The Brand(???)
Reading through on the case against Joseph Biden as pertains to our new Trump led attempt to impeach the fellow — the point where things get a little bit hilarious in its absurdity is where when Hunter Biden was trading on his famous powerful father (and Joseph was enabling it in standard (crack) addiction enabling manner) by referencing Biden as “The Brand”. Yes. “The Brand”. Trademark protection and all that.
You can’t be serious. It is not Hunter Biden saying “Hey! You know my father!” that comes off as absurd – – that perfectly follows — it is that this is shuffled into a phrase and concept of refracted importance — “The Brand”. Like, when you think “Biden”, you think … — ?
Selling the sizzle, not the steak. All flash and no substance, that Biden. Marketing mania — get the photograph of his with an ice cream cone and another one with dark sunglasses.
Or. Old guy. Just out of a successful trade agreement talks with Pacific Rim nations to check the power in our bubbling cold cold war with China. Rambles on about an old Western movie for no clear reason. To be sure, it is just a mutation of his stint as a younger politician — except the pointlessness gets more exaggerated with age, and he doesn’t have the words of British Labour politicians as guard-rails. The Biden brand borrows from the latter day Reagan brand.
I am seventy percent sure that Biden was the only person beating Trump in 2020, and he at least has good reason to believe it himself. Sitting around this header are revisionisms all around — like, I see a headline “Clinton in 1992 campaigned like a Progressive. Then forces changed him in office” — a drastic revision of the text, and I can point to any number of ads pointing to Clinton / Gore as “A New Kind of Democrat” who were going to have more police on the beat and take down crime and drugs with lots of new prison construction that would really boost our economy. It is liable that the basics of Biden v Trump could get lost in the shuffling of murmuring on changed demographics and generational voting habits and the 70 percent case that Biden was it as you state at 2024. I do not know if this Washington Monthly article takes on Reagan in 1984. It does clearly go to Roosevelt in 1944 — which brings to mind a story I read in someone’s memoir — I have to look it up — where judging a guant Roosevelt waving out of a limo, and having a sinking feeling, someone says to him, ” Take a good look-see over at Harry Truman. He is very going to be out next president.” From that point of view of the historical record, I don’t understand why Bill Scher wants to give us the parallels of Roosevelt 44 to buttress Biden 24. For his part Roosevelt had said privately if the European theatre was won, he would probably lose this election — along the lines of what would happen with Churchill against Atlee. Another wearisome score for Schrer’s at least by his headline premise.
The Biden Brand continues to shift.