, they will be increasingly resistant to the notion of welcoming foreigners by the tens of millions and paying their freight as the Democrats, including Biden, have increasingly demanded that we must.
Voters are also gonna expect a serious selection for a running mate to be a heartbeat away from the nearly octogenarian would-be President Biden, who will be in the most at-risk demographic amidst a global pandemic. Yet who is the frontrunner for Biden's running mate selection presently? That would be former Georgia state lawmaker Stacy Abrams who was defeated in her bid for Georgia Governor in 2018. Why is Abrams the frontrunner? Because as a black female, she checks off the right diversity boxes for the identity-obsessed Democratic Party, qualifications be damned. Both Trump and the voters will make Biden pay for such an unserious selection if he follows through with it. The country deserves and will demand a Vice President with sufficient chops in federal policy at a time like this, and picking the wrong person out of naked and obvious electoral calculation will come with more consequences than usual.
Both Biden and Trump also need to avoid getting bogged down in boutique issues that seem unworthy of the difficult times ahead. It's telling that less than a year ago, the country endured a manic, monthslong, hair-on-fire overreaction to the existential crisis of....Juul pods. Plenty of special interests will continue to press the candidates to elevate nonsense like this to the forefront of the national conversation, but if they do, they will lose credibility with voters who are and will continue to deal with hardships that seemed unthinkable last month at this time.
Bottom line: Biden and the Democrats are in the catbird seat to take the reins from a nation in crisis and decline, and if they do, Biden would be the third consecutive Democratic President to inherit a country in big trouble at the time of their inauguration. I'd put Biden's chances decently above 50% to get above 270 electoral votes given the troubling fundamentals haunting the incumbent. But Democrats' biggest obstacle is that they've been dabbling in their share of foolishness in recent years that's already compromised the seriousness perception about them among a rising share of the electorate in a geographically determinative portion of the country. They can only win if they prove themselves serious enough to govern in the times. Trump obviously has his own challenges on this front but he will be merciless in trying to take advantage of some of the Democrats' biggest vulnerabilities. If the Democrats persist in clinging to their pre-COVID obsessions, particularly over identity politics and mindless pandering about immigration, they will risk blowing another sure thing and assuring Trump gets another four years to shape our long, painful recovery from this crisis in accordance with his ideological biases.
In the past, a President with an approval rating in the low-to-mid-40s even at the apex of a strong economy would be very vulnerable in the aftermath of a bungled response to a health pandemic and an economy poised to crater in the months before an election where he'll face a grumpy electorate. And in the abstract, that's the likeliest scenario in November 2020 as well, whether thousands of people continue to die from the virus by that time or not. But a new set of poll numbers that came out this morning confirm we don't live in ordinary times. Forty-five percent of Americans gave Trump approving numbers of his handling of COVID-19 thus far, compared to 51% who disapprove.....basically the same split we saw before the pandemic. There might be room for further decline in Trump's numbers with more time for the response to prove itself ineffective, but there's also potential for his numbers to increase if we're able to avoid the draconian lockdowns seen in Italy and Denmark.
Either way, the mainstream media narrative about Trump's disastrous COVID-19 response hasn't moved the public yet, and it's likely to continue not to because of our media stratification where people partial to Trump's worldview seek out news complimentary to Trump's performance and block out critical news. The narratives are already in place to hold Trump harmless for this, particularly the narrative that COVID-19 came from China and that Trump has prioritized cracking down on China for years now. I've always said that a collapsing economy was Trump's biggest vulnerability in getting re-elected, and that would be true if the economy was spiraling based on conventional metrics, but an economy that collapses as a consequence of a virus brought to America by way of China is by no means conventional and has the potential to largely immunize Trump.
So how does Joe Biden hold up as an alternative in light of the post-COVID reality? His reputation as an elder statesman is a strong superficial asset, at least so long as you don't study Biden's record and remind yourself he's made the wrong call on pretty much every foreign policy decision of his lengthy career. He's also second only to Trump in his capacity for verbal gaffes, often crossing the line into gross exaggerations and outright lies. In that respect, the bunker nature this campaign is likely to take on will be helpful to Biden as he won't be out there talking off the cuff and saying stupid stuff nearly as much as usual. A winning Biden campaign is probably a campaign where he gets as little public exposure as possible and is able to coast on his reputation....and capitalize on the Democrats' generic advantage on health care in a nation where more people will rediscover their vulnerability on health care.
