Joe Biden and his administration are on the job and closing fast on his first 100 days. He has managed to get a generous and much needed stimulus bill passed and is ahead of schedule for getting 100 million people vaccinated in his first 100 days.
Joe is doing very well indeed. But Joe, and other Democrats, need to be “saying” as well as doing. Actions may speak louder than words but it is hard to communicate across a huge nation. And conservatives tend to be very noisy as well as constantly dishonest.
Here are some things that I wish Joe Biden would say - in every interview, public speech and press conference:
-I won the election.
Every time Joe gets a chance I want him to remind everyone that he won the election. And that the election was both fair and free.
It would seem that this should be unnecessary. After all the, the results were pretty clear and dramatic. But a large number of Republicans still do not accept that Biden won. A CNN poll taken between January 14th and January 19th showed that 75% of Republicans do not believe that Biden won the election legitimately compared to 1% of Democrats and 36% of independents.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-told-supporters-stormed-capitol-hill/story?id=75110558
Trump and the Republicans can not, will not stop, lying about who won in 2020. The lie that Trump actually won the election is repeated constantly by Trump himself as well as every right-wing media source from Fox (Fake and Phony) News right on down to the guy on the corner with the dirty MAGA hat.
Some of the people who do this are the hopeless QAnon conservatives. They lack the emotional maturity and psychological strength to accept the reality of Trump’s electoral defeat. Others continue to lie because they desperately need some kind of cover to enact legislation for voter suppression, voter theft and voter intimidation on the grounds of preventing voter fraud. Among the independents I suspect that many, or most, are either deceived by the constant barrage of Republican lies or are simply confused.
Whatever the cause, Biden should keep on reminding people that he won the election. And not just that he won but that he won a huge and convincing victory.
https://www.businessinsider.com/2020-vs-2016-electoral-college-maps-trump-biden-clinton-president-2020-11
For a modern era vote, with a sitting president who had a very strong base of supporters, the margin of Biden’s victory was astonishingly large: he won the popular vote by more than 7 million people, and the Electoral College by 74 votes.
The rout of the Republicans did not stop with just the powerful election of Biden to the presidency. The Democrats also managed to win crucial Senate seats in two, long term, very red states: Arizona and Georgia.
The painful thing for Trump and the Republicans is not just that they lost the presidency, or even that they got ousted from controlling the Senate. Whether or not they understand it, or can admit it, Biden won the presidency despite the all time best efforts of the Republicans.
Trump and the Reactionary Conservatives are constantly bragging that Trump got more votes than any other sitting president. And he did, beating out the previous vote-getting champion, Barack Obama.
It is all true. But here’s the brutal truth of what it means: Trump was an incumbent president, the voting turnout was the greatest that it has ever been and Trump got more votes than any other Republican president or any other sitting president in our history. And he still lost. The greatest effort the Republicans have ever made still resulted in Donald Trump losing by more than 7 million popular votes and 74 Electoral Votes. It was their best effort yet, and they still got destroyed.
This is what I want Joe Biden to say as often as possible to everyone in America. Donald Trump did not just lose, he had every advantage of incumbency, rabid MAGA support, money, fawning media propaganda and an historically high turnout among Republican voters. And Biden beat him by a huge margin. That’s what Joe’s victory means.
Now Joe just has to say it. And keep on saying it until it becomes embedded in the body politic. He has to keep on saying it to reach those 36% of independent voters who are either unsure or don’t believe that he won. He has to keep on saying it until the Republicans give up lying about Trump’s victory and simply shut up.
-The election I won was fair and free and there was no fraud.
I have already covered this point in previous blog posting (please see the post on January 11, 2021), but let’s just recap some of the reasons why the election was fair.
Trump knew going into the November election that he was facing a tough battle: Arizona was highly competitive for the Democrats, Pennsylvania was looking like a tight race, and in Georgia, both Trump and the two Republican Senate Candidates, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, were looking weak. Trump was warned about all of this and knew that he was in trouble. The inevitable loss he suffered to Biden might have been painful, but it could hardlyhave been surprising.
Trump and his allies alleged voter fraud in all of the battle ground states that he lost (but none in the states that he won). But 60 different lawsuits waged in various states on various allegations by various lawyers (Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, etc.) all failed. That’s a 0 - 60 record. And some of these failed lawsuits were tried in front of Trump’s own judges.
Each battle ground state that went for Biden (or other Democrats) was certified as fair and accurate by its respective Secretaries of State. The FBI and the Department of Justice both claim that the 2020 election was free of fraud.
