lcd 2
I guess the more honest lowest common denominator pitch, something agreeable to whatever dearth of 2020 Trump voters that Biden feels he needs to gain, and which more weird waverers of “Biden so old” youth and inflation gaspers could comprehend — then the “Something broke” line is that Trump has lost the script. Or. Mag a has lost the script. Thinking this in terms of the dark insight of Steve Bannon — giving his listeners and followers a mission, point, storyline to their lives. Think of it back to Trump’s 2016 campaign and the fatal flaw of Hillary Clinton’s bumper sticker and campaign slogan — “I’m with her”. Trump’s 2024 line is “I’m your retribution” — which is directionally correct — “I’m for you” not “you’re with me” — but a step beyond his old message, enough to wander back to Hillary’s slogan even if it binds some supporters into followers.
Think back to some legitimate issue that your JD Vances had as something ignored and somewhat propped up by the coastal elites into the downtrodden rural Americans. The Opoid epidemic. The medical establishment prescribes drugs off of a profit motive and hooks patients to this mind-number. You can do a flow chart and dwell however deeply you desire for conspiracy to wrap it into. But it fits a script that Trump 2016 can walk into. He is still for you. 8 years later, you are needing to write all the complications into the storyline. And the question — what is he fighting for anymore on your behalf? — is unanswerable. The cause is a personal vendetta against shared enemies, theoretically, but everyone knows why Judge Merchan is his enemy — why is he yours? Do you have a traffic infraction you need him to rectify?
So goes something Biden and Democrats ought pound. The script that has some sense to it in 2016 is incoherent now.
Today we have word that Biden wandered off to say “hi” to some soldiers at a G7 meeting. The soldiers cropped out in conservative media. And, well, you can say that Biden does look old in both the cropped and uncropped version of events, as German chancellor taps him on the shoulder — to get the photo done pronto.