Taylor Swift’s endorsement of Kamala Harris shows how big a role music is playing in the 2024 election

by | Sep 13, 2024 | The Moderate Voice

Attendees dance as a band plays during the last day of the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images
Mark Clague , University of Michigan

Music generates passion and emotion, so it’s little surprise that popular tunes have been featured in presidential contests since the days of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson .

But as a scholar of music’s role in American politics and patriotism , I’ve never seen music assume as much electoral importance as it has in recent months.

Taylor Swift’s endorsement of Kamala Harris is headline news , as were the mere rumors that Beyoncé might perform at the Democratic National Convention . Donald Trump, too, has his pop culture supporters, including Kid Rock and Lee Greenwood.

In a tight race, music has the potential to make a big difference. Most voters today have already made up their minds , and the presidential race remains a statistical dead heat , according to polls. In this situation, I think music offers a deceptively simple, emotional hook that can inspire the party base without alienating those few undecideds in the middle.

When crowd size matters , getting your supporters to sing, scream and dance can cultivate an aura of electoral triumph.

Fired up, ready to go

Music had a starring role in this year’s dueling nominating conventions.

Beyond the expected fare of the national anthem and the background music that filled the voids between speakers, pop hits were used to transform each party’s typically tedious state-by-state roll call. When Florida’s 125 votes took Trump over the top, confirming that he would be the official Republican nominee, organizers played Kool & The Gang’s 1980 No. 1 hit , “Celebration.”

Over at the Democratic convention, celebrity emcee DJ Cassidy turned the relatively banal proceedings of the roll call into a dance party. As each state and territory was called to vote, a signature song burst forth to introduce, welcome and energize the crowd. Alabama’s call-out was Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama,” Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” announced Michigan , while California featured the music of native emcees Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg.

And in a moment designed to go viral , Atlanta native and crunk rapper Lil’ Jon answered the call for Georgia with the guttural shout “Heyaaah … ” followed by the opening lyrics of his party anthem “Turn Down for What?”

Soon afterward, Axios posted a full Democratic convention roll call playlist on Spotify, and its 61 songs showcase a tactical musical advantage held by Democrats.

None of the artists featured at that convention have publicly objected to their songs being used. In contrast, dozens of musical artists have disavowed Trump’s use of their music at rallies. In 2024 alone, they include ABBA, Adele, Celine Dion, Foo Fighters, Jack White and the heirs of Isaac Hayes .

Rather than fulminate against these slights, Trumpworld seems to embrace the headlines they generate . The objections of these artists reinforce the candidate’s trademark outsider status, and are yet another sign that he and his supporters are scorned by the nation’s political and cultural elites .

Both candidates’ soundtracks claim very different ideological territory. Harris favors youth-oriented hits with a high proportion by artists of color and women. Her selections send a message. Playing Chappel Roan’s “Femininomenon ,” for example, signals both an inclusive, affirming message about gender fluidity while also suggesting to fans who know the song that it’s about time for a woman to be in charge.

Trump often features classic hits, including James Brown’s 1966 single “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World ,” which emphasize traditional masculinity. Rock anthems and patriotic hymns dominate the Make America Great Again playlist, such as Kid Rock’s “American Bad Ass” and Queen’s “We are the Champions ,” though the British band has protested its use. Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” has become an unofficial Republican hymn , and rally attendees routinely sing along.

President Donald Trump enters to Lee Greenwood’s ‘God Bless the USA’ at a 2017 rally in Phoenix.

Sonic stars and stripes

Simply put, I see the musical contest between Trump and Harris as a battle for vibes.

Each party’s base wants to hear an affirming, confidence-building musical message loud and clear. Whether it’s a current hit or a classic one, chart-toppers convey familiarity and popularity.

The fundamental question, however, is whether this soundscape of enthusiasm can fuel a victory.

Harris’ campaign notched a win after receiving Beyoncé’s permission to use “Freedom” as the candidate’s theme song . In contrast, the Trump staffer who used the same song in a video triggered a cease-and-desist letter. Trump’s team pulled the video and stopped using the contested track .

Harris’ embrace of Beyoncé’s political anthem connects the vice president to the pop star’s own biography as a tough, independent and successful woman of color. The song’s propulsive drumbeat tells a story of determination, using “freedom” to “break chains all by myself” and “keep running ’cause a winner don’t quit on themselves.” Harris would probably love voters to see her in this same light.

Kamala Harris used Beyoncé’s ‘Freedom’ in the video celebrating the launch of her presidential campaign.

