I am very worried about 2024

What is the gravest threat facing America?

Do we face foreign invasion? Could China subjugate America? Could Russia? The EU? Canada? (Happy Canada Day, by the way, to those who celebrate. I’ll be celebrating in Ottawa.)

The answer is “no” to all of the above. It is an impossibility.

Do we face imminent environmental catastrophe or a deadly plague? No.

Do we face an economic collapse, mass famine or deadly drought? No.

America faces an internal crisis and a threat from within that seeks to dismantle the American way of life by destroying the foundation of American democracy, which is premised on the right to vote. Donald Trump and a noisy minority have demanded that they be given political power — or else. They have sought to overturn a presidential election with lies, conspiracies and violence to make the loser the president.

The MAGA movement is fascist in character, divisive and teeming with a potent mix of menace, bigotry and violence. It is unfaithful to the ideals of democracy and the American Constitution. Importantly, it is also staggeringly dishonest. The lying isn’t a side effect; it is a feature. The lies erode individualism, judgement, reality and liberty, like water smooths the jagged edges of a rock over time. It disorients and creates the perfect environment for fear, division and chaos to take hold. The dictator’s greatest lie is always that their control is fundamental to your stability and liberty. When power is handed to them, it will not be returned to the people until after the inevitable catastrophe — if ever.

The greatest threat that America faces is that our 248-year-old republic falls to a demagogue who becomes a Caesar, a tyrant. Trump is that tyrant and his vessel is the Republican Party that has succumbed to the MAGA virus, lock, stock and barrel.

The plain truth is that America has a two-party system that is shattered because only one of the two parties actually believes in the foundational premise of the country, and specifically the idea that all Americans stand equal under the law as free men and women, regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender.

The Republican Party doesn’t believe in American democracy because the Republican Party won’t accept election results and reality. It’s as simple as that. The party of Lincoln is a force of national degeneracy, lunacy, division and Trump. It is an autocratic cult of personality that exists to aggrandize its leaders and their power. The party exists outside of any attachments whatsoever to any great national purpose. It is a hollow institution that seeks nothing but its own interests. It is simultaneously a danger, a threat and a disease to the United States and the concepts of liberty and pluralism.

Since the Republican Party, the third oldest political party in the world, has collapsed at a moral level, and has turned hostile towards America, what is the role of the Democratic Party in American society?

It is very simple. The Democratic Party is the singularly most important institution in 2023 America for the preservation of the American revolution and the defense of American freedom. Again, America will never be conquered militarily, which means it can only fall politically — and only through an election to a faction that is hostile to the US Constitution and another election. The role of the Democratic Party is to defend American democracy against a party that seeks to burn it down to install Donald Trump as leader, not president. The Democratic Party’s singular responsibility is to win elections around the most important question and issue of our age: will we continue to be free? Will the republic endure?

A few years ago, I shut down my consulting business, resigned corporate board seats and a network television contract to do what I could do to defeat Donald Trump. The organization I founded galvanized millions of people and fortified millions more. It spent tens of millions of dollars on the most effective advertising of the 2020 election that accumulated a value of over a billion dollars. I mention this not for praise or credit-seeking, but to make a point. The stakes, the fight and the consequences are all very real. There is no office, no ego, no entitlement, no prerogative, no nothing that is more important than defeating the MAGA menace and destroying Trump’s autocratic cult as a political force. Let me repeat: there is nothing more important.

American politics is shaped by a small and profoundly out-of-touch community of political, business, media, and technology mandarins who are concentrated into small, homogenous, elite communities of immense power, wealth and influence across Washington, DC, New York City, Silicon Valley, and Aspen and East Hampton in summer.

A curious feature of our age is how much emotional energy is spent by ordinary Americans rooting for politicians, oligarchs, moguls and tech bros who wouldn’t bother to brake their cars if said American was stretched out across the road. I have met too many politicians to become a fan of any. There are many worthy of admiration, but none of idolatry, and certainly none should be beyond criticism or walled off in a hermetically-sealed bubble of Trumpian delusion where reality is defined by the leader’s fantasies, whims and ego. Again, the looming election is existential. There is no issue nor person who is more important than defending American liberty, including the leader of the Democratic Party, the 46th President of the United States Joseph Robinette Biden of Delaware.

Before continuing, let’s watch a clip of California Governor Gavin Newsom with Fox News conspiracist and propagandist Sean Hannity:

Politics is a communications and vision business. Specifically, the Democratic nominee for president needs to be able to effectively confront a world-class demagogue, a vast propaganda apparatus, an enormous treasure chest of resources, and the most complex and fragmented media environment in American history. Further, they need to defend complex concepts and vital institutions in a time of anger, disillusionment, division, distrust and hostility. The political challenge ahead is also one of the most difficult and pressing communication challenges in American history. Cynicism can only be overcome by idealism, as hate can only be overcome by love. A political leader must be able to lift the nation by inspiring her people to a common cause and destiny. It is time to begin thinking about this issue with the utmost seriousness and urgency it deserves.

