It’s my intention to comment/analyze the unfolding election season here. I’ll focus both on the political and policy claims proffered by the candidates for president (and other races as I am able) and the trends in public opinion/voter preferences as the year unfolds.
A friend commented to me the other day that, every presidential election cycle, we hear that this is the most important election of our lifetimes. I take his point, but I also think we do face a unique threat this time from Trump’s attempt to regain the presidency. That doesn’t absolve President Biden of all criticisms, to be clear. But in what is, in the end, a necessarily binary choice, I will spend time making clear what I think are the stakes in this election.
With that said, I’ll start off by sharing what I wrote to Tom Edsall this week for the New York Times. He quoted a snippet of what I wrote in his column here, but I’ll include all that I sent him below. I was writing in response to a series of questions Edsall asked about some of the issues he believes make Biden most vulnerable in 2024, specifically domestic issues related to race, crime and immigration. Edsall framed those questions by asking whether a majority of Americans want to return to an idealized time of unchallenged white rule and were willing to vote for a would-be authoritarian ruler to achieve that end (that was essentially his wording).
Here’s what I wrote, more or less:
“I think it’s true that fear of immediate physical threats, like crime on the one hand, and fear of ethnic/racial differences on the other intersect in the minds of many voters, and that Trump's sledgehammer focus on immigration and his inflammatory rhetoric help tie those issues together into a powerful appeal, including perhaps for a majority of Republicans.
That he might parlay that appeal into a national electoral victory doesn't necessarily mean, however, that a majority of Americans share those primary concerns.
That doesn't change the reality of the threat that Trump poses to our political institutions and to ordinary Americans' well-being, or the toxicity that he, uniquely, injects into our politics. And it will behoove Democrats to emphasize how hostile Trump is and will be, especially in deed, to the interests of ordinary Americans.
Regardless, I'm not convinced that Biden's unpopularity is mainly a function of the issues Trump has made central to his appeal, even if those intersecting issues excite a majority of Republicans.
Biden, of course, has significant vulnerabilities. With the part of the electorate I just mentioned, immigration is a clear vulnerability. For others, it's the economy, though I think if the economic news continues to improve in 2024, that will become less of a weakness over time. Others, of course, will vote for Trump for reasons of partisanship, even if they find him crude and offensive in some ways. Many younger voters have expressed dissatisfaction with Biden's age, the sense that he is out touch (and, I’m adding here, his conduct in relation to Israel/Palestine). That, too, may become less of a vulnerability as the campaign gets under way in earnest.
Indeed, though the calendar has turned to 2024, the kind of scrutiny a presidential campaign brings is just beginning. So, in spite of the fact that Trump receives more attention than is typical of non-presidents, he still has not yet been under the microscope as a *presidential candidate* to nearly the extent that he will be in the coming months. And that will expose his liabilities - including what appear to be his growing cognitive challenges - to a much larger swath of the public.
None of this means Biden's going to win. It will be a close race and, as such, one in which the outcome is more dependent on the usual mix and muddle of voters' concerns, especially of voters who are truly undecided and will settle on a vote choice late in the campaign.
Regardless, to return to the issues you asked about, they certainly shape much of our political discourse. At the same time, however, I think it's important to appreciate that the issues that agitate Trump’s core supporters do not reflect the political reasoning of most Americans, even if a significant number of those end up voting for him for the other reasons I mentioned.”
All of this bears further elaboration, which I will take a stab out in the weeks and months ahead.
By the way, while I have you here, Matt Andrews and I have resumed our podcast, Agony of Defeat, about the intersection of sports, politics and history. You can check out our episodes here. I think they’re fun!