Joe Biden has to Get on His High Horse and Lead the Charge Against the Brutish

. . . If not Joe, who? If not now, when?

The CNN Trump Town Hall on Wednesday night was a seminal event. Although I and many others questioned why, and to what end, CNN would offer such a seemingly open-ended, soft-ball platform to Trump, we found out. With all of the criticism of CNN having provided a worldwide, prime-time platform for his lies and rants, those 70 - 90 minutes of Trump’s unrelenting and indomitable pathos were revelatory.

CNN: The Town Hall Preview of Town Hell

The CNN Town Hall revealed to the nation and to the world — unambiguously, and in great detail — that Trump has reached the almost devout status of demagogue for millions of Americans who believe everything that he believes, including that he should be the leader of our country on whatever terms he wants.

It’s hard to say this, but it’s the economical appeal of the authoritarian: “You have a problem. Of course, I can fix it, stupid.”

CNN has (perhaps inadvertently) provided a great service because, while there was really nothing new in what Trump said or did, it has been a long time since most of us have seen him in the spotlight, at center stage, at liberty to say just about anything and everything he wants. And it wasn’t within an “oppositional” format, like a rally or a debate, but instead, in the most congenial and normative setting imaginable: a CNN Town Hall with a carefully selected, sympathetic audience and an interviewer totally out of her depth.

And, since Trump is no longer on Twitter and he isn’t president, most of us don’t see and hear from him 24/7 — or at all, if we choose. And when we do, his menacing, grievance-filled, and retribution-promising lies and rants are most often packaged or truncated into normative, often apolitical, “news clips” by our main stream media.

But the massive audience assembled by CNN — from those few dozen charmed souls in the ”hall,” to the live audience of millions, to perhaps hundreds of millions who have only seen a few clips of the live event and have read transcripts and accounts of it — Trump’s performance elicited incredibly strong, visceral reactions. That’s because, whether a supporter, a spectator, or a detractor, everyone “in the room” felt the inescapable truth:

Trump has fully arrived at that larger-than-life, potentially earth-shattering place, of being the supreme leader of an American domestic insurgency.

Trump is now, without doubt, the most dangerous threat our nation faces — much more dangerous than Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping.

Accordingly, Trump is, without a doubt, the most dangerous person in the world today and he needs to be treated that way.

An Epic, almost Universal, Fail

But, he’s not. He’s treated more like an eccentric. Why is that? Perhaps it’s because:

• Outside of his millions of core MAGA devotees, and his extended base of additional tens of millions of followers and fans, just about everyone else in America is either in denial or is uncertain about whether Donald Trump should be taken seriously.

• Both pundits and politicians have failed to “Pierce the Corporate Veil” that the Republican Party is providing to the massing and preparation of an authoritarian putsch.

• The Democratic Party, and President Biden in particular, have remained wedded to carrying-on in normal political horse-race fashion, unaccountably lending credence to the dangerous illusion that the Republican Party is still dedicated to democracy and majority rule. As a result,

  • Biden and the Democratic Party have yet to jettison the tired and ineffective tropes of laundry-list, “I have a plan” politics that rings hollow to so many millions of Americans well beyond the MAGA faithful.

  • While Trump offers a fiery, intoxicating brew, Joe Biden and the Democratic Party counter-offer only their signature weak tea.

• Law enforcement at the highest levels, especially the Department of Justice, which was so “front and center” during Trump’s presidency in lending the highest level of legitimacy to his impulsive egomaniacal agenda. But, now, the DOJ has been reined-in. It’s almost as if it has adopted a posture of such neutrality that it has become “Deaf, Dumb, and Blind” to the extraordinary insurgency fulminating in states and localities — and in Billionaire’s gated mansions — throughout the land.

  • Most egregiously, in the face of the entire country watching live as Trump launched the mob to the Capitol on January 6th, and then as he chose to “stand back and stand by” for hours while they wreaked their mayhem; and after the House January 6th committee provided an extraordinary cache of evidence of the depth and breadth of the seditious Trump-led conspiracy, over the course of more than two years, the DOJ has responded by prosecuting only low-level members of the ragtag MAGA mob that stormed the Capitol.

  • Even if Trump and some his host of fellow conspirators may be under some sorts of investigation, the almost total lack of DOJ (or overall administration) visibility, let alone communication, on matters of such national significance is, on the face of it, a dereliction of duty to We, The People.

  • No more do We, The People, than do “They, the MAGA Populists,” want some wholly secretive, seemingly “deep state” controlling the overall enforcement of law or national security. Leadership and law enforcement must understand and respect the need for We, The People to be informed enough to be assured that the laws are being duly and justly enforced.

• And finally, our Fourth Estate: “The press,” has utterly failed us. Our Fourth Estate was designed to be the main bulwark for We, The People against threats of governmental overreach and tyranny. As such,

  • It should be relentlessly interrogating and exposing the existential threat that Trump and the Republican Party pose to America’s future as a democratic republic and to the future of the free world.

  • It should be investigating and connecting the dots of all of the systematic efforts in Republican controlled states to gerrymander, subvert, and control the elections.

  • It should be connecting the dots between these Republican Party-wide efforts and the efforts of Republican-appointed judges at every level (especially SCOTUS) to enable and justify such subterfuge and to effectively re-interpret the Constitution to enable autocratic rule.

