There is a nail that Frank Bruni appears to be attempting to hit right on its head in this column: That President Biden deliberately is being "Trumpy". To that end:
-"Biden and his advisers know it";
-"They know the political danger of...an open borders policy";
-"They have surely calculated that French outrage isn’t a serious political liability";
-"They no doubt divine ample electoral rationale for some America First maneuvering".
I don't know if Bruni intends to hit that nail so squarely. He rejoices, "Hallelujah", that Biden is so un-Trump.
Biden, this seems to be as direct a hit as Bruni can bring himself to land, is trying to triangulate the Scylla of voters, like me, who "voted excitedly for Biden, even more excitedly against Trump" and the Charybdis of the 46.9% who voted for Trump. When Bruni says Biden's advisers "no doubt divine ample electoral rationale...in America First," that means that is what Bruni thinks, not what any Biden adviser has advised him. I do think however that Bruni is right to think that they think that. I see also a kinder, gentler Biden America First. That doesn't mean what they think is smart. How many times has that worked out, trying to be all things to all people? I can think of only one in my political lifetime, Bubba Bill Clinton. Clinton though lacked majority support; never did get it. Getting to 50.1% was kinda important for survival. Biden has no such problem. All he has to do is hold his own. Especially with Trumpists why try to stretch to reach that far cliff on Deliverance shore? How's that outreach, if that's what it is, gone, by the way? "Fuck Joe Biden" is the chant that unifies both fan bases at college tackle football games across the slave states. It is keener electoral strategy to withdraw from the slave states as determinedly as he withdrew from Afghanistan. I'll take an electorate divided 51.3% blue 46.9% red all damn day.
I struck a blow on the wooden plank a yard from the nail when I wrote that Afghanistan and COVID-19 are not going to hurt Biden. Trump was pro-withdrawal; Trump and his party are pro-Covid. Biden withdrew from Afghanistan, prompting Ann Coulter to write "You have my vote" (if you just build The Wall *eye roll*). Trump Disgustings don't want to get vaxed. Spanish Flu Conquest Day was not mourned in Trump World, it was proof that the U.S.A. was still #1 in something. We broke our own record. Biden's stumbles and bumbles are unintentional lure to the one man who can guarantee Biden's reelection: the real McCoy. That is as far as I am willing to go.
You remember, this was very early on, some of the Best People speculated that Trump was crazy as a fox. He didn't really mean a wall, a nice fence would do, or even a beaded curtain. Don't take him so literally! In his button comparisons with Kim Jong-un, Trump "didn't really mean" he was going to unleash "fire and fury". Well he did mean both. We have Steve Bannon's word for it that Trump says exactly what he means. He's too dumb to play crazy, he is crazy.
I see the same problem in attributing three-dimensional chess to Biden's Withdrawal from Hell. He didn't intend that. He stupidly left the details to his staff and went on vacation to Camp David. They about had to get a warrant to get him back. He didn't call Macron and Johnson and Merkel from calculation. He done forgot. Called them soon as his aides dragged him back.
He thought he was DONE with COVID, had killed that sucker dead. Didn't notice Delta dawning over his shoulder, scorching the path he had just trod until it was nipping him at his heels.
He left the Aussies to notify the French that their sub deal was canceled, to American biz' benefit. That would be consistent with leaving the details to subordinates. But his staff said they tried to have a meeting with the French. Then said we and the Aussies deliberately didn't give them advance notice because they were convinced the French would "sabotage" (French word, sabotage) the new deal. Those are the type of conflicting, mutually exclusive explanations we got from Trump. I just don't think it was important enough to Biden to try to tell the French ahead of time. Calculation never entered into it. But to Bruni this was the art of the steal: "They have surely calculated that French outrage isn’t a serious political liability." Used in that way "surely" means nobody told Bruni that, it had to be that because the alternative is that Biden didn't care. They have "calculated" after the fact that French outrage isn't a serious political thing. And that is where Bruni and I come to agreement from the most divergent paths. None of these things is hurting Biden, COVID may yet bite him as it bit Trump fatally.
So aside from a pastel American First I don't think Biden is being crazy as a fox, that he is wrapping competence in incompetence to throw 'em the old curve ball, I think Biden was just being himself, somewhat "Trumpy", too Trumpy for me.
And nothing about Biden is ever supposed to remind anyone of Donald Trump...
That was the promise. That was the point. I admire a great deal about Biden, but let’s be honest: He was elected president primarily because he held himself up as the antithesis of, and antidote for, Trump.
I’d wager that most of the Americans who voted excitedly for Biden were voting even more excitedly against Trump. And that...created a special set of burdens for — Biden’s presidency...Biden was supposed to perform an exorcism. Never was the devil to be discernible in anything he did.
But he pulled out of Afghanistan without the degree of consultation, coordination and competence that allies expected, at least of any American president not named Trump.
...As David Sanger wrote in The Times, some allies are “publicly accusing him of perpetuating elements of former President Donald J. Trump’s ‘America First’ approach..."
And Biden’s return of hundreds of desperate Haitian migrants to Haiti...also seems Trumpy to many observers.
...
But here’s the thing about Trump’s possession of America: It was made possible by untended sentiments among many voters that haven’t evaporated, on predispositions that endure. And Biden and his advisers know it.
They know the political danger of anything that smacks of an open-border policy, of a moral generosity toward newcomers that can be perceived or spun as a dereliction of duty to longtimers. They know the peril of positioning America as the world’s savior, which can look to some voters like a surrender of national interest — and a sacrifice of American service members — to some highfalutin ideal.
They have surely calculated that French outrage isn’t a serious political liability, not if that emotion arises from the United States having claimed its own payday. They no doubt divine ample electoral rationale for some America First maneuvering without the accompanying America First chest thumping.
...
All in all, Biden is a far cry from Trump. Hallelujah. But that doesn’t mean that he’s untouched by Trump...