Yet Harris’ song choice is also surprising, in that it appeals to the raw patriotism of one of the nation’s defining values. American flags have long served as the obligatory backdrop of both national parties. But Republicans, particularly in recent decades, have gone into overdrive to claim patriotic symbols as their own, perhaps so voters see them as the nation’s true patriots.

I see Harris’ overt use of patriotic songs, whether it’s “Freedom” or the Civil War-era “Battle Cry of Freedom ,” as a strategic reclamation of patriotism for the Democratic Party.

Political fandom

These playlists, pop star endorsements and battles over usage rights may show how presidential politics has become less a contest of ideas and more a form of passionate fandom that’s rooted in notions of celebrity, popularity and tribe.

Young voters, however, do seem to be discovering their political voice through music and social media. British singer Charli XCX’s “Kamala IS brat ” endorsement may have given an early boost to Harris’ campaign, but some influencers declared its politicization as proof of brat summer’s early death .

Nonetheless, music has quickly become a weapon in the campaigns’ battle to win younger voters, with the demographic more tightly contested than it’s been in previous cycles . In this regard, Swift’s post-debate endorsement of Harris to her 283 million followers takes on more significance. The megastar could bring more young people into Harris’ camp, especially since her country music roots mean that Swifties span the ideological spectrum .

The strength of a democracy ultimately depends on the people exercising their power through the ballot box. If music gets more Americans to the polls, regardless of whom they vote for, Americans are more likely to have a result that they can trust.

For that reason alone, I’m happy to keep singing along.The Conversation

Mark Clague , Professor of Musicology, Arts Leadership & Entrepreneurship, University of Michigan

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article .

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Please donate to help The Moderate Voice to help us through 2024

by | Sep 13, 2024 | The Moderate Voice

The Moderate Voice needs your help. The Moderate Voice was started in December 2003. Most traditional blogs have vanished through the years. The Moderate Voice needs your help to help it thrive through election day — and beyond.

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Will national news organizations continue to sanewash Trump’s utterances after tonight’s media event?

by | Sep 13, 2024 | Politics, The Moderate Voice

sanewashing defined

Sanewashing (or sane-washing) is beginning to appear in columns of traditional news outlets, having migrated from independent voices and magazines.

If you’ve missed the term but are following the utterings of Donald Trump, you might guess that this is shorthand for a mainstream media “coherency bias” that implies Trump has “coherent” policy proposals. It also reflects traditional media ignoring Trump’s increasingly violent rhetoric.

I’m struck by how history can repeat itself. Let me channel Heather Cox Richardson for a moment.

The story of Trent Lott

Once upon a time, when blogging was an infant (almost 22 years ago), political bloggers kept a blockbuster story about then Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS) alive over a weekend. We were still operating on a daily, not minute-by-minute, news cycle.

No major newspaper reported that Lott had praised notable racist, Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-NC) on a Thursday night: “[I]f the rest of the country had followed our lead [and voted for him for president], we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years either.”

Two bloggers, one being Talking Points Memo’s Josh Marshall , “independently uncovered and reported the remarks on Friday.” Others continued to write about the nakedly racist comment over the weekend, with Andrew Sullivan joining on Monday.

Tuesday, the Washington Post picked up the story. This should look familiar:

Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post addressed the speech in his column. Kurtz commented that if a Democrat had “made this kind of inflammatory comment, it would be the buzz of talk radio and the Wall Street Journal would be calling for tarring and feathering.”

Wednesday, the New York Time joined. Thursday, then President George W. Bush “delivered a rebuke.” On Friday, Lott resigned as majority leader.

In a time when we measured news in 24-hour increments, Lott’s resignation took eight days.

And one of false coherence

Google suggests that “coherent” (its lacking) was first used in describing Trump’s ‘linguistic challenges’ in May 2017. In STAT News, a medical news site: Trump wasn’t always so linguistically challenged. What could explain the change ?

Here’s the Washington Times in June 2024, before the Biden made-for-TV event: Trump advised to be ‘calm, coherent and factual’ in debate with Biden, liberal moderators

Also in June, The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeff Goldberg, wrote about a “bias towards coherence” in criticizing political reporting of Trump’s rallies and speeches.

The New York Times addressed Trump’s “credibility” and “coherence” in November 2023 in a headline for his New York City trial. Not politics, legal peril. Flash forward almost a year, to September 1: Meandering? Off-Script? Trump Insists His ‘Weave’ Is Oratorical Genius . Peter Baker, using the written equivalent of a straight face, treated the claim about “rhetorical style” as one worthy of investigation.

