{"id":26947,"date":"2024-05-08T05:30:37","date_gmt":"2024-05-08T10:30:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=26947"},"modified":"2024-05-08T05:30:42","modified_gmt":"2024-05-08T10:30:42","slug":"biden-takes-role-as-bystander-on-border-and-campus-protests-surrenders-the-bully-pulpit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=26947","title":{"rendered":"Biden takes role as bystander on border and campus protests, surrenders the bully pulpit"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The election might<\/u><\/a> well be slipping away from Joe Biden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that\u2019s the view among some who want the president to win a second term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biden\u2019s passivity, and his reluctance to communicate,<\/u><\/a> are fueling a narrative that he is a weak leader, and that\u2019s now tied to a larger theme that will be difficult to shake by November.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For years, Biden\u2019s refusal to take dramatic action \u2013 unilateral or otherwise \u2013 on the record-breaking illegal migration at what has become an open border, has been his greatest liability. It also happens to be Donald Trump\u2019s strongest issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then came the violent protests and antisemitic hatred<\/u><\/a> that swept across college campuses like wildfire, and the president stubbornly remained silent for two long weeks. This has been the biggest and most alarming story in America, and Biden felt no need to address it as college buildings were being occupied and police were making mass arrests of pro-Hamas protesters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The core concern here is that America feels out of control. The outbreak of lawlessness is heightened by a sense that no one is in charge. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the White House spin, Biden said nothing about the campus protests<\/u><\/a> as a deputy spokesman put out releases under his own name. His two-sentence answer to a shouted question could barely be heard amid the background noise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Barack Obama adviser<\/u><\/a> once told the New Yorker, fairly or unfairly, that Obama\u2019s approach to Libya amounted to “leading from behind.” That seems to describe Biden\u2019s approach to the violence and arrests at Columbia, NYU, Yale, Darthouth, USC, UCLA and many other colleges. His words were fine and well-crafted, but it felt like too little too late.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, it would be crazy to make predictions about an election six months away. Trump’s law-and-order stance<\/u><\/a> is marred by his having to sit through the first of four criminal cases, the hush money trial. What\u2019s more, the election will probably be decided by perhaps 50,000 voters in five swing states. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andrew Sullivan wants Biden to be re-elected, but doesn\u2019t see it happening:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Biden had an opportunity to move to the center on illegal immigration \u2013 his core vulnerability \u2013 and decided to move, with his entire party, to the extreme left,” he wrote on his Substack<\/u><\/a>. Besides, it was too late for Biden to have “serious cred” on the issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for the president\u2019s brief<\/u><\/a> and belated speech on violent campus protests, “it was given only when he had no choice, after Trump goaded him, and it reminded me of his sad attempts to distance himself and his party from the rioting and looting in the hellish summer of 2020. He was reactive, not proactive. His quiet words were overwhelmed with the noise of the streets.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All this, says Sullivan, “will help Trump get an Electoral College landslide, just as the new left handily elected Nixon in 1968 and 1972\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Biden is losing this election, deservedly. And if he cannot pull off an almighty pivot \u2013 and I suspect at this point, he really can\u2019t \u2013 this election really is Trump\u2019s to lose.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another Andrew \u2013 former prosecutor and National Review writer<\/u><\/a> Andy McCarthy \u2013 is opposed to a second Trump term. He thinks the former president should have been impeached and convicted after Jan. 6:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I don\u2019t want a Trump presidency,” the Fox News contributor said. “It\u2019s a historic, even if inevitable, blown opportunity by Republicans not to have nominated a reliable conservative who might have ushered in eight-to-16 years of restorative administrations. But a second Biden government, which would likely become a Harris government, would be a disaster.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Okay, he\u2019s torn, but it\u2019s a binary choice. McCarthy is now hedging his bets on his previous prediction that Trump can\u2019t win a general election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His original reasoning: Trump\u2019s ceiling continues to be around 46 to 47% in major polls. Plus, he\u2019s at minus-10 in favorability ratings. It\u2019s not clear how much Trump\u2019s numbers will dip after a potential felony conviction, but it would be “negligible” if it\u2019s D.A. Alvin Bragg\u2019s “farcical” case, McCarthy said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The Dems haven\u2019t yet unleashed the torrents of negative messaging that are coming. That is not going to help him reel in at least some of the close to one-in-five Republicans who are dead set against him \u2014 the voters he needs to have any chance of winning\u2026 Put it all together and I still think Trump\u2019s a 2024 also-ran.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t agree \u2013 or at least I\u2019d say that Trump is highly competitive despite running against an incumbent, who happens to be 81, and who has a substantial record of legislative accomplishment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s more, the major issue for voters remains inflation. Unfortunately for Biden, prices are again creeping back up, even though we\u2019re in a record stretch of unemployment below 4%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s one other potential parallel to 1968, beyond the fact that it was exactly 56 years since the first time Columbia protesters seized control of Hamilton Hall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Washington Post<\/u><\/a> reports that “pro-Palestinian activists are ramping up plans for a major show of force at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, increasingly worrying Democrats who fear the demonstrations could interfere with or overshadow their efforts to project unity ahead of the November election.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If “unruly” protests erupt in late August, “especially if they feature inflammatory rhetoric, property damage or police intervention \u2014 they could strike at the heart of the Democratic message that President Biden represents competent and stable leadership” while Trump is “an agent of chaos and confusion.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Uh, remind me again why the Dems are holding the convention in Chicago, with its horrible echoes, when Illinois is a blue state? Wouldn\u2019t Detroit or Philadelphia have made more sense?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The paper quotes William Daley, whose father, the senior Mayor Richard Daley, sent out the cops who wound up busting heads, as minimizing the comparison. That convention took place not long after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., and Bobby Kennedy, and the National Guard was sent in to quell the riots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“To analogize what\u2019s going on in the country today with 1968 is ridiculous,” Daley said. “Only people who weren\u2019t alive in \u201968 have that idiotic perception.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But even less violent protests<\/u><\/a> could utterly distract from Biden\u2019s renomination, and cement the perception that, as with the porous border and campus demonstrations, the president is failing to keep the country safe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Biden ran four years ago, it was based on the notion that a president didn\u2019t have to be in the public\u2019s face all the time, commenting on everything from basketball protests to awards shows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, somehow, that gradually evolved into avoiding interviews (except with the likes of Howard Stern), terse answers to shouted questions and remaining silent or taking no action as lawless events swirl around him. Whether his staff is shielding him or not, he operates slowly by digital-age standards, his instincts appearing dulled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that often makes the president seem like a bystander to grave events. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Foxnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The election might well be slipping away from Joe Biden. And that\u2019s the view among some who want the president to win a second term. Biden\u2019s passivity, and his reluctance to communicate, are fueling a narrative that he is a weak leader, and that\u2019s now tied to a larger theme that will be difficult to shake by November. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":26948,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1169,1327,28278,3252,28277],"class_list":["post-26947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-biden","tag-border","tag-campus-protests","tag-illegal-immigration","tag-passive-response"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26947"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26947\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26949,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26947\/revisions\/26949"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}