{"id":32308,"date":"2024-03-13T13:07:19","date_gmt":"2024-03-13T20:07:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=32308"},"modified":"2024-03-13T13:07:20","modified_gmt":"2024-03-13T20:07:20","slug":"the-dreaded-trump-biden-rematch-is-here-or-is-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2024\/03\/13\/the-dreaded-trump-biden-rematch-is-here-or-is-it\/","title":{"rendered":"The Dreaded Trump-Biden Rematch is Here. Or Is It?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What I Thought About Biden\u2019s Electrifying State of the Union<\/strong><\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"umair<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>umair haque<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Published in <\/a>Eudaimonia and Co<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

23 hours ago (eand.co)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/
Image Credit: Andrew Harnik<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The dreaded Trump-Biden rematch is here. Or is it? We\u2019ve been discussing all this over at the Issue<\/a>, my new little publication. Come on over, have a read, click around \u2014 there\u2019s tons to read there already, and I\u2019d be delighted to see you there. For now, here are some thoughts about\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you watched the State of the Union \u2014 and if you didn\u2019t, give it a few minutes of your time \u2014 someone very different appears to have entered the building. Biden, they said, was old, frail, confused, an elderly man with one foot in the grave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the figure who showed up to give the State of the Union was anything but. Razor-sharp, whip-smart, lightning-fast. Angry, vocal, funny, humorous, sinking the knife into the GOP, and then twisting it, again and again. Taking no prisoners. His ratings soared, and for good reason. This Joe Biden? People loved him. Embraced him. Cheered him on, like they didn\u2019t for that other guy also named Joe Biden, lately \u2014 because this time, they were electrified.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who was<\/em> this guy? Where has he been? You won\u2019t often see a figure like Ezra Klein eat his words \u2014 but just a few weeks ago, he loudly called for Biden to step down, using his New York Times pulpit, or maybe misusing it. Now he\u2019s walking it back. Joe Biden made them all eat, crow, in other words, which is sort of delicious, even if you\u2019re not a die-hard Biden fan. I\u2019m not \u2014 I question him on everything from Gaza to debt, but I do have to give credit where it\u2019s due.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s a secret. It isn\u2019t a Trump-Biden rematch. Not really. It\u2019s something very, very different. Let\u2019s begin with Trump, and then we\u2019ll come back to Biden \u2014 or who this new persona is, this Joe Biden, the one who showed at the State of the Union, electrifying people, pundits, and frightening the opposition into bewildered silence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Trump part of the Trump-Biden rematch\u2026isn\u2019t quite right. This isn\u2019t yesterday\u2019s Trump. This is Turbo Trump. Next level Trump. Put it however you like. This figure is one aspiring openly<\/em> to dictatorship. Vowing vengeance, using the machinery of government, on anyone who pursued or opposed him. Who\u2019s staring down a hundred criminal charges, and needs to win, to continue being a free man. Someone who\u2019s led a coup, inspired and united fanatics and lunatics in the cause of treason and violence, and still touts insurrection. A figure whose contempt for democracy is up there with the worst demagogues of history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This Trump is different from last time around. He\u2019s hardened. More sophisticated. Not the veritable rube he was before. And his side has evolved and matured, too. Last time around, they blundered into power, they knew it, and didn\u2019t have a plan, even for what to do with the vast machinery of government they inherited. This time? There\u2019s a 1000 page plan to install a totalitarian state, from day one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of that matters, and it matters intensely and intently. In leadership terms, there are thresholds that are to be passed, for leaders to become more and more effective. You try to turn around an organization, you fail. You try to build coalitions and unite people, you fail. You attempt a vision and agenda, only to find limited buy-in. From all those, you learn. And in this \u201ccrucible,\u201d as the great leadership scholar Warren Bennis called it, a true leader is born.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or, perhaps, a true demagogue<\/em>. The last few years have been something like Trump\u2019s dark night of the soul, which was Bennis\u2019s great insight into leadership. He didn\u2019t win again. The Big Lie began to flop. Justice pursued him. He slid into irrelevance. And then, astonishingly, he pulled it all back from the brink.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How did he do that? Trump honed his message. It became more severe, overt, constricted, inflammatory, and vengeful. Where before there were hints of the tyrant\u2019s aspiration, now it\u2019s in the open. Where before there was a tinge of vengeance, now it\u2019s explicit. Before, there was demonization, but now, the fascist appeal is blunt and brutal, wrapping itself in a totalitarian vision for a society in which modern notions of freedom have ceased to exist, not just for those who aren\u2019t \u201creal Americans,\u201d but for plenty of \u201creal Americans,\u201d too, from women to minorities to the LGBTQ to non-traditional families and relationships to anyone in the opposition and on and on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump\u2019s message now? It\u2019s incredibly bleak, not just \u201capocalyptic,\u201d as pundits will say, but more to the point, cloaked in the pretense of the inevitability of a cleansing apocalypse. That is how the pure and true are revealed to be the chosen ones, and the rest discarded as subhuman, not people, liabilities, contaminations. It\u2019s indistinguishable, in its outlines, from all those demagogues who wished destruction on their own societies, in the name of saving them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But that\u2019s not the only reason this message was so effective that it brought Trump back from the brink of irrelevance. There was another reason, too, and that was\u2026the old Joe Biden. That\u2019s unfair, so let\u2019s say: the ham-fisted Democratic machine that\u2026seemed to have\u2026as we know now\u2026constricted him\u2026was afraid to let the real one out of the carefully constructed, climate-controlled box they kept him in like some kind of prize.