These September 5th quotes are not “rhetorical style.”

Q: Overall, what do you estimate will be the impact of the fiscal deficit from your policies?

A: Well, we just hit record highs at numbers that nobody ever thought possible. You’re right, over $2 trillion. Nobody thought that was a number that was – I mean, you could go back four years. Nobody thought a number like that would be possible. It’s crazy. It’s like – it’s just horrible, actually.

But yeah, we’re – $2 trillion – and I view it as profit and loss to a certain extent. A lot of people say, oh, it’s trade. You know, you have many people say trade deficits don’t matter. I think they matter a lot.

I think they matter a lot. We’re going to have tremendous growth. This – what I’m talking about is all about growth. The tax is relatively minor compared to the growth. We’re going to make our money back on growth. We’re going to also – I mean, we’re going to grow like nobody has ever grown before. I think if this all works out, you’re going to have the auto industry come back to America. Right now, China is building two auto factories in Mexico – massive auto factories…

Q: If you win in November, can you commit to prioritizing legislation to make childcare affordable, and if so, what specific piece of legislation would you advance?

A: Well, I would do that, and we’re sitting down, and I was, somebody, we had Senator Marco Rubio, and my daughter Ivanka was so impactful on that issue. It’s a very important issue. But I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I’m talking about, that, because, look, child care is child care is. It’s, couldn’t, you know, there’s something, you have to have it. In this country you have to have it.

The members of the Economic Club of New York witnessed unhinged stream of consciousness.

Here’s another example of how the New York Times refuses to address Trump’s incoherence and increasing calls for violence. Voila, two Monday front pages.

The questioning of Trump’s cognitive state in national news outlets has barely been a drizzle. Focus on his increasing violent rhetoric is reporting the stakes of this election, not odds (polls).

Unlike Hillary Clinton’s emails in 2016, which were a nothing burger, news organizations — not just the New York Times — are covering for Trump. The New York Times published more cover stories about Clinton’s emails in six days than it did about policy issues in 69 days .

Journalist Jennifer Schulze reported that the New York Times had published almost 200 stories about Biden’s debate performance, 142 news articles and 50 opinion pieces, over a one week period (from the end debate on June 27 to the morning of July 5). That’s almost 30 stories every day, and one of those was a holiday.

Trump gets much less attention with 92 stories. Almost half are about the SCOTUS immunity ruling. Just one about Trump calling for military tribunals for his opponents. None of the stories focus on Trump’s mental fitness.

Enter sanewashing

“Sanewashing” — a portmanteau of “sane” and “whitewashing” — is a smart visualization of that intellectual concept, masking incoherence. Although it shows up in late August (also here and here ), it was Parker Malloy, writing in the New Republic last week, who kickstarted the migration to more traditional news sources: How the Media Sanitizes Trump’s Insanity .

This “sanewashing” of Trump’s statements isn’t just poor journalism; it’s a form of misinformation that poses a threat to democracy. By continually reframing Trump’s incoherent and often dangerous rhetoric as conventional political discourse, major news outlets are failing in their duty to inform the public and are instead providing cover for increasingly erratic behavior from a former—and potentially future—president.

The consequences of this journalistic malpractice extend far beyond misleading headlines. By laundering Trump’s words in this fashion, the media is actively participating in the erosion of our shared reality. When major news outlets consistently present a polished version of Trump’s statements, they create an alternate narrative that exists alongside the unfiltered truth available on social media and in unedited footage.

This past week’s headlines are more niche than national, but the drizzle is growing:

And CNN’s Lawrence O’Donnell continues his critiques:

However, the question of the day is this: after Tuesday night’s made-for-TV ‘debate,’ how will traditional national news outlets — ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC on the one hand and the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post on the other — treat Trump’s ramblings?

Will they continue to sanewash Trump by making his answers appear coherent? (His performance in the event with Biden was chock full of lies , but you’d not know that by media focus on Biden’s age.)

Or will they finally pivot and treat Trump like they treated Biden and Hillary Clinton, with headline after headline identifying his incoherence?