  • It should be exposing the details of how particular Republican elected officials at every level of government are using their influence and their offices to facilitate and empower anti-democratic actions and policies.

  • The Fourth Estate should be connecting the dots between these “mainstream” Republican Party efforts, and the widespread intimidation and violence being enabled, excused, and even encouraged with photo-ops and lapel pins featuring AR 15s — and with the cynical mantra of, “Thoughts and Prayers.”

This and so much more in the way of the unseriousness, cluelessness, unresponsiveness, and other failings of our democratic elites, press, and leaders has had the cumulative effect of leaving the majority of Americans in various states of disillusion, fear, confusion, depression, and frustration. Worst of all, after more than four years of Trump and two years of Biden, it has left We, The People feeling disempowered and without clear leadership. And there are no pollsters delving deeply enough into Biden’s ever-lackluster approval numbers to get even close to understand this.

This is an Insurrection, Not a Horse Race

With its Trump Town Hall, CNN has effectively kick-started the 2024 election cycle. As we enter this critical electoral season, we must understand that we are not simply in a conventional horse-race race to see who can get the most votes for president or for Congress, or whatnot.

We are in a struggle against the most dangerous man America has spawned in generations and his tens-of millions-strong mob of entranced acolytes and domestic insurgents.

Trump and his populist forces have captured the Republican Party nationally and in almost every state in the nation. His appeal is the strong-arm appeal of all demagogues and autocrats, throughout history. It’s a compellingly simple appeal: “You have a grievance? Only I can fix it . . .” to which, in his Town Hall, Trump just added “. . . in 24 hours.”

And one should not be fooled by the silence of Republican officials everywhere in the face of Trump’s serial transgressions of Country and decency. Yes, these Republicans were originally a bit cowed by the large core of MAGA voters, but that is no longer relevant.

Nevertheless, the press and these Republicans themselves would have you believe that some block of “moderate” senior Republican leaders are “standing down and standing by,” wringing their hands, hoping Trump goes away or gets carted away.

But they are not.

Republican electeds are no longer afraid of getting on the wrong side of Trump and his MAGA minions. They are now aligned with the mob.

What Republican Leaders most fear is that the press and the larger public will see through their veil of moderation and uncover what it is that they are hiding by their studied, unified silence and deflections when asked to respond to the latest Trumpian outrage or tragedy.

The entire Republican Party is actually working hand-in-hand — night and day, state by state, and nationally — to put in place the mechanisms of state control that they can use to effect Trump’s goal of seizing power.

The entire leadership of the Republican Party, each in his or her own way, is putting in place nothing short of the electoral subterfuge, and plans for chaos and intimidation, that will enable their party of Trump to take power. They are all fully on board with the plan to recast America from the Land of the Free — to the Land of the Free-for-all Trumpist Hell-scape. If they weren’t, they would have left the Republican Party and joined Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger in the efforts to turn the Trumpist tide.

The Brutish are Coming! The Brutish are Coming!

I titled my prior post, “The Brutish are Coming! The Brutish are Coming!” And I did that as a goad, as a prompt, because even ordinary people like Paul Revere and others were able to galvanize the massing of good people across the countryside to come to the aid of their “country.”

Imagine if Biden and the Democratic Party were to do the equivalent: sound the alarm and then actually act as if the Brutish are on the march and at the gates, fomenting hatred and aching for the opportunity for the mass uncivil action that could bring about their Trumpian dream-state. The Brutish already have a broad purchase throughout the land on breaking down legal barriers and pillaging fundamental rights and decency.

Wouldn’t it be something, if Democratic leadership were to rise-up to call-out and oppose the actual, existential threat to our nation posed by Trump and his mob?!

There are any number of ways to raise this alarm and provide We, The People with needed leadership and direction. There are few greater powers than that of the presidency and its built-in pulpit, for leaders willing and able to use them.

If not Biden, who? If not now, when?

Many people and pundits may not agree with this, but, I think this is fundamental: Joe Biden has to do something vitally important, something that Democrats haven’t done much in generations, and that Biden’s Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, as a black man in America, could never do:

Joe Biden has to get mad.

Joe Biden has to get the hell-up on his high horse, outraged and offended by the ways Republicans are enabling and even cultivating violence and cruelty against fellow Americans.

Joe Biden has to call Bullsh*t on all of the perversions and violations of our American values and all of the lies.

Most importantly, in the face of the demonstrated willingness of Trump and the Trumpist Governors DeSantis, Abbott, and others to act autocratically and immediately to address grievances without regard to existing laws and civic norms, Joe Biden needs to TAKE DIRECT ACTION on at least one major aspect of the growing Trumpian insurrectionary march towards dystopia and autocracy. He must not simply promise, but he must demonstrate, that he and our Democracy can make real, meaningful, near-term differences in the wellbeing of our people.

This could be on an issue like abortion, or perhaps he holds his fire a bit longer for a SCOTUS decision against Congressional delegation of powers to Administrative Agencies. But whatever it is, he needs to act forcefully on behalf of We, The People, including, if necessary to challenge the hubris of our corrupt SCOTUS majority in seeking to wreck the foundations of our Democratic Republic.

This is one of those times in history when extraordinary threats require extraordinary responses.

We, The People, must expect and demand nothing less than that our leaders fight vigorously and relentlessly against the scourge of Trump and Trumpism.

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