W.J. Astore

The Stunning Banality of Democratic Messaging for 2024

It’s not often I get a personal letter signed by former President Barack Obama. It came in yesterday’s mail, and of course it was a fundraising letter for the DNC and the Biden campaign for 2024. Obama is selling Joe Biden as “delivering a better future for our children and grandchildren,” but how the future will be better because of Biden is left unspecified.

Biden, I’m told, is for freedom and opportunity. He wants “a brighter, more inclusive, more hopeful future,” whereas the Republicans are “extreme” and want to give “even more tax breaks for billionaires” along with banning more books and attacking “our fundamental rights.”

Well, obviously the Democrats are against Republicans and for freedom, our children, and I suppose puppies and rainbows as well. And Biden, according to Obama, “feels the struggles of American families in his bones.” No wonder Biden looks so old and moves so slowly!

Seriously, nothing in the letter tells me how Biden is going to help those struggling American families. There’s not a word about raising the federal minimum wage, about single-payer health care, about student loan debt relief, about helping the unhoused, and so on. Remember LBJ’s ambitious “War on poverty” in the 1960s? Forget about anything like that. Just vote for Joe, “who truly knows how to get things done in Washington.” Really?

If American families are struggling, as they are, shouldn’t Biden be working his tail off to get them the relief they need? There’s no help in vapid phrases like Biden “carries your dreams with him wherever he goes.” No wonder he’s muddled and confused at times: he’s carrying all our conflicting dreams with him in his head.

I’m not sure the photo postcard included with this fundraising plea sends the message the DNC wanted to send. It shows Obama and Biden yukking it up. What about those suffering families, Barack and Joe?