Biden Launches Fiery, Populist 2024 Presidential Campaign

In a speech and interview, Biden unveiled a message sure to beat Trump in 2024

Jan. 17: Biden warns of oligarchs and dark money … Dem senator responds: “Now he tells us.” … Journalist removed by force from State Department speech … Other nations prepare anti-Trump countermeasures …

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Pres. Joe Biden laid out his ambitious agenda during an Oval Office interview with MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell that aired last night. (Screengrab / MSNBC video.)

In a major interview last night and a historic speech Wednesday, Pres. Joe Biden left no doubt that his 2024 presidential campaign will be based firmly on economic populism. He warned about oligarchs running the country and secretly buying politicians.

Some progressives had worried that Democrats might make the campaign all about former Pres. Donald Trump, potentially turning off voters or even suggesting that Democrats weren’t focused on fighting for the poor and working class.

Instead, Biden is now taking a page from America’s most popular politician, the man Democrats worked feverishly to keep off the ballot in 2016 and 2020, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). Biden’s new campaign platform and rhetoric are remarkably in step with Sanders, who’s got a 69% approval rating, new polling shows, far better than Biden’s or Trump’s. (h/t)

Biden even used Sanders’s trademark term, Oligarchy™, in his speech to describe what’s happen(ing/ed) in America:

“[A]n oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead.”

And Biden previewed what he’s going to do about it in his second term, rolling out a muscular 2024 campaign platform in his speech this week:

• Reform the tax code and make billionaires pay more.

• Eliminate dark money from politics.

• Take more action, faster, to fight climate change.

• 18-year Supreme Court term limits.

• Congressional ban on stock trades.

• Amending the Constitution to say that laws apply to presidents, like it already says.

Former White House staffer Jen Psaki, now with MSNBC, confirmed that this is a major pivot for Biden. Describing Biden’s speech yesterday, Psaki wrote, “I was there for many Biden speeches. I helped the president prepare for them. And I can tell you, this was not a traditional Biden speech.”

Biden also hinted that he’ll fight the 2024 presidential campaign much more aggressively, acknowledging complaints about his political style: Playing too demure.

In his interview with MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell that aired last night, Biden explained why he didn’t put his signature on government relief checks that he signed into law and make a bigger deal about them.

“I almost spent too much time on the policy and not enough time on the politics, because, I mean, you have some senators in Congress, Democratic senators in Congress saying, ‘Well, you know, Joe Biden did this.’ Let people know who was responsible for this happening. But it just seems, I know it sounds so stupid to say it, almost bad taste.”

At the risk of jeopardizing TFN’s reputation for adversarial journalism, we’re forced to agree with Biden: That does sound so stupid.

Oddly, there’s no indication that the rest of Biden’s party is on board with his new, populist campaign. He didn’t even mention the Democratic Party in his speech and there’s no sign the party is realigning to match Biden’s campaign strategy.

Here’s Biden from the O’Donnell interview: “[I]f the decision is made that the multibillionaires, the super, super wealthy, the wealthiest people in the world, begin to control all the apparatuses, from the media to the economy, then who do I get to fight back for me?” He did not mention the Democratic Party.

Psaki acknowledged as much yesterday, writing, “Biden's final message to America was that … We have to protect ourselves, all of us.”

And Biden evoked the warning of a prior president, Republican Dwight Eisenhower, to put his own warning into context:

“President Eisenhower spoke of the dangers of the military-industrial complex. He warned us then about, and I quote, ‘the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power,’ end of quote.

“…Six decades later, I’m equally concerned about the potential rise of a tech-industrial complex that could pose real dangers for our country as well.”

It wasn’t immediately clear what Biden meant by “potential” or “could.” And Biden didn’t name any of the people he was warning us about, perhaps assuming that there’s still enough time left to do so in the campaign.

Some Democrats, however, seemed to think Biden has already missed his chance to make this new message part of a winning 2024 re-election campaign.

Here’s what Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) posted yesterday in regards to Biden’s campaign launch speech and platform:

Perhaps the biggest lesson from Eisenhower’s warning is that it was totally ignored by both parties, which forged full-speed ahead building the military-industrial complex. And that, too, may have been because Eisenhower didn’t use his time in office preventing it.

In fact, Eisenhower didn’t even sound his warning until his farewell address. Luckily, Biden didn’t wait that long. Can you imagine if Biden waited to say all this until after Trump won? That would sound so stupid.

Speaking of the Democratic Party

The second debate for candidates running to serve as chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) was last night and the fact you haven’t heard anything about it tells you pretty much all you need to know.

The biggest headline seems to be that one of the presumed front-runners launched personal attacks on the other. The scandalous charges included peccadilloes such as attending Harvard — which, fair — and having a mother who taught in a college — which, wtf?

Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party Chair Ken Martin’s attacks on Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler were part of a strategy to paint Wikler as out of touch with workers.

As I’ve disclosed before, I’ve worked with and like Ben. So take this for what it’s worth. But I don’t give a shit about someone’s background unless it helps explain something later on.

When Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) or Vice President-elect JD Vance offer shitty policies or mouth-talkings, then, yes, it makes sense to point out that they emerged from a factory that churns out intellectual banner-carriers for oligarchy. But it’s not clear what in Ben’s record his background is supposed to explain.

Martin and author/activist Marianne Williamson also went after Wikler’s ties to billionaire Democrat Reid Hoffman. I’ve got less problem with that, but again, these ties should only be relevant if they explain something about Wikler that’s probative.

