Letters To The Editor: Are We Biden Apologists?
Banter readers weigh in on the hot button topics of the week.
Hello everyone and welcome to this week’s edition of Letters To The Editor! This feature is usually for Banter Members only, but we’re opening it up to regular subscribers today. If you have something you’d like to ask us, or get off your chest, email to ben@thedailybanter.com and we’ll do our best to feature it!
- Ben
In response to Justin Rosario’s exposé of the far left and far right’s love affair with Vladimir Putin, a reader posits we have an “unspoken premise that the Ds (Democrats) are right”:
There is one other issue. I mention it not to destroy enthusiasm in the Ds like the motivated nihilists I mention it as a lover of my country, my home. The issue is reflected in your articles and your talking. It is the unspoken premise that the Ds are right. I think that thinking spawns two factors: you guys aren't hurting as bad as others are (an admitted guess) , and you believe the hype, not the record. I have yet to see anything critical of the Ds here, especially about whether they are achieving their stated agenda. This is bad. Not because, as may be your fear, such criticism would fuel the insane right. It’s bad because you fail to realize other peoples issues are valid, issues that need to be addressed. And that’s a recipe for loss. That’s a recipe for endless griping about this or that reason, this or that or who blame (voter fraud is a key exception). Its, therefore, a recipe for grievance and stabbed-in-the back metaphors that make you feel good when you lose because your candidate/party has drifted so far away from what normal people want.
You blast the unfair failure of Biden’s economic success to garner electoral recognition. My question is, how is the average voter experience this. What have you done for them? Things they can identify as on brand, that you can campaign on. If you don’t have much, if all you can run on is aspirations that don’t reach results (Damn that Manchin!) , you will lose because why should you win? What have you done for the common man, specifically, not generally. Nobody cares that infrastructure got done in so far as the common man doesn’t know the Democrats did that. Still doesn’t help them feed their family or make their life better.
So people will turn toward others because the results aren’t there. And no amount of scaremongering is going to motivate people. You need to win people over. That’s democracy.
Sadly, people tend to turn to fascism when they are suffering, and make no mistake, the current system has left many suffering by design. Ds can change that, have vision. But they have acted like the old center Rs for most of my life. I want that to change in time not to have us fall to fascism, because people will move to fascism because fascism makes the trains run on time. All kinds of horror comes with that, but the undeniable fact is fascism often gets things done, as much as they terrorize and oppress. I could go on, but my question is: are you willing to autopsy the issues that will garner support? Will you advocate the Ds change to achieve success? Because it could still happen, but that has to happen. Real change for the people. Things that may go against the funders, that will be uncomfortable for the status quo while being being absolutely necessary? Because it will do little to whine later. Unless your sole contribution is being a defense squad, eternal apologists, no better in this way than those southerners who yearn for their world that can never be again because America is different place and Americans are no longed antebellum minded?
I don’t actually disagree with you on a lot of your analysis of the Left in America. In my opinion, moderate/mainstream Democrats put forward pretty weak policy, have swung too far to the Right and don’t stand up for liberal values enough. The working class is getting screwed, the current system is beyond corrupt, and the country is in dire need of “real change for the people”, as you say.
The problem is, much of the rest of the country doesn’t share my critique of liberalism, or want my socialistic prescriptions. To win elections in this country, particularly presidential ones, you need run from the center. This has been proven over and over again, yet the far Left refuses to accept reality and insists the country is ripe for a Bernie Sanders style revolution. It isn’t.
The far Left loves to blame centrist liberals for the rise of the Right, but it’s far more complicated than that. America is a deeply conservative, individualistic country with a long history of anti-labor practices and free market idealism. Hell, people from all walks of life move to America because of that. My in laws are Latino (Peru and Paraguay) and they did not move here for the government services. They came to build businesses and pay less tax. This is why incidentally so many Latinos voted for Trump.
You can’t just pretend these people don’t exist — they do, and Democrats need to take that into consideration when running for office. So yeah, I guess I’m an apologist for “The Establishment” (whatever that means) because I’d rather a pro business Democrat who doesn’t align 100% with my ideology than a full blown fascist.
We’ll be addressing my rather long Members Only essay on “The Rules Of The Jungle” in the podcast this week, but this comment from a reader highlights an important point:
Great piece of storytelling and writing. Absorbing and exciting. Unfortunately. it is dead on in illustrating where we find ourselves.
