Sunday Morning
My Sunday mornings are pretty standard. The dogs are up between six and seven and there’s no going back to sleep, especially now that we’re adopting a new year-old puppy, Keelie. What used to be a guaranteed post breakfast snooze with “old man” Buddy and three year old Atticus, is puppy playtime – at least for Atticus and Keeley. So Buddy is now supervisor. When things get out of control he wades in with barks and growls. Everyone settles down for a few minutes.
So once we’re up, we’re up. It gives me a chance to drink lots of coffee, and watch an array of Sunday morning news shows. And this morning I got to watch Velshi on MSNBC, This Week with George Stephanopoulos on ABC, Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, Meet the Press with Chuck Todd on NBC, and finally Face the Nation on CBS with Margaret Brennan.
Headline News
There was lots of talk about COVID-19, from doctors and Secretary Azar, and responses from Governors Cuomo of New York and Hutchinson of Arkansas. And the breaking news this morning was the New York Times article about Russian Special Operations paying the Taliban bounties to kill American soldiers. There was a lot to say about that, from Speaker Pelosi to former National Security Advisor John Bolton.
I like to hear the “original” sources, Pelosi, Bolton, Azar and the rest. I want to hear them respond to questions, even to listen to their dodges. It tells a lot about what’s going on. But I also like to her “the panel” talk about the news. They all seem to have a political “side”. There are the traditional liberals, the “normal” conservatives, and the “outside of the box” characters on one side or the other.
Talking Points
What stood out to me today was the obvious Trump campaign “talking point”. It must have been passed to all of his supporters this Sunday morning. Today’s topic: the radicalization of the Democratic Party. Everyone managed to work it into their “spiel”: the “Sanders-AOC” Democrats are dragging Joe Biden to the left. Sara Fagin, on ABC, led the charge with this statement:
“Joe Biden is not the leader of the Democratic Party right now, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are. He put Congressman Ocasio-Cortez in charge of his climate policy”.
Chris Christie, a Trump advisor, former Governor and bridge traffic director from New Jersey added his bit on the same program. He said:
“…The liberal wing, the progressive wing of the Democratic Party is very, very suspicious of Joe Biden. They didn’t support him during the primary season. They didn’t want him as the nominee.”
And while Chris Wallace on Fox didn’t specifically reference the radicalization of the Democratic Party, he still did his part. He invited invited Hawk Newsome, a Black Lives Matter leader, to discuss previous comments to Fox News. Newsome said:
“If this country doesn’t give us what we want, then we will burn down this system and replace it. I can be speaking figuratively or I could be speaking literally, it’s a matter of interpretation”.
The President responded by Tweeting that Newsome was speaking of “treason and insurrection”. It all fits well with this weekend’s theme of Democratic radicalization. I guess Chris Wallace got the word.
Hard Left
And, Republican talk show host Hugh Hewitt, who has transited from a Never-Trumper to a Trump apologist (maybe because his son works in the Administration) “discovered” the same theme. His statement on NBC was:
The Democrats have gone hard left, HARD LEFT, and the phantom of Joe Biden on the top of that is not going to cover over the AOC and the Squad’s effect on the Party”.
So this week’s narrative, courtesy of the RNC and Trump 2020, is that Joe Biden is a weak leader, far out of touch with what “real Democrats” want to do. “Real Democrats”, according to the Trump 2020 talking points, are left, “HARD LEFT,” and Biden somehow just ended up the candidate due to…something that they really don’t explain.
Democrat’s Choice
I can explain it. Joe Biden became the nominee of the Democratic Party because the Democratic voters, overwhelmingly, chose him. They voted for him over Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren, both candidates of the “harder left” that the Trump campaign wanted to run against. Democratic voters chose Joe Biden because they trusted him to get elected, and they wanted a return to the decency and honesty that Biden represents.
The Trump narrative is that Donald Trump represents “law and order”, and will put down the chaos of protests and destruction brought on by the death of Floyd George and others. The flaw in that theory is that most Americans see that it is the lawlessness of the institutions that caused those deaths that is the real problem.
Joe Biden is a man of the center, of decency and civility, of willingness to compromise to solve problems. He is willing to work with the “hard left” but he is also just as willing to reach across the aisle and work with Republicans.
The Trump campaign wanted to run with a booming economy, and they wanted to run against Bernie Sanders. Now they’ve managed to botch the COVID-19 crisis, trash the economy, and they’re dealing with Joe Biden. All Trump 2020 can do is to divide America against itself, using fear of “radicals” as the wedge. Since Joe Biden doesn’t fit that model, they ignore him and move onto their “dream opponents”.
The American voter will see through that.