Will history repeat itself or will the loudest megaphones show they have no eyes, ears or conscience?

 
~~~~
 

The stakes in November have never been more urgent, nor the choices more extreme.

Remember: you are not voting for one person. You are voting for a team.

I’m voting for Team America not Team Russia-Hungary-North Korea.

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Can NATO Exist Without the United States

by | Sep 13, 2024 | The Moderate Voice

With the U.S. presidential election in two months, and Trump and Harris essentially tied, the possibility of Trump being elected must be considered realistic by Europeans as well as Americans.

Aside from trade issues that might arise with Trump as president, the main problem for Europe will be its defense.

Trump has already said he does not like foreign alliances and has threatened to take the U.S. out of NATO. With the NATO pact that includes the U.S. and Canada being the backbone of European defense, the question arises whether NATO could survive without the U.S. Two thirds of defense spending by NATO nations is by the United States. The most advanced weapons systems, both offensive and defensive are produced by the United States. The largest military forces are by the United States. The nuclear umbrella that acts as a deterrent against Russia, China, Iran and North Korea is by the United States. While the UK and France have nuclear weapons, they cannot compare with those of the U.S., Russia and China, and it is questionable whether they could act as a deterrent against an aggressive Russia.

Trump has already declared that he admires Putin and that they have a bond. He has said that he could quickly end the war between Russia and Ukraine, likely by forcing Ukraine to give in to Putin’s demands. Putin has made Russia into an expansive power similar to the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Besides taking over Crimea in 2014 and the invasion of the main body of Ukraine, Putin has also been active in Georgia, Moldavia, Syria, and parts of Africa. What would NATO do if he decided to invade the Baltic States which are members of NATO, but which Putin considers as part of Russia.

NATO is obligated to come to the defense of any of its member states if they are invaded, but would the remaining nations do that if the United States was not a member? Trump pushed a number of NATO states to increase their defense spending to 2 percent of GDP, by threatening not to aid any state that was below that threshold, and most of them have complied. The U.S. spends over 3.5 percent of GDP on weapons and defense.

If the United States exited NATO, it is likely the organization would be seen as a paper tiger without the power or will to defend its smaller members. It would certainly leave Russia free to swallow up the Baltic states and threaten Poland and Romania. American power in NATO is necessary to act as a deterrent to Putin and an expansionist Russia. Without the United States, NATO could fall apart, as the leadership role has been assumed by America since the organization’s inception. No other nation is capable of assuming that role.

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Tags: Baltic Nations, Donald Trump, European nations, NATO, Russia, U.S. Leadership, U.S. presidential election

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Starting with a handshake, presidential debate between Harris and Trump then turns fierce, and pointed

by | Sep 13, 2024 | Politics, The Moderate Voice

Former President Donald Trump, left, and Vice President Kamala Harris debate on Sept. 10, 2024.
AP Photo/Alex Brandon
Rodney Coates , Miami University and Lee Banville , University of Montana

As the two presidential candidates entered the debate stage, Kamala Harris strode across it and offered her hand to Donald Trump to shake, setting a confident tone that didn’t flag throughout the debate .

Trump, appearing to grow angrier through the night, stuck to his well-trodden themes of American decline and reminded viewers that Harris was part of the Biden administration, which he blamed for that decline.

Each candidate probably won points with their supporters – whether they won over undecided voters will become clear when the ballots are counted. The Conversation U.S. asked two scholars, Miami University sociologist Rodney Coates, an expert on race , and Lee Banville , a 13-year veteran of the PBS NewsHour and now director of the School of Journalism at the University of Montana who has written a book on presidential debates , to respond to what they heard in the debate.

A man and a woman shake hands.
The debate began with Kamala Harris approaching Donald Trump, introducing herself and shaking hands with him.
AP Photo/Alex Brandon

‘The American people want better’

Rodney Coates, Professor of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, Miami University

From the very opening of the presidential debate, Kamala Harris made clear her vision of a more just society while at the same time directly challenging Donald Trump’s controversial views on abortion, immigration and the U.S. legal system.

“I’m about lifting people up and not beating people down ,” Harris said.

A former prosecutor, Harris repeatedly used Trump’s own words and past behavior to attack his chaotic first administration. In response, Trump resorted to personal attacks, calling Harris “the worst vice president in the history of our country,” and said she had no ideas except for those of her boss, President Joe Biden.

But after listening to Trump’s frequent personal attacks against Biden, Harris finally snapped. “You are not running against Joe Biden,” Harris said. “You are running against me.”

Noticeably absent from Trump’s first face-to-face meeting with Harris were his racist attacks against her . Since Biden dropped out of the race in July 2024 and Harris became the Democratic nominee, Trump has described Harris as having “a low IQ ,” “dumb as a rock,” “weak” and “lazy.”

