A little more than four years ago, a Democratic Party desperate for a viable presidential candidate not named “Bernie” or “Elizabeth” turned to good ol’ “Amtrak Joe” to deliver the goods. The mission: To “save” the country from President Donald Trump and his allegedly dangerous band (approximately 73 million of them) of “MAGA” supporting Republicans.
Party elders (correctly) viewed the thrice-vetted candidate for the presidency and quintessential safe-seat Eastern liberal as the one Democrat who would not scare the wits out of Middle America. Biden’s gentlemanly style and grandfatherly manner would contrast perfectly with the bombastic Queens developer with a penchant for the mean tweet.
The effective and oft-repeated moniker was “a return to normalcy” in Washington, D.C., where regular, familiar order would be restored after four years of Trump-induced chaos. Both party establishments and their mouthpieces in the legacy press rested easy after Biden pulled off a successful COVID-induced mail-in, “basement strategy” and was declared the winner in a nail biter.
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Four years later, the Biden-Harris administration followed a similar narrative while adding a not-too-subtle subtitle: “Protect our democracy” — a reference to the alleged “dictator” Trump, the events of Jan. 6, 2021, and the alleged racist-nativist inclinations of the MAGA movement.
But the suppositions of 2020 are quite different from those of 2024.
The first, of course, concerns the false advertising that accompanied Biden-Harris circa 2020. Indeed, it was shortly after the election that the reliable old liberal, transformed by the Squad into a squish, enthusiastically and unapologetically traded his non-threatening credentials for the ways and means of a woke progressivism that had recently captured the Democratic Party. Here, long-established positions on law and order — border security, free speech, parental rights and energy independence — were jettisoned with alacrity.
These policy changes were accompanied by a physical and mental decline that was clear to anyone who cared to see — a condition that only further deteriorated over the succeeding four years. Accordingly, few should be surprised at polls that reflect that a majority of Americans do not associate the Biden-Harris administration with a “return to normalcy.”
But the false-advertising indictment is not the sole reason for the Democrats’ present disorder.
The other, more profound element here is the Left’s inaccurate interpretation of “protecting our democracy” — a favorite soundbite of now-presumptive nominee Harris.
At least half the country does not buy the unrelenting persecution and Stalinesque treatment of the opposition party’s candidate for president as consistent with the rule of law. Similarly, those same flyover types reject the left’s attacks on traditional American values (the rule of law, voting integrity, an independent judiciary, free speech). Of these, the attempt to label mandatory photo identification at the polls as “racist” during a time when millions of illegal migrants have crossed over into the country is especially rich.
The bottom line: MAGA and other Trump voters fail to see how the legacy media (now AWOL on insisting Harris answer media questions since her coronation) and the Democratic leadership’s constant belittling of them — their politics and values — helps strengthen our country and culture.
When all is said and done, an establishment that has sought to castigate — bankrupt, cancel, impeach, arrest, convict, and muzzle — the opposition’s candidate while choosing their nominees for president and vice president without a single primary vote will not receive the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the notion of protecting “democracy.”
Bob Ehrlich is a former governor of Maryland, member of Congress and state legislator.