Many Republican charges of fraud were based on allegations of voting machines magically switching votes from Trump to Biden. But all their lawsuits have all failed in court and been thoroughly denied by experts. The Department of Homeland Security - Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency even claimed that, “The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history … there is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost any votes, or in any way was compromised … While we know that there are many unfounded claims and opportunities for misinformation about the process of our elections we have the utmost confidence in the security and integrity of our elections, and you should, too.”
The Supreme Court, with six conservative justices, three nominated by Trump himself, all refused to even hear a case of election fraud launched by Republicans. Even Bill Barr, Trump’s own Attorney General, claimed, weeks after the election, “To date we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.”
With all this evidence the Republicans should just shut up about voter fraud and admit that Biden won a fair and convincing election.
-Because of my election victory I have a mandate to govern.
The size of Joe Biden’s victory, more than 7 million popular votes and 74 Electoral College votes, gives him a clear mandate to govern. And remember, Biden did this without the advantage of incumbency or interference on his behalf by a foreign dictator (I’m looking at you, Vladimir Putin).
There are many reason why Biden and the Democrats beat Trump and the Republicans. Partly it was a vote against Trump as an immature and truly repulsive human being. But to a large extent it was because Trump and almost every Republican failed at handling the coronavirus pandemic and its personal effects.
Biden understood that the American public wanted the coronavirus handled in a more cooperative, scientific and professional way. He also understood that, contrary to Trump’s constant insistence that the economy was strong, there were many people who were financially devastated by the disease.
As soon as Biden assumed the presidency he began to create policies and laws to carry out his campaign promises. His first effort was to rationalize and reinforce the operations of vaccinating people. The second effort was the 1.9 Trillion economic package to help alleviate the financial ruin of the coronavirus.
Do the American people like what Biden is doing and support his policies? Yes, overwhelmingly they do.
On the big issue of handling the coronavirus, of relying on experts, on working to get 100 million shots in arms in 100 days (which he has already accomplished) Biden enjoys tremendous support.
His second signature policy, his 1.9 Trillion dollar stimulus package, is just about as popular and widely supported.
More than month ago, before the stimulus package actually began to be widely felt, a Quinnipiac University poll found that 68% of polled Americans supported Biden’s (stimulus plan), while 74% supported his very sensible plan to pay each person $1,400.
By way of contrast, do you remember how popular Donald Trump’s most important and, supposedly most popular, piece of legislation was?
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/05/study-trump-tax-cuts-failed-growth-investment.html
Trump’s vaunted tax cut never enjoyed the support of the American public. Back in 2019, after the Trump tax cuts had already been passed and people had actually received the beginnings of their tax relief, polls showed that most Americas agreed with the Democrats, that the tax bill favored the wealthy and left the middle class out to dry. A Gallup Poll found the 49% of Americans disapproved of the tax reform law, while 40% approved of the law.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/05/few-americans-think-theyre-getting-a-trump-tax-cut-nbcwsj-poll.html
Donald Trump and Joe Biden each had his own campaign issues. But the overwhelming popularity of Biden’s and the fact that he so forcefully promoted them, is clear evidence for the claim that he won the election. You don’t win elections on bad issues or ideas that people don’t believe are important.
Joe Biden did win the campaign fair and square and is enjoying the popularity and support that comes with that victory. Unfortunately, we Democrats believe that if we simply do a better job than the Republicans then people will understand that, and support us. But that is not enough.
Donald Trump and his Reactionary Conservatives lie all the time. And they have a huge propaganda machine in Fox (Fake and Phony) News, One America News and Newsmax that will lie for them 24 -7. So this is a fight for the attention and the minds of as many American people as we can possibly reach.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/05/few-americans-think-theyre-getting-a-trump-tax-cut-nbcwsj-poll.html
Just acting is not enough. We must keep telling people what we are doing and why we are doing it. It is perfectly acceptable for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to give speeches to tout our accomplishments. It is perfectly acceptable to remind Americans that we, the Democrats, gave them $1.9 Trillion of stimulus, not the Republicans. It is perfectly acceptable to tell all Americans that Joe Biden helped ease the burden of Covid-19 by giving each taxpayer $1,400 of direct payment. The Republicans didn’t do this - we did.
It is perfectly acceptable, even necessary, to point out that not one damn Republican thought enough of the American public to support this bill or even offer up their own plan. It is perfectly acceptable to continually remind America that the Democrats thought up the stimulus bill and the Republicans didn’t even bother come up with a comprehensive bill to use for some kind of compromise.
You’ve got the bully pulpit, Joe. You and Kamala and the other Democrats are good at talking with the public. You won, you won fair and square and people like your policies.
Just say it - every time you get the chance. And if you don’t get the opportunity to say it, make the opportunity.
Live progressive, fight progressive, talk progressive!