For most of the debate, Trump avoided this line of attack, but he could not avoid repeating a debunked myth that Haitian immigrants in Ohio were killing and eating pets. But when asked about Harris’ racial identity, Trump said he didn’t care what she was.

“I read where she is not Black … then I read that she was Black,” Trump said. “That’s up to her.”

Critics have accused Trump of putting racist attacks at the center of his campaign strategy.

But Harris said there was no place for such a racially divisive strategy.

“It’s a tragedy,” Harris said. Trump, she said, “has consistently over the course of his career attempted to use race to divide the American people. … I think the American people want better than that.”

A woman makes a hand gesture.
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during the presidential debate on Sept. 10, 2024.
AP Photo/Alex Brandon

‘What people wanted’

Lee Banville, Professor and Director of the School of Journalism, University of Montana

Often these spectacles of American politics come down to some memorable moment – a rhetorical jab that bloodies an opponent, an unforced error that dogs a campaign for weeks. The first 30 minutes of Biden’s performance in his June debate with Trump is just the latest in a long line of pivotal moments that can throw a campaign off.

But when does a fumbled phrase elevate into a political crisis or a factual slip turn into lost votes? And what from the night’s historic encounter will merit more than a couple of TikToks making fun of politicians?

We should know in the next day or so, but one may be when Trump claimed that ending the constitutional protection for abortion in Roe v. Wade had returned the issue to the states – a move, he said, “Every legal scholar, every Democrat, every Republican, liberal, conservative, they all wanted this issue to be brought back to the states where the people could vote. And that’s what happened.”

Harris then turned that phrase “what people wanted” back on the former president.

“You want to talk about this is what people wanted? Pregnant women who want to carry a pregnancy to term suffering from a miscarriage, being denied care in an emergency room because the health care providers are afraid they might go to jail and she’s bleeding out in a car in the parking lot? She didn’t want that. Her husband didn’t want that. A 12- or 13-year-old survivor of incest being forced to carry a pregnancy to term? They don’t want that,” Harris said .

It was a moment of policy, but also a personal moment, and hit on a major theme of the race. That is the kind of moment we have seen stand out in the past: President Gerald Ford wrongly declaring Eastern Europe free of Soviet domination ; President Ronald Reagan deftly dispatching concerns about his age with a well-placed quip about the youth and inexperience of his 56-year-old rival; President George H.W. Bush looking at his watch repeatedly during a 1992 town hall debate.

I was lucky enough to work on a 2008 documentary – “Debating our Destiny ” – where the moderator of 12 presidential debates and my former boss, the late Jim Lehrer, interviewed many of those candidates about debates. The first President Bush was one of our favorites.

“You look at your watch and they say that he shouldn’t had any business running for president. He’s bored. He’s out of this thing, he’s not with it and we need change,” Bush told us later . “Now, was I glad when the damn thing was over. Yeah. And maybe that’s why I was looking at it, only 10 more minutes of this crap.”

Now, Bush might have been the funny one, but it was former President Bill Clinton who, after mulling it over, offered some good insight into why some debate moments stick: “The reason the watch thing hurt so badly was it tended to reinforce the problem he had in the election.”

A man makes a hand gesture.
Former President Donald Trump makes a point during the presidential debate on Sept. 10, 2024.
AP Photo/Alex Brandon

Put another way, stories and moments that reaffirm a theme in the campaign that already is present in the minds of voters often resonate long after the lights dim.

So, now Americans will sit back and see what the echo chambers and cable outlets make of an exchange like the one on abortion. Will it fire up more women voters to back the Harris ticket or will it be lost in a sea of economic issues and immigration policy?

If Bill Clinton is right, the abortion back-and-forth will probably resonate if it connects to what voters already think about these candidates and what are the primary issues of this campaign.The Conversation

Rodney Coates , Professor of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, Miami University and Lee Banville , Professor and Director of the School of Journalism, University of Montana

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article .

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POLLS SHOW THE RACE TIGHTEN – RENEWING DEBATES ABOUT POLLS

by | Sep 13, 2024 | Politics, The Moderate Voice

People on both sides may argue – and they are – about the accuracy of current political polls on the 2024 Presidential election, about methodology, etc. But there is one thing that is now certain: many polls are now trending to show a tightening race.

The Washington Post ran this summary: “Former president Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are about even in two new polls of likely voters released Sunday, demonstrating how close the 2024 presidential race has become with fewer than 60 days left before Nov. 5. Trump leads Harris 48 to 47 percent — within the margin of error — in the latest New York Times/Siena College poll of likely voters. The two were also in very tight races among likely voters in each of the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin in a CBS News/YouGov poll. The results raise the stakes for both nominees for the already highly anticipated presidential debate on Tuesday.”

