“What’s going to happen in this next election? I’m terrified about what could possibly happen, because our leaders matter. Who we select, who speaks for us, who holds that bully pulpit, it affects us in ways sometimes I think people take for granted,” Obama told Jay Shetty on his podcast “On Purpose.”
“The fact that people think that government — ‘eh, does it really even do anything?’ — and I’m like ‘Oh my God, does government do everything for us, and we cannot take this democracy for granted.’ And I worry sometimes that we do. Those are the things that keep me up,” she said.
“The bars are different for people in life. That I’ve learned,” she said.
Without naming Trump, she continued: “Other people can be indicted a bunch of times and still run for office. Black men can’t. You just learn to be good. And in the end, you benefit from that extra resilience.”
Because Trump’s approval numbers are higher than Biden’s.
To be clear, I don’t support Trump at all but we have to look at cold hard facts. Biden does not look like a great candidate right now at a macro scale. Democrats have a real problem of loving to self-hate, and they end up skewering their own candidate. The prevailing opinion amongst my friends is “well Biden didn’t do anything”. Personally I find that to be untrue, but that’s the narrative.
The real key is that Democrats lose when voter turnout falls. Biden is not an exciting candidate, and for some people it is an ordeal to vote, and they may not do it for Biden. A lot of people forget this… It’s not that Trump would get more votes, it’s that Biden will get less.
Democrats are formulating a perfect way to fumble this to Trump, and I’m terrified.
The campaign hasn’t started yet. Right now, it’s a one sided conversation. And the polls are all based on people who answer unknown numbers and land lines. It’s a built in selection bias.
Every single election both large and small since 2020 has been heavily skewed to the left. I’m not saying don’t worry, but dont despair. And work on convincing your friends. That’s the single best thing you could possibly do.
I think you’re selling the polls a little short. The good ones have corrected a lot of that kind of bias, though nothing is perfect. And bad polls are always bad polls.
The scary reason is that we need a campaign or conversation to get people away from Trump. The dude sucks. Any president of the past 40 years should have a higher approval rating than Trump.
Though I secretly have a theory that the Supreme Court is going to rule against Trump and kick him off. It’ll give Republicans the exit that they need from him, but they can blame the courts and capture all his followers. All the candidates will run on pardoning him, and they’ll keep that radical part of the party but just redirect them.