Democratic party reboot
As the democratic party conference is ongoing, the party is trying to move away from Biden and into a new phase with Kamala Harris. The convention is quite different compared to the republican conversion, which took place shortly after Trump’s felony conviction and close after his assassination attempt. The democrats decided to have Biden speak on the first evening of the convention, oddly enough in a pretty empty arena, and Biden’s focus was to paint Trump as a threat to democracy and that this election was the most important in decades in order to defend American democracy.
Biden praised Harris and moved on and will be a lame duck president for the remainder of his presidency. People will be happy to see him go, in particular the democratic party. Biden is a nasty corrupt old man, who most likely will be regarded as one of the worst presidents in U.S. history. Biden has also created enormous tension both domestically and internationally. In the U.S. by overspending with insane government programs, and globally by supporting Iran and obsessing over eastward expansion of NATO. He has also managed to alienate China even more and created an unsafe world. Biden will be remembered for supporting and enabling the genocide in Gaza and not trying harder to find a peaceful solution.
With Biden gone, the election is quite a different story. Gone are two old white man and a relatively predictable outcome with Trump as the winner. Mostly as a result of Biden being more or less senile and dysfunctional. In comes a youngish, at 59, woman of Jamaican-Indian descent with experience as a senator and as a vice president. Harris is seen as progressive with few if any achievements, similar to Obama, who had no real work experience, but was a good community organizer and he managed to get both young people and minorities engaged and won the most vote ever for a winning president with 69 million votes. Obama’s record was somehow broken by uncharismatic Biden with more than 81 million votes. If Kamala Harris can get the same enthusiasm from women, independents, and minorities as Obama did, there is a chance that the democrats will win again.
The democratic party reboot is based on a few key elements. The first one is to move away from the Biden administration and forget about Biden. He is not popular with voters and has created a mess domestically and internationally. He is also connected to his corrupt son Hunter and there will likely be upcoming trials involving Hunter Biden. With Kamela Harris they will try to portrait a young and fresh candidate who can make history as the first ever female president. This is something that many see as a major event and can be a deciding factor in voter turnout. The democrats are painting the republican party as one of old white men, running clips from January 6th, and showing an angry and abusive Trump. The democrats will paint Kamala Harris is an energetic moderate, which is far from the truth, but this will be important in order to win independent votes. They will use government-linked media outlets and social media and censor information showing Harris as a far-left politician with economic ideas of price controls, government involvement, high taxes, and socialistic programs.
The democratic party will also highlight key election issues that will energize and mobilize voters such as saving the democracy from Trump, the right to abortion and higher taxes for the rich. This is a smart strategy as many voters are genuinely concerned about an open and democratic society and a vast majority of voters are for the right to abortion, in particular women and young voters. To tax the rich sounds like a good idea for many voters as rich people tend to pay very little or nothing in tax. This is due to a tax system with endless opportunities for deductions, resulting in only about 50% of the population paying any taxes at all and about 50% of all U.S. corporations paying nothing in tax. Given the huge federal government debt and deficit, a complete overhaul of the tax system would be an excellent idea to create a new and fair tax system, where people and corporations actually pay their fair share of taxes.
The democratic party’s reboot is well timed as there are only a couple of more months to the November election. It seems odd that such an ineffective and unpopular vice president suddenly is described as the new bright political start, who can bring the U.S. into a new era. The contrast between Harris and the aging Biden helps and the fact that she is going up against Trump helps too. Trump can be too belligerent, too nasty and too extreme and most voters want moderate, respectful politicians they can relate to. Trump is also old, although with endless energy.
The election will be close for sure and likely come down to a few key swing states. The democratic party has shown that despite Biden, they still have a chance to do well in the upcoming election. So far, the democratic party has acted decisively and firmly by getting ride of Biden and unify behind Kamala Harris and has been able to give out signals of openness, moderation, diversity, and hope. All this is not necessarily true, but it is an impressive party machine, and the democratic party propaganda seems to work according to polls as Harris’ popularity is improving steadily.