2024 Rundown: Democracy, Autonomy, Opportunity

The Democrat Election Strategy.

2024 Rundown is a series of articles where I discuss the ongoing political strategies playing out during this election year. The goal is to explain why different issues are being handled the way they are and why politicians and pundits are focusing on specific issues or phrases.

Today we cover the general Democrat election strategies.

Democracy

President Biden kicked off election season with a rousing speech given from Blue Bell Pennsylvania. The main focus of the speech: Democracy is on the ballot in 2024. 

Without holding back, or perhaps slightly holding back as Biden stopped himself from cursing out Trump’s reprehensible actions at one point, Biden ran through the events of Jan 6th and how Trump had tried and failed to overturn the 2020 election. Biden didn’t shy away from using the word insurrection, calling the acts of Jan 6th a horror, and stating that Trump has been using Nazi language when Trump called people vermin and said immigrants are poisoning the blood of our nation. It was the type of fiery speech that Biden’s supporters have been waiting to see, and hopefully something we will see more of throughout 2024.

Protecting our Democratic Republic is one of the three pillars of the Democrat election strategy and for good reason. Trump did try to undermine our democratic processes. He did try to overturn the election he lost through “finding votes”, stopping certifications, and planning a fake elector scheme. When none of that worked, he riled up a mob by telling them they had to fight like hell “And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.” He then sent that insurrectionist mob to the Capitol and not only showed no remorse as it unfolded, he said that Pence deserved to have the crowd hunting him down to hang him. 

As Trump has found his trials closing in on him all while new evidence is continually released to the public to show the reality of his crimes, Trump’s rhetoric has become increasingly fanatical. He has said he wants to be a dictator on top of praising dictators like Xi for “ruling with an iron fist”. He did refer to people as vermin, said he wanted to round up people into camps, did say immigrants are poisoning our blood, and even has said in multiple ways how he wants to force Americans to be Christians.

Trump is a threat to Democracy. 

Autonomy

The majority of Americans did not want Roe v Wade to be overturned. 85% of America supports abortion in at least some situations as shown by this Gallup poll.

In fact, the majority of Americans support abortion in at least some cases up until the fetus is viable outside of the womb, which is exactly what Roe v Wade protected.

So while Trump is out there exclaiming “I was able to terminate Roe v Wade”, Biden and Democrats are making the case on why America needs to vote blue in order to get the protection of Roe v Wade codified into law.

Democrats have been getting huge wins across the country at the state level due to the issue of abortion and they’re hoping to turn that into federal wins in 2024.

Tragically, several red states have enacted total abortion bans despite how the public feels. This is leading to horrible stories of government overreach in attempting to control women’s bodies. 

In Texas, a woman had a non-viable fetus and was having pregnancy complications that sent her to the emergency room multiple times. She sought out a court intervention to allow her to get an abortion, and she won. But then the state went out of their way to bring the case to the Texas Supreme Court which overruled the decision, despite the fact that carrying the non-viable fetus to term had the risk of damaging her reproductive organs to the point that she would never be able to have a child again. In the end she had to flee the state to get the medical care she desperately needed.

We will be hearing stories like these throughout the election year as a tragic highlight of the danger a Republican majority represents.

Republicans have no defense for these types of rulings. When asked repeatedly for his opinion on the situation, Ted Cruz, a Republican Senator for Texas, refused to answer. Because there is no answer to preventing needed medical care.

Opportunity

Every incumbent President has to discuss their accomplishments as well as why the country has been better off under them than it was under the previous President. 

For Joe Biden this is going to be a trickier proposition than for some other Presidents in the past. Not because things haven’t improved under Biden, they have, but the clarity of that picture has been muddied by global inflation, an increasing displaced population which is causing increased migrant border crossings, two complex global conflicts involving our allies, and an obstructionist Republican controlled House of Representatives that is also manufacturing fraudulent conspiracies. 

Despite a remarkable economic recovery that few experts thought would be possible without a severe recession, Biden is getting little credit for the fast turn around and soft landing. This is because most Americans don’t determine the situation from charts and data, they go off how they feel. Increased prices from corporate price-gouging and expensive mortgage rates from continual Federal Reserve rate hikes are weighing on everyday Americans. 

That situation should ease during 2024. In fact, prices in many areas are already coming down, which will allow the economic message to rise to the top of the talking points as we near election day.

Expect Biden and Democrats to push these stats harder as the year goes on:

• Unemployment continues to stay under 4% 

• Over 14 million jobs created

• Inflation down to normal levels for a year now (came down faster and lower than other G7 nations)

• Wages growing faster than inflation since February 2023

• Wages for the lowest earners have been growing the fastest

• Manufacturing booming in the US

• Numerous union wins the past couple of years

• Infrastructure projects happening all across America

Another topic related to opportunity is student loan forgiveness, an area that was off to a rocky start for Biden. Even as Republicans were raising court challenges to Biden’s loan relief plan, Democrats were saying he wasn’t doing enough. It seemed for a while that Biden’s efforts would be stymied with little to show, but in the end Biden found enough ways around Republicans to cause the total student loan debt in America to reduce. As it currently stands, Biden has forgiven a total of nearly $130 billion in student loan debt.

The overall opportunity message will be how Biden got the economy back on track, created a tight labor market which grew wages and improved career mobility, and has led to a historic amount of people taking the reins to start their own businesses to create their own success.

Challenges

As stated earlier, the message will be challenging. Republicans continue to repeat that inflation is out of control even though it came down to normal healthy levels almost a full year ago. Their onslaught is working with polls showing the majority of Americans don’t yet realize that the economy has in fact turned around. 

Republicans are talented at messages which mislead and scare voters. They’ve made it their mission to say that crime is out of control because of Democrats when crime is actually down significantly nationwide.

Beyond Republicans, Democrat voters present challenges with messaging as well. Biden has been working hard to simultaneously support Israel while also pushing for Israel to be restrained in their attacks. He has routinely spoken on how civilian casualties must be avoided and that a two state solution is needed for true peace. Despite this, there are large groups of Democrat voters who feel Biden isn’t doing enough for Palestine. There is almost no way that Biden can gain support from this situation and instead must be careful to avoid losing too much support because of it.

Energy presents a similar dilemma. One of Trump’s rallying cries is “drill, drill, drill”, yet Biden is producing more oil than Trump did. In fact, Biden is producing more oil than any nation has in all of history. Why isn’t he making more of a big deal about America’s growing energy independence? Because many Democrats see this as going contrary to environmental goals despite Biden also investing heavily in green energy. In the end this becomes an accomplishment that Biden simply can’t campaign on.

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2024 will be a very difficult campaign for Biden, but Biden is also one of the most experienced politicians in all of America and he has experience navigating tricky political situations. In the end it all comes down to voter turnout. Higher turnout, a larger Biden win. Lower turnout, more likely to be a Republican win. Democrats need to energize voters