If Putin, like Danny, continues to act even beyond the rules of his crime family of billionaire oligarchs, the end for this horrific situation, will come with his end, either politically or existentially. So in a word yes, he is in the process of self-destructing. His power is so absolute with them and yet I doubt most of them share his extremism and see the complete destruction of their lifestyles, the humiliation to their wives and children to being imprisoned in Russia, and the loss of all their investments.
But history has shown in such a case even a ruler's closest "associates" or underlings will act in surprising ways.
An out for him that would save face would be to announce a medical condition and slowly let go of the reins of power to perhaps a more reasonable Russian mobster sociopath.
Firstly, thank you for the kind words. I struggled with that piece for a variety of reasons, the primary being how personal it was.
I’m not sure what Putin could do to save face given his entire image is based on him being an invincible strongman. Claiming to be sick and incapable might not work for Putin given his extreme delusions of grandeur.
The lesson I took from dealing with a highly intelligent sociopath was that they should a) never be underestimated, and b) left alone as much as possible. It may be that someone near to Putin is just as sociopathic but more switched on, more capable, and less unpredictable. We could, as you suggest, have that to look forward to in the near future.
Responding to last week’s Banter Roundtable Podcast, a listener discusses the prospect of Ron DeSantis running for president and asks why Democrats are so bad at messaging:
God help this country if Ron "Death" DeSantis somehow runs for president in 2024! He's as revolting as you have pointed out; I haven't been able to stand listening to him ever since he became the poster child for anti-COVID precautions. How can this subhuman be still so popular in his state when so many of his constituents died from COVID-19? I hate him for that bill that was just signed by him, dubbed the "Don't Say Gay Bill," which will have a very negative effect on the LGBTQ community. Shame on DeSantis for overstepping his authority here!
I also agreed with Justin's assessment of how Biden's employment figures are questioned by news outlets like the The New York Times. This is something that Democrats should really crow about, but somehow the positive image just gets lost in all of that subsequent negativity. If - God forbid! - Trump were president right now, you can be rest assured that the GOP would have lionized him by now. Why can't Democrats do this? Especially when the crucial midterm elections are not that far away.
I think you are being too kind to DeSantis… I share the same fear of him running for president at some point. He has all of Trump’s ugly politics but is far more intelligent and capable. DeSantis is a pretty savvy politician and has learned how to manipulate the MAGA base and more traditional conservatives. This makes him very dangerous and Democrats should do everything in their power to exacerbate tensions between him and Trump. If you can turn the MAGA mob on him, he can be thwarted (just my two-cents here).
In terms of Democrats and message, yes, I agree. They need to get a hell of a lot better going into 2024. But as Bob says all the time, it is down to Democratic voters and the media to talk about their successes too.
See you next week!
Ben
Read an excerpt from the latest for Banter Members. Get 50% off a Membership today (only $1.88/month!):
There’s No Way In Hell Trump Was Tough On Russia
Things are bad right now, but they could be a hell of a lot worse.
by Bob Cesca
WASHINGTON, DC – The Russian military used thermobaric rockets, reportedly fired from TOS-1A launchers, to destroy a maternity hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine this week. The latest reports from Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelinskyy indicate babies buried in rubble and pregnant women being hauled away on stretchers. There have been innumerable atrocities in this war so far, but this has to be the most barbaric and unforgivable attack by Vladimir Putin to date.
Making matters worse, when thermobaric rockets explode, they do so with greater heat than other rockets by design, as if anyone needs hotter explosions to destroy hospitals loaded with newborn babies.
But at least Putin’s not calling Tucker Carlson a racist, right?
I guess this is what happens when the world pushes back against Putin, isolating and humiliating him. Now imagine what would happen if an American fighter pilot or surface-to-air missile site enforcing a no-fly zone shot down a Russian aircraft over Ukrainian soil – which, to Putin, constitutes ancestral Russian soil…
To continue reading, please go here.
"In terms of Democrats and message, yes, I agree. They need to get a hell of a lot better going into 2024."
Alas, that same sentence would be true no matter which of the past 40 years you put at the end.
To Justin's point - there is a dark underbelly of White Privilege/ Class Privilege on the Far Left. Many Leftist in America exposes idealistic beliefs and goals with no concern for practicality. The reason is that most far leftist are well heeled intellectuals and writers who are mostly shielded from the worse aspects of a bad idea or they know that frankly being white (and usually not queer or a woman) will protect them.