I have my own opinion on this which I express at the conclusion of this diary.
I expect most of you recognize his name, Joe Walsh, but may not know much about this former Republican who left the GOP and became an independent in 2020 who served one term in the House where he often attacked the Democrats and President Obama in particular. Initially a strong supporter of Trump during the 2020 primary, Walsh became increasingly critical of the president and decided to run as a Republican against him. He dropped out of the race after a poor showing in Iowa caucus. He later endorsed Joe Biden. His Wikipedia profile is here.
Chauncey DeVega has a long interview with him in Salon (here) with the clickbait title of “Joe Walsh's MAGA warning: If Trump is indicted, expect ‘major violence’ “ but the substance of the interview is conveyed in the subtitle “Outspoken Trump critic Joe Walsh tells Salon why the Democratic Party is outmatched in the fight for democracy.”
There is so much meat, so much food for thought, in this interview both from Chauncey DeVega and from Joe Walsh that I am hard pressed to bullet point the most salient portions.
These are two excerpts from DeVega’s introduction:
- Today's Republican Party is in revolutionary mode. They are escalating their more than 50 years-long campaign to take away the human and civil rights of women, non-whites, the LGBTQ community, the disabled, the poor and others deemed to be the enemy in their "real America."
- How have Joe Biden and the Democrats and the so-called "resistance" responded to this assault on American democracy and society? They have been largely uncoordinated, hapless, lacking the urgency of now, and in total failing to rise to the challenge and demands of the crisis. In so many ways, Biden and the Democrats remain beholden to — and therefore hamstrung by — a type of American politics and its faith in centrism, bipartisanship and institutions that no longer exists in the Age of Trump and ascendant fascism. This means that the Democratic Party's (and the larger pro-democracy's forces) plans and strategies and norms are of little use in this fight. Democrats are also being held back by self-inflicted injuries such as infighting about President Joe Biden's leadership (or lack thereof), horrible messaging and Vichy Democrats like Sen. Joe Manchin who consistently sabotage the party's agenda.
Here are two examples of what Joe Walsh had to say in response to DeVega’s questions:
- The only way you defeat a bully is to punch the bully in the nose, literally and figuratively. Democrats don't know how to do that. Every day I talk to people — and not just MAGA people. Many of the people I talk to are what we describe as "low information voters." They are in the middle somewhere and don't consider themselves Republican or Democrat. These are not just white guys. These are white women, black men, black women, Hispanics and Latinos and other groups. Almost to a man and a woman they have told me some variation of the following: Republicans are a**holes, but Democrats are p***ies who don't understand me.
- The Democrats do not understand how the Republican Party and MAGA works. It is a cult. Members of a cult line up, they do their duty, they say what needs to be said, and they fight. They don't ask questions. Cult members follow orders. Cults are orderly. Cults can get a lot of things done. That is part of why the Republicans are so effective. The Democrats don't have that same cult gene and programming.
There is much, much more to the interview and it is, as I noted, a long read. I think it is worthwhile to consider his opinions and his take on how the Democrats, Biden included, are outmatched when they deal with the MAGA cult and low information voters besides his expectation that if Trump is indicted there will be major violence, a subject he addresses at the end of the interview. I think one of his most compelling comments, one I disagree with, about the weakness among the Democrats is as follows:
But they don't fight. It's like they're afraid to punch. They're afraid to get into the ring. They're afraid to get dirty. Consider this: Joe Biden is too old. If Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis runs in '24, name me one Democrat that can punch DeSantis or Trump in the nose. There are none.
My opinion:
I do not think Joe Biden is too old. I see this as an ageist attitude. By inclination I see Biden as someone who would rather resolve conflicts by good faith negotiation but is quite capable of getting down and dirty if push comes to shove, and if shoving doesn’t work, punching a Trump or DeSantis in their divisive, lying, fascist, and bigoted noses.
I also don’t think the notion of fighting an opponent who fights dirty, meaning by lying and nasty mockery, means you fight back the same way. You fight back by calling out their egregious and blatant lies in no uncertain terms and make it clear that you will never lie or bend the truth.
I think that President Biden and the Democratic Party leadership needs a reboot when it comes to their messaging and how they address their vulnerabilities. I think they need to take a graduate course in communications focusing on optics, on how they are wrongly perceived as the party of the elites or socialists when in fact they are far more a populist party, a party of the common man and woman, than the Republicans.
Biden must not give up the bully pulpit to Trump. He can make the news anytime he wants to by addressing the nation and I think he’s wasted some of these opportunities by talking about issues, no matter how important, best left to his press secretary. He needs to show the country that he’s a highly competent leader dealing with vital and diverse matters, but when he’s in front of a camera I think whenever it makes sense he should be hitting the Republicans where it hurts as he has done a number of times when talking about the Supreme Court decision about abortion.
With polling numbers showing that around 70% of all Americans and even around 55% of Republicans support things like legal abortion and same sex marriage I think he should address issues like these as often as he can.