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Say It Ain't So, Joe [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2023-06-14
This is no time to be pulling punches.
Some disturbing news was reported by POLITICO this week. President Joe Biden has ordered the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and his reelection campaign to not publicly discuss the recent indictment of former twice-impeached, twice-indicted president Donald Trump.
What? Your top political opponent is on his way to developing a rap sheet longer than his arm, and you don’t want to make it an issue?
It’s understandable that Biden himself, who’s been the target of endless Republican lies about his “weaponizing” the justice department, wouldn’t want to appear to be crowing about the richly deserved changes Trump is facing after he stole classified documents – including nuclear and military secrets -- and subsequently lied to the FBI in an attempt to keep some of them from being recovered.
But that order even extends to any of his campaign surrogates who’ll be speaking all over the country about the upcoming election. They’ve been advised by the DNC to not comment on any of the investigations into Trump if they’re speaking publicly.
The feeling is this could all change as we roll into next year if Trump does become the GOP nominee, at least to the extent that those representing Biden could then talk about this major issue. I agree that Biden needs to watch how he handles this, but for everybody else this should be fair game.
Needless to say, some of the president’s allies see this as a missed opportunity by failing to stress maybe the key point of the argument against Trump: A guy with multiple indictments – with more possibility coming from investigations in Georgia and into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol – who’s shown no trepidation about endangering our national security, has no business running for office, let alone being elected.
Fortunately, even if Biden sticks to his guns, there’re plenty of political action committees and individual candidates who’ll show no hesitancy to go after the criminal activities of the most corrupt president in history as he tries to steer his retribution tour into the White House for four years that will leave our country a shell of what it once was – if it survives at all.
You can read the POLITICO story here.
I understand Biden is trying to take the high road here – a place most Republicans couldn’t find with a map – but it’s hard to take because we know the GOP is well into its campaign of lies and distortions designed to smear Biden, discredit the DOJ, and enflame its base to the point of possible violence.
For instance, Republicans commenting on Trump’s indictment have already invoked the name of Hillary Clinton for what seems to be something like 20 million times. But, a recent column by Ruth Marcus in the Washington Post exposes this lie.
As Marcus explains, “The circumstances of Clinton’s emails and Trump’s boxes are not remotely similar, no matter how loudly Trump and his allies insist otherwise. Trump’s behavior is far more egregious.”
You can read her very timely piece here.
And how about when Fox News ran a headline across the bottom of the screen this week attacking Biden that read: “WANNABE DICTATOR SPEAKS AT THE WHITE HOUSE AFTER HAVING HIS POLITICAL RIVAL ARRESTED.”
Total bullshit.
Democrats would be idiots to not only make Trump the issue, but also the lying corrupt Republican Party, even though it already has plenty of ammunition with the GOP’s pro-rich, anti-poor-and-middle-class, anti-environment, racist agenda.
Still, this doesn’t mean Democrats should just be talking shit willy-nilly. There’s an art to messaging, and those who are good at it will seamlessly tear Trump and the Republicans to pieces while pivoting to why the Democratic candidates are infinitely better for the country.
Admittedly, in our extremely divided country the pro-Trump portion will ignore what Democrats have to say, if they even get to hear it while sitting in their information silo created by the Right-wing media.
Still, there’re enough persuadable voters that, if you can get them into the Democratic camp, it’ll give Biden a great chance to win.
In the battle to save the rule of law and our democracy, no options should be taken off the table. Biden has been a greatly unappreciated and underrated president. Any Democrat that isn’t willing to hammer that point home while at the same time taken a chainsaw to the GOP’s forest of lies and corruption is worthless.
Democrats have to make Trump and Republican lies and corruption the gift that keeps on giving.
***
Thank you for reading my post. You can see my other writings on my blog: Musings of a Nobody.
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