Considering the stakes in this election — authoritarianism versus democracy — it is about time the Biden campaign went nuclear against Trump as a convicted felon “out only for himself.” BidenWorld’s new $50 million ad buy which includes the new, damning commercial started airing yesterday in swing states. The ad mentions his predecessor’s 34 felonies; the ad mentions Trump’s liability for sexual assault; the ad mentions the former President’s financial fraud. Still photos in the first half of the ad, in what can only be properly construed as lurid monochrome, show a grim-faced Trump in court. By contrast, halfway in, President Biden is shown in full color video, signing legislation, smiling broadly, shaking hands with uniformed members of the working class and a woman. The closing argument has POTUS high-fiving a child of color as the voice-over describes him as “a President fighting for your family.” The final image is of Biden with Vice President Harris, waving towards the viewer, in full campaign mode.
It is the hardest volley from the incumbent’s camp so far in this pivotal referendum on democratic norms against far-right nationalism. “It’s a full-on assault on Trump — and a theme the campaign is turning to in an effort to reset Biden’s reelection from a referendum on his job performance to a choice between the president and his predecessor,” is how Politico’s Elena Schneider described it. This is largely, but not entirely, correct. The ad — when it transitions from monochrome to color — immediately mentions lowering health care costs and “making corporations pay their fair share” as legislative victories in the President’s first term in office.
The ads mention of lowering health care costs is not only a reminder of President Biden’s signing of laws such as the American Rescue Plan Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, but also a subtle call to protect Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act. This tracks well with the traditional strengths of the Democrat Party. A recent KFF poll, for example, found that Democrats, Republicans and Independents all trust the Democrats to be better on health care. “Fielded prior to former President Donald Trump’s recent social media comments on replacing the 2010 law, the poll also finds that voters give the Democratic Party a 20 percentage-point advantage over the Republican Party on who they trust more to handle the issue (59% versus 39%),” says the KFF blog. “The Democratic Party is more trusted on this issue among the vast majority of Democratic voters (94%) and most independent voters (61%), while three in four Republican voters (77%) say they trust the GOP to better handle the future of the ACA.” The Democrat Party has been referred to as the “Mommy Party” in that it is more at home with policy protecting unprotected Americans against the tough realities of life.
Then there is the other matter mentioned in the ad, besides the former President’s convictions, which one would think might be disqualifying for the law-and-order “Daddy Party.” It is the issue of tax cuts for the millionaires, billionaires and corporations, which are largely unpopular, but turned out, as it happens, to be Trump’s signature legislative accomplishment. The 2017 Trump tax cuts added $1.9 trillion over a decade in deficits, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) coordinating with the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT). A large portion of those tax cuts — which were, allegedly, supposed to pay for themselves — are coming due next year, which makes it fair game as an election issue.
Republican mega donors essentially got those tax cuts by threatening to turn off the money spigot, by mid-2017. “My donors are basically saying: ‘Get it done or don’t ever call me again,” Congressman Chris Collins told The Hill early on in Trump’s first administration. And so, they got ‘er done, $8 trillion deficits notwithstanding. It is a strategy that Trump, once again, is relying heavily upon to offset his fundraising shortcomings against the incumbent. Like offering less burdensome oil regulations to potential big oil donors. And last week in Washington, Trump met with 80 CEOs, promising them to make permanent his tax cuts as well as income taxes. “Trump said he wants to bring the federal corporate tax rate down from 21% to 20% if he were to become president, according to a person familiar with his remarks,” Brian Schwarz of CNBC wrote on their website.
In 2020, in order to seal the Democrat Party nomination, BidenWorld absorbed some of Senator Elizabeth Warren’s policy prescriptions, like on bankruptcy and student debt, in order to consolidate the base. As the 2024 election approaches, President Biden once again seems to be be relying on Senator Elizabeth Warren, this time as a agile surrogate with a strong Progressive record on lessening inequality. Warren of Massachusetts said this week:
“Why did those cuts cost $8 trillion? Because [Bush’s] Democratic successor, President Obama, cut a deal with Republicans to make nearly all of Bush’s temporary cuts permanent. The impact on the national debt was staggering,” she said.
“Republicans are running the same play again. It’s why they created the 2025 tax cliffs — lowballing the cost of the Trump tax cuts by making them temporary and counting on Democrats to roll over again to make them permanent.”
Warren cited failed negotiations this year that she said would have allowed for $3 in business tax cuts for every $1 in individual tax cuts in the form of child tax credits. She said the GOP tanked the deal because it believes it can get a better one next year.
That is, of course, If Trump becomes President. The big If looming behind the full-color video of Biden signing legislation and back-slapping American workers. Clearly, President Biden is fleshing out his tax increase on the wealthy initiative in real-time. In the early stages of being workshopped, the Biden tax plan looks to raise taxes on people making over $400,000 a year. Contrast this against Trump, who, at the very least, wants his tax cuts for the wealthy made permanent. What would be the cost to America? “Keeping them would add $3.3 trillion to the debt over the next 10 years, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office,” writes Sahil Kapur for NBCNews. “Democrats are unifying behind a push to raise taxes on upper earners, while Republicans want to keep the tax breaks.”
BidenWorld’s new ad, all in all, is very effective. It highlights three hugely relevant themes — Trump’s Character, through the prism of his convictions; the Trump tax cuts and health care. Two of these three themes, by the way — the Trump tax cuts and health care — are particularly important for voters to know about, because one feeds directly the other, and not in the fiscally prudent manner of a Daddy Party. “Revenue as a share of GDP has fallen from about 19.5 percent in the years immediately preceding the Bush tax cuts to just 16.3 percent in the years immediately following the Trump tax cuts, with revenues expected to rise to an annual average of 16.9 percent of GDP in 2018-2026 (excluding pandemic years), according to CBO,” wrote Chuck Marr, Samantha Jacoby and George Fenton for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. “This is simply not enough revenue given the nation’s investment needs and our commitments to Social Security and health coverage.” So much for the fiscally-responsible and prudent “Daddy Party.”