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is it any wonder, then, that people basically thought he was a mummy? They\u2019d barely let him out for air, give him room to say a few words, and then back into the tomb he\u2019d go, like he was a pharaoh already preparing for the afterlife, or something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That created a vacuum. And a vacuum is a terrible thing, when it\u2019s a political contest you\u2019re trying to win. Who was Joe Biden? Why, he was old, elderly, frail, doddering, said the opposition, in far unkinder terms. If all you had to see was a picture, why, you might have even believed it. What did Joe Biden want, stand for, believe in, anyways? They\u2019d let him to say the same old foolish lines \u2014 \u201cthe economy\u2019s great!\u201d Hand-wave, fist-bump, bye bye \u2014 and back into the box he\u2019d go. Then everyone\u2019d roll their eyes, because unless you\u2019re Elon Musk, the last few years in human history have been many things, but \u201ceconomically great\u201d is emphatically not one of them. Why else is it that living standards are falling for the majority of people in the world now? So all that cost Biden seriously<\/em>, and then <\/em>some.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nobody should have been losing to Donald Trump, the figure slinking into irrelevance \u2014 but amazingly, Joe Biden was succeeding at that task.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But now, things look \u2014 suddenly, and pretty happily \u2014 different<\/em>. Can this <\/em>Joe Biden beat Trump? Biden somehow seems to have fought his way out of the box that the Dems have kept him locked up on for the last year and more. He ripped off the mummy bandages that kept him sealed up tight and barely able to move a muscle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This<\/em> guy? He\u2019s a serious politician, who gave a masterclass on how to roast the fascists, and make them run for cover, and more to the point, which is the Big One, because of that, he\u2019s finally crossed a Rubicon: he\u2019s at last being accepted as a leader<\/em>. By more and more people. That\u2019s what those soaring ratings are beginning to say. No, that\u2019s not fan-boyism \u2014 it\u2019s just reality. There\u2019s a long, long way to go, yet. One good speech by a Guy That Isn\u2019t a Mummy anymore is a striking beginning \u2014 or rebirth, maybe \u2014 and yet these are still early days, as far as these things go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So who is this Joe Biden? He\u2019s equal parts Dark Brandon, with a dash of great Presidents before him, who wanted to reinvent America \u2014 and didn\u2019t quite succeed. He\u2019s also himself, too, which is somebody who\u2019s learned<\/em>. From the failures of the paradigms he once embraced, like neoliberalism, striking out in a new direction, plowing new ground, in which to plant democracy\u2019s seeds. The world\u2019s democratic leaders \u2014 those few left \u2014 are taking notes, intently, I guarantee you, awestruck by this Joe Biden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So. The question isn\u2019t: can Trump beat Biden all over again? It\u2019s different, now, if you really want to understand it. Can this<\/em> Joe Biden beat this<\/em> Donald Trump? This Joe Biden, who\u2019s still learning, maturing, growing, which is remarkable for a man his age, and puts us younger ones who aren\u2019t to shame, really \u2014 fierce, defiant, loud, electrifying. That Donald Trump \u2014 the one whose sneer has become a snarl, and who\u2019s holding not a switchblade, this time, but history\u2019s flamethrower in his hand. This time\u2019s different, though it looks the same. The candidates aren\u2019t the same men. Nor are we, as much as we\u2019ve gone through in these last few years, a decade and more stuffed into them, the same people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So you tell me: what have we, collectively, learned, and which choice will we make?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Come on down to\u00a0the Issue<\/a>, have a read, peruse the many reads, join the conversation. I\u2019ll see you there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"umair<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Written by umair haque<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u00b7Editor for <\/a>Eudaimonia and Co<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What I Thought About Biden\u2019s Electrifying State of the Union umair haque Published in Eudaimonia and Co 23 hours ago (eand.co) The dreaded Trump-Biden rematch is here. Or is it? We\u2019ve been discussing all this over at the Issue, my new little publication. Come on over, have a read, click around… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[388,335],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32308"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32308"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32308\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32309,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32308\/revisions\/32309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}