I'll start with Joe. He was and is the best President of my lifetime. He accomplished more for the Progressive cause in three years than Obama did in eight and I say that as someone that loved Obama. So why did I want a change?
It is complicated.
I have had a love-hate relationship with the Democratic Party for the last twenty years. Ideologically, my politics are progressive or to put it another way, I am with the AOC wing of the Democratic party on issues 80% of the time.
What has infuriated me for the last 20 years is that Democrats are so damn stupid when it comes to national elections. They haven't gotten it since the early days of the Internet. They don't understand that in modern times perception is reality.
A large percentage of the population has strong beliefs that are simply put easily provable false like believing Obama isn't an American citizen, Trump won in 2020, That Tom Hanks is part of a child molesting cabal, Hillary and George Soros have a secret sex dungeon in a secret basement under Comet Pizza where they abuse children, etc. Republicans use this kind of stuff to play the long game.
A good example is the Swiftboating of John Kerry which ultimately cost him the election. Think about how long before Kerry became the nominee they were working on that.
The Republican party invests years and years in negative propaganda about anybody they think is a likely future Democratic Presidential candidate or a leader. That is why when Biden performed in the debate the way he did, it was devastating.
Practically, the election was over at that point assuming Biden stayed in the race because it cemented that propaganda into persuadable voter's minds.
In the face of people believing these political conspiracy theories Democrats just blow them off because they are easily provable as false.
All of these things need to be defended aggressively and over and over again. Democrats simply tell the truth and present verifiable evidence. They think that is enough and it is a matter of case closed even though the conservative media continue to pound on it over and over not caring if it is true or not.
Because of the massive conservative propaganda machine, the truth simply doesn't matter anymore. All that matters is people's perception of the truth. Once you get that critical mass of people that buy into one of these falsehoods those perceptions become reality.
And you have to deal with that reality and not go on like it is 1970 and depend on the only three TV networks and the newspapers to tell the truth because they have to abide by professional journalistic standards.
You also have to know how to play the long game like the Republicans and be willing to do so even if it makes you feel dirty.
Democrats up until now have simply been unwilling to do what it takes. What matters is what candidate can win not that somebody is owed something for something they did in the past (Joe) or that they have been patient good soldiers and it is simply their time (Hillary).
Biden couldn't win so replacing him was the right thing to do and it was the right time to do it.
Trump's whole campaign was dependent on running against old Joe Biden and Hunter Biden's laptop. Republicans have literally spent years creating and then boosting conspiracys based on these themes. Now all of that has been lost and all that investment in terms of time and money was wasted.
Worse yet for Republicans is that all of those years of propaganda about Sleepy Joe can now be used against Trump because he is the oldest Presidential nominee in the history of the United States.
Thoughts?
