Biden needs to show up like it's SOTU for the next 233 days

Yesterday, Donald Trump told the American people and the whole world what will happen if he is denied political power in the 2024 election. 

Trump has made an offer that we must refuse as Americans, and repudiate with disgust. Trump’s promise is that we may have peace if we give him power and allow his dictatorship of a day to commence. His offering is blunt.

Here is the quote:

If I don't get elected, it's going to be a bloodbath for the whole — that's going to be the least of it. It's going to be a bloodbath for the country.

Power or peace.

Power or disorder. 

Power or chaos. 

This is Trump’s fundamental extortion, and his plan is very simple. He hopes a radicalized and fervent minority will be joined by a blob of indifference that will give him the power he wants. 

There is an essential teaching from history that must be comprehended in this moment of simultaneous danger and political lethargy. There has never been a man who promised vengeance, violence, revenge and retribution who didn’t deliver on the promise after taking power. 

Donald Trump also said the following about human beings who are suffering in dire circumstances:

In some cases, they're not people, in my opinion."

Let me ask you a question. When you see these photos do you see animals? Should they be put down? 

Please understand where this leads:

Auschwitz survivors

Black Americans beaten by police officers in Selma, Alabama, March 7, 1965 (AP Photo)

Kurds killed by an Iraqi chemical attack in Halbja, Iraq, March 16, 1988 (AFP Photo)

Overcrowded prisons during the Rwandan genocide (Raymond Depardon/Magnum Photos)

A young woman beside a man killed in a Russian attack in Kharkiv, Ukraine, March 8, 2022 (Sergey Bobok/AFP Photo)

We are all human beings. All human beings have dignity and basic rights. This is an elemental aspect of the American creed, and it must be defended ferociously and constantly. 

According to NBC News and three of the very best journalists in America, Carol Lee, Peter Nicholas and Courtney Kube, the cadre of cloistered DC careerists, lobbyists, and staffers around the president has triggered deep anxiety about their strategy to beat Trump. 

Here is an excerpt:

For months, Democrats have watched the 2024 campaign unfold with rising alarm as the sitting president struggles to gain ground against his defeated predecessor. Frustrations rippling through the party have reached the top, with Biden at times second-guessing travel decisions and communications strategies that have left much of the electorate clueless about his record, interviews with nearly 20 lawmakers, present and past administration officials and Biden allies show…

Surrounded by protective aides who want to minimize the chances of a flub, the 81-year-old president has chafed at restraints that he sees as counter to his natural instincts as a retail politician, a third person familiar with internal discussions said.

He has felt cocooned at times and has been eager to get out more, meet voters face-to-face and take the fight directly to Trump, said the third person and a fourth also familiar with the matter who, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss campaign strategy and the president’s private views

There are signs that some within his party are also losing patience with him.

“Biden stood up in front of the whole world and said, ‘I’m ready. I’m the guy who can take down Donald Trump,’” said Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash. “So, he goddamn well better do it. We don’t have time for him to be worried about whether or not people are saying things right or the poll numbers are where they should be. I want focused energy and not defensive anger.”…

At times, Biden gets suggestions that conflict with one another. Some advisers have told him he should walk faster out of concern that his gait feeds impressions that he’s too old. And yet the White House is sufficiently worried about him tripping that he has taken to boarding Air Force One via a shorter staircase through the belly of the plane, forgoing the iconic image of the president waving from the main doorway high above the tarmac.

“He’s probably a little mad at himself for not being more forceful with the staff,” a person familiar with internal discussions said.

Privately, Biden questions whether he should trust his gut instincts over the guidance coming from the array of advisers tending to his political interests, this person added.

This is a moment that requires conviction. This is a moment that demands toughness and joy in the fight.

Donald Trump is talking about revenge, retribution, blood and death, while calling brown-skinned people animals, while Team Biden is sitting in the White House debating each other over whether to use the short steps or long ones, and whether the president should walk faster or slower.

This is madness, and it must stop. It is time for the president to crack down on the political shit show surrounding him. It is failing him, the country and the future on a daily basis. 

The president needs to show up like it’s the State of the Union for the next 233 days. There is no more time to waste.

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