Biden and the Democrats still have some vulnerabilities and potential land mines to navigate around though, and they better have a worthy response when the time comes. For the last few years now, Democrats have become increasingly radicalized and unserious on the immigration issue. While Biden hasn't gone as far as some, he nonetheless tethered himself to a no-deportation, open-borders, free-health-care-for-illegal-immigrants trifecta last year. It was a given that the Democrats would ultimately pay for their pandering leftward lurch on immigration, but in the midst of a global pandemic, Trump has a new arrow in his quiver to litigate this issue which happens to be his favorite issue to litigate. When the public is terrified about the spreading of an international virus, and watching unemployment rates rise in response, they will be increasingly resistant to the notion of welcoming foreigners by the tens of millions and paying their freight as the Democrats, including Biden, have increasingly demanded that we must.
Voters are also gonna expect a serious selection for a running mate to be a heartbeat away from the nearly octogenarian would-be President Biden, who will be in the most at-risk demographic amidst a global pandemic. Yet who is the frontrunner for Biden's running mate selection presently? That would be former Georgia state lawmaker Stacy Abrams who was defeated in her bid for Georgia Governor in 2018. Why is Abrams the frontrunner? Because as a black female, she checks off the right diversity boxes for the identity-obsessed Democratic Party, qualifications be damned. Both Trump and the voters will make Biden pay for such an unserious selection if he follows through with it. The country deserves and will demand a Vice President with sufficient chops in federal policy at a time like this, and picking the wrong person out of naked and obvious electoral calculation will come with more consequences than usual.
Both Biden and Trump also need to avoid getting bogged down in boutique issues that seem unworthy of the difficult times ahead. It's telling that less than a year ago, the country endured a manic, monthslong, hair-on-fire overreaction to the existential crisis of....Juul pods. Plenty of special interests will continue to press the candidates to elevate nonsense like this to the forefront of the national conversation, but if they do, they will lose credibility with voters who are and will continue to deal with hardships that seemed unthinkable last month at this time.
Bottom line: Biden and the Democrats are in the catbird seat to take the reins from a nation in crisis and decline, and if they do, Biden would be the third consecutive Democratic President to inherit a country in big trouble at the time of their inauguration. I'd put Biden's chances decently above 50% to get above 270 electoral votes given the troubling fundamentals haunting the incumbent. But Democrats' biggest obstacle is that they've been dabbling in their share of foolishness in recent years that's already compromised the seriousness perception about them among a rising share of the electorate in a geographically determinative portion of the country. They can only win if they prove themselves serious enough to govern in the times. Trump obviously has his own challenges on this front but he will be merciless in trying to take advantage of some of the Democrats' biggest vulnerabilities. If the Democrats persist in clinging to their pre-COVID obsessions, particularly over identity politics and mindless pandering about immigration, they will risk blowing another sure thing and assuring Trump gets another four years to shape our long, painful recovery from this crisis in accordance with his ideological biases.
posted by Mark at 12:28 PM
2 Comments:
I agree with that prediction of Biden having a slightly over 50% chance of winning, although who can predict anything these days with the fast-changing world we live in. My concern is that the Bernie wing won't support him out of spite.
There will be a faction of the Bernie wing who won't support him....but given the lackluster turnout of Bernie's best demographic, I'm increasingly convinced that much of Bernie's wing isn't turning out to support Bernie let alone Biden!
There's a "stick with the devil we know" principle that often prevails during times of crisis and could conceivably benefit Trump. There are limits to this, especially for an incumbent President overseeing an economy in collapse, but if Trump can convince the public his leadership during the crisis produced a better outcome than the worst-case scenario, and raise enough doubt about the alternative, it's not that crazy he could still win. Plus, the Democrats generally and Biden in particular still possess the potential to blow it.
Last Sunday's debate didn't comfort me. We're in the middle of the biggest national emergency in decades and Biden and Bernie spent two hours largely relitigating votes they took in the more than a quarter century ago.
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