Till The Bitter End

A New Year message from The Banter team.

AL DRAGO/BLOOMBERG NEWS

Dearest Banter reader,

Under strict orders from my wife, I’ve taken a small break from publishing over the holidays. However, I wanted to write a note before the year’s end to thank you for your support. It has, as always, been deeply appreciated.

It has been another tumultuous year navigating the difficulties of Covid, Biden’s new presidency, and the incessant attacks on civil society from the Trump Party (formerly known as the GOP). 2021 was better than 2020, but not by a lot.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans have succumbed to SARS-CoV-2, Joe Biden is struggling to hold a deeply fractured society together, and the MAGA movement remains an ever present threat.

While there was deep relief that Trump was finally booted out of the White House, there has been a gnawing feeling that this existential fight for the soul of America is far from over. Despite attempting a coup at the beginning of 2021 and being denounced by almost every faction of his party, Trump remains in full control of the GOP. Republicans turned on him for only a few weeks before they realized the political ramifications of turning against the MAGA mob. From Mitch McConnell to Marco Rubio and Mike Pence, Republicans loathe Trump in private, but bow to the throne in public. The Orange God controls the base, and they know it. Only a handful of Neocons and moderate Republicans have shown the courage to oppose him in any meaningful way, leaving the fight almost entirely to the Democrats.

Joe Biden has shown admirable courage from the onset of his Presidency. He has fought tooth and nail to provide relief to Americans struggling to make ends meet, purged the government of Trump loyalists, and made the incredibly tough decision to pull out of Afghanistan. He has faced an onslaught of conspiracy theories, obstructionism and “both siderisms” from a media system intent to turn politics into a spectator sport. So called moderates in his own party are sabotaging much of his agenda, but yet the 79 year old keeps plugging away.

In any other time, Biden would be advised to stand down in 2024 to make way for another Democrat. He is too old to be President, and he knows it. To pretend otherwise is to deny reality. But Biden is still there, still a fighter, and still more than capable of leading his party through this treacherous time. He remains our best bet to stave off the collapse of democracy, and he knows he must see it out till the bitter end. I find it truly humbling to see a man in the latter stages of life fighting as hard as Biden is.

I have it on reasonably good authority that Biden did not want to run for President in 2020, but knew he had to in order to defeat Trump. His advisers showed him the numbers, explained to him that he was the only Democrat capable of building a coalition to defeat Trump, and asked him to throw his hat into the ring. I’m guessing the same is true for 2024.

2022 is going to be one hell of a year. We still have Covid to contend with, the Midterms are around the corner, and we’ll get a better idea of which Republican is going to run in 2024. The fight for voting rights, women’s reproductive rights, and a robust welfare state will continue unabated. The Democrats must regroup to take on a reenergized GOP, and develop new, more sophisticated strategies to defeat Trumpism.

It is war, and the fighting ends when the MAGA movement dies. No more, no less.

We’ll be here with you, doing our best to report on what is important and fighting disinformation tooth and nail. So thank you all again for keeping this corner of the internet alive and thriving.

Happy New Year from all of us at The Banter!

Ben

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