During the first presidential debate in 2020, then-candidate Joe Biden made a perfectly timed statement directly to the face of Donald Trump, expressing how millions and millions of Americans felt about the unpopular president.
The statement was like a release valve in the middle of a tense moment. Very few had directly let Trump have it at that point, other than then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi and even then, she wasn’t as direct and blunt. Biden already had more gravitas and goodwill than Trump, after serving as a senator and especially as President Barack Obama’s vice president, and that moment helped to cement his win.
But ironically, Biden is probably the person in America right now who doesn’t want Trump to shut up.
Trump’s rollout of his abortion position spin has been a disaster. His claim that the issue should be decided by the states is mush that was only accepted at face value by the complicit mainstream media. Trump’s right flank immediately complained that he wasn’t being zealous enough about exercising dominion over women’s bodies, and everyone even slightly to his left could smell the ripe odor of bullshit before his video was over.
Trump is the architect of America’s current abortion nightmare. Built on the work of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and the wider conservative/Republican movement, Trump sent the nation into an excrement pile on reproductive rights with his Supreme Court choices and other judicial nominations.
Even someone as politically inept as Trump gets this, as Republicans have their rear ends handed to them from coast to coast on abortion rights, from the reddest of states to very blue and purple regions too. Its why Florida Republicans are having nightmares about the issue appearing on the ballot this fall.
Trump’s problem is that Trump is the biggest believer in Trump. Probably the only way he could have somewhat managed this issue is to follow his pattern on other topics like health care, promising to have a “beautiful” plan that he would release in “two weeks.” It wouldn’t necessarily have helped matters but it might not have made this already big problem into an even bigger obstacle.
Instead, Trump opened his big mouth and has been the case for decades, loads of really dumb things came tumbling out. He bragged about being proud of ending Roe and his nominations that made it happen. He minimized the importance of abortion. He invoked “states rights” with all the vigor of a Goldwater-era segregationist. And his allies and minions amplified his verbal diarrhea, arguing that Trump doesn’t need to win women’s votes anyway.
This has been a mess for the public and public discourse, but a political win for Biden and Democrats. The last time I can recall Democrats being this zealous in their response to a verbal misfire was during the 2008 election.
As the Bush recession was taking hold and the country brought to its knees by the failing economy and the wars in the Middle East, Sen. John McCain insisted that “the fundamentals of our economy are strong.”
The Obama team pounced. They juxtaposed McCain’s happy talk with the foreclosures and economic chaos that Americans were facing every dreary day.
This should sound somewhat familiar, as American women bleed out to death and pain because they can’t get adequate medical care. As they are characterized as criminals and harlots, as they are forced to flee their homes under dark of night because their doctors would be locked up, Republicans – Trump – are declaring that the fundamentals of reproductive rights are strong.
Of course, I wish Democrats would jump on the right for other issues that were in their favor but didn’t necessarily test as well in polling and focus groups, but that belies the reality of how this topic is really hurting Republicans.
And Trump won’t shut up. He continues to dig and dig, prolonging the storyline because his diseased brain doesn’t know any other way out. The guy who lost back-to-back popular votes and never had a day in office with approval above 50% thinks he can squirrel out of this the way he escapes justice in the court system.
I don’t pretend to have a crystal ball and predicting an election – especially one that is still seven months away – is a sucker’s bet. But for all the support and backing that Biden has in America, nothing does as good of a job in making him look presidential like Trump’s pie hole.
Will Trump just shut up, man? Unlikely.
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— Oliver
Follow me, Oliver Willis, on Threads @owillis1977
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Kal, seconds before I wake him up for his morning walk. Lazy dog!
And not just Trump - Senate Republicans approved unqualified judges.
They *all* did this.
It really is an indictment of our political media stars that whenever people hear what Trump actually wants and thinks, he repels more people. Really shows how much cleanup work they do for him.