Democracy is never guaranteed.
While it may be true that history doesn’t repeat itself, it sure as shit is rhyming right now.
Before I get to my thoughts on the President’s visit to France, I have something to say because frankly, I’m fed up and I’m angry as hell.
Because I am so fucking sick and tired of the mainstream media opining on why it is that “Joe Biden’s accomplishments aren’t reaching the public.”
Why his “messages aren’t getting through.”
Before they pan to a guy at a touchscreen wall explaining how the number of 47-53 year old psychology majors turned CPA mothers of 3 in the states which begin with the letter I who have moved “away from the President in this election”, is “something we need to watch over the course of the next 5 months.”
And then, and THEN, that same wall-sized touchscreen warrior will swipe to the next screen which shows the number of Americans who believe Donald Trump wants a federal ban on abortion at like a 4 on a scale of 1 to 1,000. Without uttering much more than a “wow” as observation,
Why aren’t his accomplishments reaching the people?
Why aren’t his messages getting through?
Why don’t more Americans know what Trump is actually promising to do to our rights once in office? Why don’t they remember what he actually did TO this country when he was in office?
Why don’t more Americans know what Joe Biden is promising to do FOR us if he gets a second term?
Gee — I have no fucking idea why, because it can’t be that they aren’t fucking talking about it as much as they should, if they’re even talking about it the fuck at all.
The problem can’t be that they keep repeating the fact that the good news isn’t reaching the people, without ever really telling the people, the good fucking news at the same time?
That just can’t be it, can it?
Well hell yes, as a matter of fact, it is. At least in part. A significant part.
And they damn well know it. But don’t take my word for it, take theirs. As the President concluded a powerful, inspiring and poignant speech at Pointe du Hoc, some “expert” on one of the many letter channels which shall remain nameless, went on and on about how the speech, reportedly intended to evoke one of Reagan’s more iconic moments, just didn’t really matter, because no one was watching like they would have been in the 80s when a speech like that would have been on all the major networks. (The three major networks could have carried Biden’s speech too. It was on their cable outlets, but that simply isn’t the same).
And that was their coverage of the speech for the most part. How it wasn’t Reagan’s. How it didn’t measure up. While the Qrackhead Brigade ran with multiple, easily disproven, disgusting lies, all fucking weekend long.
Lies which were shared all over social media.
(I’m reserving my commentary on J.D. Sniveling Weasel Taintsucker Vance for a separate post).
The mainstream media didn’t have to cover every moment of Biden’s trip. But they should have at least covered it fairly and comprehensibly and they simply did not.
They didn’t really even listen to the words our President delivered. They were looking for him to attack Trump. That’s it.
“He didn’t mention Trump by name.” That’s what I heard most.
But here’s the thing about that — he doesn’t have to mention Trump, we all know who he means. He knows all too well the threats to democracy we face at the moment. The world leaders he was speaking to know as well.
We are talking about a madman who has told them, the leaders of the very same nations our soldiers died for when they scaled those cliffs, that he will let a murderous Russian despot do “whatever the hell he wants to them.”
They know the danger Trump represents.
And they needed to hear what our current President had to say to assure them that he will not abandon them. That WE will not abandon them.
In the same way that we did not abandon them 80 years ago.
I truly believe that the President needs to run on the fact that he’s the candidate who will stand for democracy, versus the one who is promising to be a dictator. I believe his campaign believes they need to hammer that as well. Because it’s true. Because that is a message which resonates across the political spectrum. And then, when he has an opportunity to shout that message from the top of those magnificently beautiful, historically consequential cliffs and does so, the media says, “He didn’t say Trump’s name.”
I didn’t hear any of them mention Trump’s NATO comments in reference to the speech. Not once. But Biden did refer to them, in his own way. One which they failed to cover.
“The struggle between dictatorship and freedom is unending… We cannot let what happened here be lost in the silence of the years to come. We must remember it, honor it and live it… Democracy is never guaranteed”.
“We cannot let what happened here be lost in the silence of the years to come.”
That is as close to saying “we cannot let Trump win” as anything could be, without actually saying it. And it needed to be said.
It needs to be said, here and abroad over and over again until November. Those soldiers did not die in vain. We owe it to them to keep our democracy intact. We owe it to them to carry the torch forward. We cannot ever forget why they were there. Why they fought. Why so many of them were willing to die. Why so many of them did.
Eighty years ago, a swell of American soldiers stormed the beaches at Normandy. They hurled themselves into the water, onto the sand, through the tall grass, dodging bullets and artillery shells while the bodies of their buddies piled up all around them. Young men, a few years older in many cases than my own son, who’d never so much as left their hometowns, were confronted with the face of true evil, with Hell itself, and in the face of unthinkable peril, they fought with everything they had, not for themselves… but for their country. For democracy.
For freedom.
The world was under attack by the enemies of liberty. By a handful of immoral, illiberal megalomaniacal demagogues hell-bent on attaining unrivaled power at all costs. Complete control. Of everything and everyone. No matter how nefarious the means.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Are you f'ng kidding me? to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.