Forgive me for stating the obvious, but national parties are always looking to spin events in their favor. Sometimes the spin comes easy: the economy grew, we’re in power, spread the word. Sometimes it doesn’t: the economy grew, we’re not in power, it didn’t grow right.
Watching party messengers try to work their way out of a tight spot can be comical, but it’s worth remembering what they’re doing — if they aren’t simply owning up to their mistakes — is an exercise in cynicism. They’re praying whatever message they come up with, no matter how absurd, will change the narrative. And they’re counting on their voters not just to hear that message, but to spread it. That, for me, is where cynicism turns to insult.
Right now, each party is insulting its voters. The Republican Party is telling its voters that the Democratic Party is anti-democratic because it changed its candidate after the primary. Keep in mind, the Republican Party was saying Biden was unfit to run for office right up until he dropped out of the race so, for the sake of our democracy, shouldn’t it be relieved he’s no longer running? Today’s columnist — a Republican, mind you — tackles this matter with his characteristic thoughtfulness.
Just because the GOP is the focus of today’s link, though, doesn’t mean the Democratic Party is off the hook. The indignities that party has shown its voters are no better. Regarding President Biden’s candidacy, the message was originally, “The president is fit as a fiddle. Don’t be ageist.” After his calamitous debate, the message became, quite incredibly, “He has a cold.” Then, when multiple Congressional and high-profile Democrats called for him to step aside and polling showed an overwhelming majority of Democratic voters wanted another candidate, they were told, “The elites are trying to push him out.” (What party poobahs call the majority of their voters “elites”? Such a strange choice.) Finally, after more than three weeks of desperately trying to keep the nomination, Biden dropped out and the message morphed into, “What a principled, selfless decision.”
If the party wants to argue Biden was a consequential president, by all means, make that case. It’s makable. But Biden didn’t give up the nomination willingly (multiple reports have Nancy Pelosi essentially telling him, in a scene reminiscent of the criminally underrated The Nice Guys, “We can do this the easy way or we can do it the hard way… We are currently doing it the easy way.”), and he didn’t do it last year when he could have saved his party and the country some real turmoil. So comparisons to George Washington, which have become a regular refrain among pundits, are a brutally, insultingly painful stretch.
I’ve said before that columns featured here don’t have to reflect my thinking, but they do have to reflect reality. The same goes for party messaging. Forgive me for stating the obvious again, but voters on each side deserve better than what they’re getting right now… and so does the country.