Some things worth remembering about polls:

1. A political poll is a snapshot in time.
2. Individual polls matter less than how polls are trending.
3. Many partisans will tout polls that show their side ahead and then try to discredit the same polling company if there’s a poll that shows their side is behind.
4. In the 2024 Presidential race, it has long been predicted that many Republicans would return to the Trump fold once the novelty of Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic Presidential nominee wore off and the Republican/MAGA media and message machine was operating fullspeed.
5. A debate can indeed cause some movement in polls. Up or down. And, yes, debates have been credited with having decided elections.
6. The key moment to watch will be in the week or so before the election when independents start to make their decisions. There are fewer independent voter up for grabs in a highly polarizing 2024 United States but they could decide the outcome.

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The Double Standard For Moderates

by | Sep 13, 2024 | Politics, The Moderate Voice

President Biden finally discovered the secret to boost his approval ratings; he dropped out of the race. At last report, a news outlet none other than Fox News reported President Biden is enjoying a 13 point rise in approval ratings. If only he had stayed in the race after he dropped out, he might have a chance to win. There may have been other ways he could have avoided having to drop out to secure his legacy as a successful president. The most obvious example is Afghanistan. Or his staff could have prepared him more for the debate. One can argue who’s fault the June debate performance was, but it’s hard to believe it was unavoidable. Especially after President Biden’s late night performance at the convention.

Despite that she stood at the convention cheering him, rumor has it President Biden is currently not on the best terms with former Speaker Pelosi and the Democrats who nudged him out of the 2024 race. Speaking of Democrats turning against Biden, Michelle Obama made an indirect jab at him in her speech. Obama referred to a feeling of hope that had been missing for a long time. This was rather passive aggressive, meaning President Biden failed to deliver that feeling.

Even before the disastrous debate performance, President Biden and his supporters have always been victims of a double standard held against moderates. CNN’s Anthony Van Jones wisely pointed out that if Biden had given a speech as “rambling” as the speech Trump gave at the GOP convention, the Democrats “would shoot him with a tranquilizer dart and drug him off.” Van Jones is right. Even now, the Democrats are quick to move President Biden out of the spotlight. He was the last act of the first night of the convention. It would give him more influence if he spoke on the final night. And it would make sense. He is the reason why Harris is the nominee after all.

Under President Biden’s watch, America saw the death of al-Qaeda’s number two leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri. According to many terrorism experts, al-Zawahiri may have been a more formidable threat than Osama Bin Laden himself. Additionally, the United States is now experiencing an unemployment rate currently below 4%. Last year, there was an eleven percent drop in homicide numbers.
So…
Killing a Al-Qaeda leader worse than Bin-Laden
Unemployment rate under 4%
Eleven percent drop in homicide rate, after one of the worst crime waves the country has seen in decades.

If a “movie star” politician like Reagan or Obama had accomplished this list, that would give them credit for supplying more than enough “hope.” They would secure the nomination and a landslide re-election, regardless of how many gaffes they made during a debate. When President Obama passed ObamaCare, his approval ratings rose, simply because it was accomplished. When Governor Cuomo successfully passed gun control laws, his approval dropped by a considerable amount. Everyone loves a winner. Unless you’re a moderate Democrat.

Depending on who you talk to, Vice President Harris was a tough on crime prosecutor. So in a way, one could argue Harris is a moderate. Vice President Harris is currently crushing Trump with younger voters in a way President Biden never did, despite having Harris on the ticket, despite engineering a lot of the same policies that Harris is running on. These younger voters are doing the right thing for the wrong reason. They are simply voting Harris because she is cool, at least compared to President Biden.

But double standard or not, President Biden is still the President. As he is not running for re-election, he now has the luxury to devote all his energy to getting legislation passed.

New York Magazine featured an article that compared Obama to Biden, under the caption “Now Who’s The Candidate For Change?” The article correctly pointed out that President Biden had accomplished more than Obama. Yet somehow, Obama creates more “hope.” Someday there will be another Biden-like candidate that will run for President. Hopefully the public will remember what President Biden was able to accomplish (although this is unlikely, as many are already forgetting). With any luck, the next one will be able to secure the presidency at a younger age. And who knows, maybe if the next Biden does secure the Presidency at an earlier age, they will be able to serve two terms. And maybe the next Joe Biden will not have to drop out of the race to increase his chances of staying in the race.

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