President Biden’s campaign is premised on the oft-repeated declaration that he alone can beat Trump, as Trump has claimed that he alone can fix America. It isn’t true, and it shouldn’t be accepted as fact. The stakes are too high.

President Biden is smeared 24 hours a day, seven days a week by his MAGA foes as senile, unfit, incompetent and corrupt. It has taken an enormous toll, and as a general proposition, has been allowed to pass without rebuttal or pushback. Any person who believes this hasn’t taken root in the culture — and particularly with younger voters — is kidding themselves. Biden is routinely caricatured as feeble and lost on social media, particularly on TikTok and Snapchat. He is brutalized, and there is no fighting back from Team Biden. On social media, his Air Force One staircase falls loop over and over again. There seems to me to be a real lack of Democratic imagination about the viciousness of the campaign to come, and there is a fair question at hand: is Joe Biden ready?

Let’s watch:

First, it is important to note that Joe Biden has sat through thousands and thousands of interviews. He knows the difference between a live interview and a taped one.

Second, this interview took place in a very busy live television studio, packed full of people, camera operators and other personnel. In other words, the bright red lights on top of the camera would have given an indication that they were still live when the president stood up and…wandered off?

That is what happened? Right?

The reason I’m asking is because I’m old enough to remember this:

And this:

The bottom line is that Obama’s crowd was much bigger, and I didn’t have to count the people in either crowd because I could plainly see “A” was bigger than “B” no matter with what spoonful of bullshit Spicer was trying to poison me.

Over and over again, White House officials have made clear to the access media reporters of the White House press corps that they want Trump to become the nominee because he will be easily beaten by Biden.

Sorry, I’m not down with the bet.

I was the first person on national television to say Trump could capture the GOP nomination in 2015. I predicted in September 2020 that there would be political violence after Trump denied the 2020 election result, and that a MAGA candidate, including Trump, could not only win a two-person race, but would be the absolute favorite in a three-way race. In fact, it may be impossible for Biden to win a three-way race, depending upon whom No Labels runs — and make no mistake, they are running someone.

Jeffrey Katzenberg, the legendary Hollywood visionary, studio executive, and Democratic Party strategist, was recently quoted at length talking about the vast communications deficiencies of the Biden campaign and how to handle the age question. He talked specifically about Harrison Ford as “Indiana Jones,” and the fact that Ford, like Biden, is 80 years old. Katzenberg’s observations and advice were spot-on — except for one thing and that is the IS factor. “Indiana Jones” is a movie character and Joe Biden is president. There won’t be any scenes where Indy inexplicably wanders off.

The 2024 campaign will not be the 2020 COVID campaign. President Biden will not be able to run a post-COVID version of the basement campaign. Should past be prologue, most incumbent presidents are crushed in their first fall debate, and Biden won’t have been in one in nearly four years. He does few interviews, and therefore, has fallen into a deadly trap. The scarcity of interviews raises the stakes. The constant commentary around the lack of interviews, combined with the smearing, makes it appear that the president is hiding from contact because he isn’t up for the campaign — let alone the rigors of the presidency. This is alarming.

Over the last year, American women have lost their healthcare rights, Black, Hispanic and Asian Americans have lost affirmative action, and LGBTQ+ Americans have been denied basic services through the radical Supreme Court’s decision to license discrimination against LGBTQ+. Over and over again, a radical minority has been better at playing the political game, building coalitions, raising money and exercising power. The result has been the recent erosions of progress under a banner of revanchism that seeks to undo the civil rights, women’s rights, and gay rights movements. Further, the MAGA party has become a raging engine of corruption and foreign influence where the American people are constantly sold out to the highest bidder.

The Biden presidency is not more important than beating Donald Trump or his MAGA successor. Nothing can be.

The Warning has just reached its first anniversary, and I’m excited for the year ahead. This platform will do its level best to shoot straight. I know that, sometimes, people are provoked when they hear or read things they don’t care for, disagree with, or aren’t ready to believe. I want for this community to continue to debate and challenge me, as well as others in the community, but to do so respectfully when they have a different point of view.

I have to be honest. I worry when I see the president routinely confuse the war in Ukraine with the war in Iraq. I worried when I saw the president stand up and walk off a TV set while the interview was ending and segueing into commercial break. Are you worried? Concerned?

There is no question in my mind whatsoever around who I will vote for in a choice between Trump and Biden. It’s an easy one. It’s Biden. It’s also not in front of us. One year from now, the party conventions will be at hand and the election just over the horizon. My children will live in America for the next 80+ years. They will breathe air, god willing, in 22nd century America. That is what this election is about. Our future and our children’s futures.

All presidents and all presidential candidates have bad performance days. That’s ok. What’s important here is the warm-up laps of campaign 2024 will be over by Labor Day. President Biden needs to be ready for game day. That means that whatever happened on “Deadline White House” can never happen again.