Will voters listen to the argument for the fragility of health care in the face of making permanent these Trump tax cuts? Especially when the other side, a la Bannon, will almost certainly flood the zone with excrement? Brian Stelter asks: Will old style campaign commercials work — ahead of the debate and in the thick of the general campaign — or is it all about social media now, where Trump has the advantage? “What matters more in 2024 … Is it TV ads or is it ‘dank memes,’” Stelter asks. “Is it ugly Instagram memes and NY Post covers?” For if it is, then BidenWorld’s first biting and effectively argued ad will all be, essentially, for naught.
“Amir’s house, in Wahat al-Salam/Neve Shalom, an intentional community of Jewish Israeli and Palestinian Israeli families, is made of stone, chic but spare, not showy. A covered porch faces west, looking out at the green expanse of the Ayalon Valley. Amir, who is Palestinian, first moved to Wahat al-Salam/Neve Shalom thirty-five years ago, when he was four. His family had been living in East Jerusalem and wanted to escape the violence of the first intifada. The village school, which goes from nursery through sixth grade, is fully bilingual, with equal hours of instruction in Arabic and Hebrew. When Amir speaks Hebrew, Jewish Israelis have a hard time believing that he is Arab, and they often say so, thinking it’s a compliment. Wahat al-Salam/Neve Shalom—which means Oasis of Peace, in Arabic and Hebrew—was founded by Bruno Hussar, an Egyptian-born Jew who fled the Nazi invasion of France and later became a Dominican priest. Around 1970, he secured a large parcel of land, on loan from a Trappist monastery, to attempt an experiment in nonmilitarism and religious pluralism in the middle of Israel, halfway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. This was the age of encounter groups, gatherings based on a belief in the total power of dialogue, and Hussar envisioned Wahat al-Salam/Neve Shalom as a permanent encounter. By the time Amir’s family arrived, the community had widened its efforts by establishing the School for Peace, a training center for activists, academics, and civil servants. Some eighty thousand people have completed the School for Peace’s courses, which aim to turn citizens of Israel, both Palestinian and Jewish, into agents of change.” (Masha Gessen/TNY)
“My phone’s been lighting up all day with texts from worried friends who want to know what I think about Hunter Biden’s conviction on gun charges. So much pearl-clutching, hand-wringing! So much fear that MAGA will effectively apply whataboutism to leverage Hunter’s felony convictions against the newly minted convicted felon’s father, President Biden, in November. As a public service for worried progressives, I offer a few thoughts on how to think about Hunter. First and most importantly: Hunter is not running for President of the United States. The Democrats will not be nominating a convicted felon to be their standard-bearer. Hunter Biden will never come close to the nuclear football, to holding a pen with which to sign executive orders. He will never appoint federal judges. He will not get to weaponize the justice department and pardon himself and his cronies. And this felon will not get his hands on state secrets to cart home when he checks out of the White House. All of those are things convicted felon Donald Trump can be expected to do if elected. Second: Miscreants in Presidential families are not unusual. They belong to an American tradition. Just in the last half century or so, numerous presidential family members have been tangled up in legal trouble or other scandals. Lyndon Johnson supposedly had the Secret Service put his brother under virtual house arrest to keep his drinking habit in the home. Jimmy Carter’s brother Billy Carter was a hard drinker (a beer was eventually named after him), and once urinated on an airport runway in full view of the press corps. He also reputedly smoked pot at the White House. Bill Clinton’s brother Roger spent time in a federal prison on cocaine trafficking charges in the 1980s. Clinton pardoned him on his way out of the White House in 2001. During Clinton’s presidency he accepted $50,000 and a Rolex from mobster.” (Nina Burleigh/American Freakshow)
“As the war in Gaza rages, the Biden administration has deployed a record number of U.S. troops to Jordan, a new report to Congress reveals. The troop buildup has not been previously reported. There are now a record 3,813 American troops in Jordan, according to the White House’s war powers report to Congress released on June 7. That’s a 625 troop increase over December, with the number of soldiers and airmen exceeding the number at any time since the second Gulf War and the invasion of Iraq, a review of past war powers reports reveals. The Biden administration has sought to keep quiet its close military ties to Jordan, with the White House national security council instructing State Department communications officials to avoid mentioning its military coordination with the country in particular, according to internal memos I’ve reviewed. When Iran fired missiles and drones at Israel in April, Jordan was a key partner in shooting them down, and Jordan even allowed Israeli planes to operate in Jordanian airspace. Jordan as a partner of Israel is a particularly sensitive issue, hence the desire on the part of Washington to keep talk of Jordan to a minimum.” (Ken Klipperstein)
“On a muggy afternoon in May, JJ Apodaca stared intently at a very large rock. Apodaca, a biologist with a salt-and-pepper faux-hawk, was looking for a creature that, to an untrained eye, might be impossible to find: a rare salamander that lives hidden in narrow crevices no larger than an inch wide. Apodaca had an advantage in his search. He was among a group of scientists who first discovered the species — a lungless salamander known as the Hickory Nut Gorge green — several years ago. Scientists estimate that only about 500 to 600 of these creatures exist on the planet ,,, This kind of bountiful biodiversity might be expected of, say, the rainforests of South America or Southeast Asia. We, however, were in western North Carolina. The Hickory Nut Gorge is not far from Asheville, in the southern Appalachian Mountains.“ (Benji Jones/Vox)