The real issue with most of them, it would seem, is that none of the people Pres. Joe Biden just warned about seem scared of them.

Speaking of Threats to Freedom

The Biden administration State Department closed out its tenure with a truly shameful display yesterday. Mainstream media sat by silently and watched and then misreported it.

Two journalists were made to leave the press room during remarks by almost-not Secretary of State Tony Blinken, who oversaw flagrantly illegal arming of Israel and countenancing of atrocities in Gaza for more than a year.

Here’s the account posted by one of them, Sam Husseini, who was removed by force. Perhaps equally shocking/depressing was seeing corporate media take the side of power over those pursuing accountability and answers.

Choose your news media wisely, Newsfuckers!

Media Cover Up MAGA Faith in Trump’s Inflation Fighting

The headlines about a new poll would have you believe that no one thinks RePresident Donald Trump can do anything about inflation. That’s called lowering the bar. And in this case, it’s bullshit both in the sense of “don’t do that” but also in the classic etymological sense of “bullshit,” meaning it’s literally not true.

The Associated Press’s new polling yesterday (it’s worth scanning some of the numbers) found that 52% are at least “slightly confident” in Trump’s ability to lower the cost of food and groceries.

In most mathematical systems, 52% = most. But you might not know that most people have at least slight confidence in Trump if you relied solely on how the poll was described by, um, the lamestream media or even “progressive” news.

The AP itself wrote that “Only about 2 in 10 Americans are ‘extremely’ or ‘very’ confident.” Which is true, but dividing the Trump fans by degree of confidence obscures the fact that most people have at least some confidence in him.

And you wouldn’t even know that if you went by the front page, lead headline on Huffington Post this morning:

According to climate scientists and other researchers, 52% is not zero.

And this isn’t an academic exercise. For one thing, 0.52 = 0 is definitely not academic. But what I mean is that how these polls are reported matters.

If We the People go into Trump2.0 baking into our expectations the “fact” that no one believes Trump can fix inflation…then it won’t be news when he doesn’t, because news thrives on surprise.

Trump failing to fix inflation should be news no matter what. But news producers and execs and on-air talent won’t find it “interesting” enough to tell us about it if, “Yeah, no one thought he would.”

Goddammit, fuckers, 52% of the country thinks at least a little bit that he will! Thirty-eight percent — that’s his whole base! — are at least moderately confident. One out of five people are very or extremely confident that he will! One out of five people is more people than watch CNN and MSNBC combined.

Latching on to anything to ding Trump lowers expectations. And that shapes future news. In this case, TFN presumes, the way the AP sliced up its poll numbers misled innumerate journalists into misinterpreting the poll.

Combine that with confirmation bias and it looked like a chance to smack Trump and that’s what the journalists involved did. Never mind that it helps him.

If the left wants MAGA to abandon Trump, you don’t do that by downplaying the (doomed) issues where they have confidence in him. You make sure no one forgets them.

The Deep State Goes Underground

Some federal employees are polishing their resumes for the incoming Trump administration, CNN reports.

Fear of a diversity purge by the make-believe Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is leading to some creative LinkedIn editing, in an effort to cleanse employee backgrounds of problematic keywords.

“…some workers are removing mentions of ‘policy’ decision-making and terms related to diversity programs from written job descriptions, duties, and performance reviews to protect the roles from possible cuts.

“‘People are definitely reimagining how to communicate what they’ve done and do to try and escape scrutiny,’ one federal employee told CNN.”

One buzzword that’s getting scrubbed is a lot broader than just diversity. CNN reports that the word “policy” is getting Ctrl-Xed for fear of X CEO Elon Musk, who’s leading the DOGE effort. That’s because policy-related jobs could be seen as political.

And now they’ll be harder for Musk to find than pieces of his latest rocket, which blew up yesterday.

Shards of a billionaire genius’s rocket fly through the Caribbean sky after what SpaceX literally described as an “unscheduled disassembly,” nicely foreshadowing the future of the Trump administration. (Screengrab / AP video.)

Nations Mustering Defenses, Counteroffensives Against Trump

Unlike some Democratic politicians, China is not content to sit back and accept whatever RePres. Donald Trump does.

The New York Times reports that China’s already working on an entire slate of counter-measures that could have serious economic consequences for the U.S. America’s poor and working-class people.

If Trump goes ahead with some of the drastic measures he’s promised, China is preparing a full slate of possible responses:

• Investigating American chipmakers operating in China

• Snarling parts of American supply chains that run through China

• Restricting access to China’s critical minerals

• Oh, hey, tariffs!

China’s Ministry of Commerce says it will investigate American companies suspected of dumping low-end chips into China’s markets. That could affect Nvidia, Intel, and Micron, which it’d be swell not to give a shit about, but Main Street has been tethered to Wall Street for decades now.

And that investigation’s in response to Biden administration stuff! Wait’ll they get a load of Trump.

Closer to home, the countries where Trump plans to dump the victims of his mass deportations also aren’t sitting by quietly. They’ve been trying — and failing — to open talks with the Trump administration-to-be to figure out (a) what the fuck he’s talking about and (b) what to do about it.

But even if they do let those planes of wretched refuse land, there are still retaliatory measures they can take.

Honduran President Xiomara Castro has already said she might kick the U.S. out of its military base there. Turns out, the U.S. pays annual rent of nothing. Sounds like a very bad deal!

TCB

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