I gave myself only backhanded credit last week for having correctly predicted the reaction of America’s establishment media to Joe Biden’s State of the Union address because it wasn’t much of a prediction. “Fiery” and “feisty” turned out to have been the particular adjectives of choice—both of them used approvingly, even enthusiastically.
Why, that’s no doddering old zombie stumbling beyond his expiration date: he’s a dynamo, an explosive force of nature! Don’t worry about ol’ Joe Biden, America, he’s as shouty and full of rage as anyone out there! Huzzah!
Herself and I finally watched the address all the way through on Friday evening.
At one point when he was snarling and shouting about his political enemies—in the “Dark Brandon” mode that appeals so strongly to the dwindling share of Americans who still support him—I had a kind of epiphany.
Imagine if he were speaking German.
Same speech, same expressions, same volume, same everything, just in German. Imagine.
I always wondered—a think a lot of us have always wondered—about the appeal of Adolf Hitler. In almost all the footage we see of him he’s ranting and raving furiously from a podium or a balcony, but instead of having this deranged lunatic dragged off and locked up as a nutter, the crowds just ate it up and followed him not only to the gates of Hell, but through them and all the way down to the bottom of that infernal abyss.
I realize that Joe Biden is not the only American politician using anger to assuage his followers these days, but he’s the only president of my lifetime to regularly give raging, spittle-flecked, squinty-eyed shoutathons at the American people.
Here’s a clip from an Adolf Hitler speech in 1935:
Fiery! Feisty! Just what his supporters at Krupp needed in order to know he was still their guy, right? He’s not deranged, he’s just playing to his base! It’s just “Dark Adolf.”
This Biden-Hitler comparison is purely stylistic. I’m not suggesting Joe Biden is gearing up to annex Canada, invade Poland, or exterminate the Jewish race.
I am suggesting—not suggesting, I am pointing out—that “fiery and feisty” aren’t inherently positive, especially when hitched to anger. They don’t communicate to the better angels of our nature, but to our bestial instincts. It’s a dangerous direction to take the country, but the American president won’t stop playing with fiery.
It’s his go-to move. Remember this classic from September 2022?
Now, if you’re one of those people who genuinely believes that Joe Biden is fighting the good fight, and that his anger is justified and his targets are deserving, you’re probably not ready to countenance the idea that there’s anything wrong with all this. Fiery and feisty is great! Give ‘em hell, Joe!
So let’s try this another way.
You believe that Donald Trump and his followers pose a significant and frightening threat to the republic, to the world, to democracy itself. You believe that a mob of unruly and unarmed rioters was attempting to overthrow the government on January 6. You’re certain Donald Trump is hell-bent on making himself a dictator-for-life and crushing the American republic. It’s terrifying!
You therefore also believe that extremism in defense of democracy is no vice and that Joe Biden is therefore not just entitled but obligated to froth and foam with rage: how else can he awaken the Americans who fail to see the real and present threat posed by Donald Trump?
Fair enough.
Except this is a minority point of view in America. It happens to be held by an awful lot of people in media and culture, but it’s nevertheless a minority perspective among the public at large.
At this writing there are actually more Americans backing Donald Trump than there are backing Biden to win the 2024 election. I haven’t heard a single Trump supporter express a yearning for autocracy or a desire to see Trump crowned Emperor of America. Haven’t heard a single one articulate a desire to overthrow the Constitutional foundation of the American republic.
Have you?
Remember, you’re the one insisting that Trump is such a grave threat to democracy that we need to throw all norms and conventions aside to keep him out of the White House by any means necessary. For Trump to actually fulfill your dark premonitions, however, his supporters would have to be on board with the whole program, otherwise what chance would it have of success?
Is your theory that once he takes the White House, Trump will begin imposing his dread autocracy and the people supporting him now will continue backing him as he dissolves Congress and the Supreme Court and replaces the Constitution with an illiterate ALL CAPS ramble on Truth Social?
That they would nod approvingly and even applaud as Trump had Joe Scarborough taken out and shot, just as Joe Scarborough warned us would happen?
Is that what you think is going to happen? Is that your big fear, the terror that makes you think Joe Biden’s fiery feistiness is such a boon to the bully pulpit?
Again: more Americans support Trump than Biden at this point. That could change, of course, but there’s not a survey out there, anywhere, by anyone, showing anything else.
And your minority of Biden supporters is declaring open war on Trump, Trumpism, and Trump supporters because he doesn’t support democracy.
He’s the guy the majority supports—the plurality, in any case—and you want to “protect democracy” by making sure he can never be elected? By knocking him off of ballots, by grinding him down with petty lawfare by ethically dubious prosecutors in deep blue jurisdictions, and by banning him from media? That’s how you defend democracy?
In the good old days of normalcy, all you’d have to do is make the case that your guy’s policies were better and more beneficial to the American people, or that your opponent’s policies were hurting them, or both. And sure, you’d have your guy’s proxies do the dirty work of issuing smears and innuendo, but your guy wouldn’t stoop to that level himself.
Modern science hasn’t yet been able to plumb the depths that Donald Trump won’t stoop to in terms of verbally smearing his opponents, but he never had his Attorney General classify Antifa or BLM as domestic terrorists. He didn’t have the protesters who swarmed the Supreme Court Justice nomination hearings and “obstructed government business” locked up for years without a trial. His supporters didn’t file spurious lawsuits and criminal complaints against his political opponents. He never yelled at Americans who didn’t support him for not supporting his policies, never told Americans he was “losing patience” with them.
Can you see how precarious your minority position is? You’ve worked yourselves up into a frenzy over imaginary terrors the majority of Americans can’t even see.
Now try and imagine how we might be feeling about you.
Imagine how you would feel if the guy in this picture was Donald Trump, and he was railing against you just because you hold opinions he doesn’t like.
Imagine having to sit through an hour of Donald Trump shouting about the threat to democracy posed by Antifa and BLM. Imagine him yelling at all nine justices of the Supreme Court for betraying his will.
Would that be excellent fiery feistiness? Would it be bold and assertive, Donald Trump in top form, Donald Trump showing critics he’s still got the belly for a fight?
Or would you be saying, “See, I told you he hated democracy!”
Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy author Douglas Adams would have been 72 today. He shared his birthday with legendary news hack Sam Donaldson (1934), legendary media mogul Rupert Murdoch (1931), and legendary television host Lawrence Welk (1903).
It's Moshoeshoe's Day in Lesotho. Give yourself twenty points if you know who Moshoeshoe was and thirty if you knew Lesotho was a country.
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