I think Biden muddled the message that helped give him such a strong launch

[Tom Rinaldo]

The single strongest message conveyed in the prepared video that Biden used to formally announce his run for president was his resolute and unyielding opposition to what Trump has done to America. That launch video wasn't big on policy specifics, but it was huge when it came to "the Resistance." Biden called Trump out in the strongest terms possible, in essence stating that Trump, and all that he stands for, is inherently Un-American. Biden minced no words in identifying Trump as an existential threat to our very Republic. It placed Joe Biden in the forefront of the battle being waged in real time today to preserve and protect our Democracy and all that it stands for. It emphasized Biden's contemporary role in America's politics, facing off against and staring down Donald Trump.

The problem for Biden is that Trump does not rule and threaten America all on his own. He is deeply aided and abetted in all of the damage he is causing by today's national Republican Party, and all Democrats active today know that. Biden's current pitch that he can best reach across the partisan divide undercuts the effectiveness of the message that gave Biden his powerful launch. He compounds that problem by referencing the politics that existed in America generations ago, right after staking a claim on being our foremost partisan warrior in the present, in regards to Donald Trump..

To be clear, I am not here commenting on whether or not Biden is making an accurate point about the path America needs to take long term to restore health to our political system. Even in today's climate, if you go digging deeply in the weeds, one may find some faint signs that someday Republicans may partially be freed from Trump's malevolent spell. But Democrats are not focused on gardening right now. We are instead mobilized to fight a devastating wildfire.

In my opinion Biden stepped on the message that propelled him strongly out of the gate into his large lead in the polls of Democratic candidates for President.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

1. It's not the call for comity that's troubling.

It's the suggestion certain people had redeeming qualities when they had none or that their unredeeming qualities could be offset by their redeeming ones.


As someone who likes Joe this makes me sad.

[Tom Rinaldo]

6. I hear you

But I do think his current "call for comity" is troubling politically for him now. It undercuts a powerful contemporary "rebranding" of his image that helped make Biden seem like a likely unity candidate for the Democratic left and center precisely because he so starkly stood against the horror Trump unleashed. For most Democrats though that horror is not confined to Trump alone.

I suppose a lot of Americans, even non Christians, can to some extent relate to a message that there are seeds of possible redemption present in virtually all of us, but that was not the point Biden was trying to make. Nor are matters of white supremacy a good starting point for that discussion were one to seek it in light of Trump's own racism. I assume Biden meant only to convey that essential negotiations between opposing camps can best be conducted when a modicum of basic civility is preserved. But none of that came across clearly. He fumbled the example he used, and as I stated above, his political timing for prioritizing that message is simply, IMO, off.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

8. I believe his argument is that with Trump gone we can have civility or at least a modicum of it.

[BeyondGeography]

2. There's too much nostalgia in this country

MAGA is nostalgia. Republican epiphanies are nostalgia. Like most nostalgia, both things never really happened the way they're being sold in the first place.

I get the hearkening back to the past, but it should be done very sparingly. Biden has fallen into the trap of waxing nostalgic at the slightest opportunity and it has been a disaster for him. From evoking Charlottesville in his announcement, he now finds himself in the position of having alienated the only two black Senators in the country, both of whom are candidates for President and defending his relationship with James Freaking Eastland. True life beats fiction every time.

[Freethinker65]

3. As everyone wastes time analyzing semantics, Trump/GOP policies move forward

Do not fall for it again.

[left-of-center2012]

4. If the 'circular firing squad' keeps shooting ...

If the 'circular firing squad' keeps shooting,
we'll go limping into 2020.

[emulatorloo]

5. We have a Nazi-Sympathizer in the White House. No time for "word-parsing" our candidates to death.

All of our candidates are going to make mistakes or say things in the wrong way. The country is in a state of Crisis under Trump. We don’t have the luxury of trying to destroy our candidates before the general election.

[Tom Rinaldo]

7. I did not blast Biden for who he is.

Nor for what he said, if you carefully read what I wrote. I simply said that IMO he is now blunting a strong part of what made him so appealing to many coming out of the gate. If I'm wrong about that, my comment is irrelevant. If I am right, there still is time for his campaign to make adjustments.

[emulatorloo]

9. Tom your post is good. You may be inadvertently getting lumped in with the "gotcha moment"

pile-on threads that are quoting biased sources which apparently have an agenda to “take Biden out.”

[Freethinker65]

10. I realize that, but it is curious of everything Biden says, this is the takeaway the media runs with

And this is what The Democratic Party gets bogged down discussing.

The same thing happened with Hillary. Policy speech after policy speech and all we heard about was Benghazi and emails. The Democrats were thrown off message time and again. Right now Warren, Harris, Bernie, Booker, Biden, Buttigieg... need to continue to hammer away at policy and they need our support. We need to work together.

Interesting how we are directed to go after how Biden intends to get policies through, rather than the policies themselves.


Democrats needs to pull a Kellyanne Conway and say "the voters don't give a damn about what word someone uses, they care about policy and how it affects their lives..." these are the policies that matter and what the Democratic Party would do differently than the Republicans to help EVERYONE, especially those left behind and sacrificing under current GOP policies.

[Tom Rinaldo]

11. Well, this is just my most likely unwelcome two cents

But if Biden becomes our nominee AND he persists in using the need to restore bipartisan civility as a major part of his pitch I don't think it will help us with voter turn out on our end as much as we will need. That is an early concern I have about Biden as our potential nominee based on this admittedly early indicator.

[Freethinker65]

12. Agree, if that is truly all there is to Biden's plan forward