Here We Go Again. And I’m Not Talking About Trump

Here we go again. By “here we go again” I am not referring to the impending second Trump presidency. I am talking about re-embarking on the pattern of back and forth between extremes. President Biden was supposed to be a bridge. He was a bridge all right. A bridge that took us to the exact same path that led us to where the bridge started. A bridge to nowhere.

Jon Stewart once reminded us “ just because you won doesn’t mean you’re safe. Just because you lost doesn’t mean you’re doomed.” These words are more relevant now than ever. The “just because you win doesn’t mean you’re safe” part was especially something we needed to hear after President Biden was elected.

As in any loss, the moderates and radicals will blame each other. The finger pointing for Harris’s loss commenced immediately. A CNN pundit said we should expect to hear questions from the far-left like why were there Republican speakers at the Democratic convention and not Palestinian supporters? This question will no doubt be echoed among many other progressives.

It’s easy to foresee the script that progressives like the Young Turks will rely on “didn’t Democrats just get demolished under the leadership of the king of moderates!?”

Some claim a more progressive candidate like Senator Sanders would have won and he may well have. The next President may be a Democrat. But not the kind Biden was or Harris would have been. It will not be the kind that has Republicans speak at their convention. There will not be capital officers attacked on Jan 6 or any capital officers at all at the next Democratic convention. And it will inspire a bigger turn out.

Trump tried to obliterate democracy on January 6, 2021. But the “woke” radical left poses a different kind of threat to democracy. During an episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, Bill Maher and Jerry Seinfeld joined forces to call out the dangers of extreme progressivism. Maher pointed out that “the irony is they [progressives] were so tolerant they were tolerating intolerance.”

A perfect example of “tolerating intolerance” was the 2016 ISIS attack on the LGBTQ nightclub in Orlando. A “woke” politician would be at risk of implementing an agenda that was so tolerant it may overlook immigrants that actually do support violent radicals, or terrorist cells within the country. The attack on the Orlando nightclub was an example of the dangers of extreme progressivism as it leads to the accepting of mentalities that proceed to attack secularism and the LGBTQ community.

When President Carter lost the presidency it ushered in twelve years of the far- right under Reagan and Bush. Then came President Clinton who started as far- left. President Clinton became a moderate but not until after the 1994 election. Then came eight years under the far- right with George W Bush. We saw the war in Iraq, the Patriot Act, No Child Left Behind, ignorance towards climate change and an attempt to install an anti-gay marriage amendment in the constitution. Next on the line-up was President Obama, where a lot of groundwork for the “woke” movement that exists now started. A significant amount of Iraq fell to ISIS under Obama. Under Obama, there were other ideas that involved the government overstepping its boundaries, including the “war on obesity” which intensified under Obama. Under President Obama, a number of prisoners released from Guantánamo Bay rejoined the ranks of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

This act was followed by a different kind of “ far -right “ under President Trump. Then we got our first moderate since 1976-President Biden. Centrists generally do not fare well on our national stage. President Carter was only elected because he had a weak opponent. President Biden mainly won due to COVID. The legacy of not just President Biden but all moderates was at stake.

From Nancy Pelosi to Howard Stern, claims that there should have been a Democratic primary have been escalating through the roof. Historian Alan Lichtman has been proven wrong for the first time in decades with his prediction Harris would win. While Lichtman was wrong about the election, he was not wrong about the impact of incumbent power. A Democratic primary would have weakened VP Harris, not strengthened her. Biden could have prepared Harris to take over from the start of 2024, just in case. Biden could have stepped aside earlier. He could have resigned in summer 2024 and equipped Harris with more incumbent power. Harris should have chosen a better running mate. But Trump would probably have still won.

Trump did not win because of Biden’s debate performance. He did not win because he ran against a woman or because there wasn’t a traditional democratic primary in 2024. And believe it or not , he didn’t win because of George Clooney. Trump won because of the Biden’s administration’s immigration blunders, the withdrawal from Afghanistan, and Attorney General Garland’s failure to prosecute Trump for the events of January 6 fast enough. The problem was not just that Biden and Harris ran bad campaigns, the problem was they ran a bad presidency. And the good things they did do like the Inflation Reduction Act were not properly flaunted. Under President Biden’s watch we saw the death of Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. According to the last reporter to interview Bin Laden, Al-Zawahiri was a more formidable threat than Bin Laden himself. This accomplishment was rarely mentioned.

To quote CNN’s Fareed Zackaria- “The circumstances were ripe for a Democratic success. They blew it.” They didn’t just “blow it” for themselves, they possibly damaged the legacy of all moderates. Too moderate or too progressive, bad luck from the outside or bad judgment from inside, the Biden legacy is about to be erased. History will view the Biden presidency as a mere interpretation , a failed resistance to the two term Trump presidency. There was a 44 year gap between President Biden and the last moderate-President Carter.

Will there be another 44 year time frame until moderates get their next chance? Possibly longer?