If The New York Times had called me and asked if I wanted Joe Biden to run again for President, I’d have said “no.”

Then again, if they asked me if was upset about his policies, or blamed him for “the country heading in wrong direction” or the price of gas, I’d also have said, “no.” And if they asked who I’d vote for if Biden ran against The Orange God King in 2024, I’d have said something along the lines of, “I’d vote for Beelzebub himself before Trump, only because the cloven-hoof guy smarter, less embarrassing and more honest.”

Columns and podcasts are clogging with pundits arguing that Joe Biden is simply too old to run again … unless he runs against Trump. And I’m on board with that. Unlike Fox and whatever passes for a deep thinking at Breitbart, the Gateway Pundit and InfoWars, I don’t see Biden as senile or “out of it.” Far from it. He’s clearly more rational and in control of a wider and deeper set of facts than the former casino bankrupter.

But no, Biden needs to begin the process of the hand-off. By the summer of 2023 at the latest.

Among the central personal qualities essential to success in our 2022 political world are personal energy and a sustained, crowd-pleasing ferocity in the face of shameless stupidity and bad faith. And those are virtues born in a younger generation than a pre-Boomer.

Whenever anyone asks about Trump 2024, I say I doubt he’s serious about another campaign, because he knows he’d lose even worse than 2020, but that the grift is just too sweet and easy to rule it out until the very last moment. Hell, if he can raise/steal $250 million from his delusional rubes for a legal defense that never existed, there’s got to be another quarter billion to rake in before declaring “everything’s rigged” and bailing out an hour before the New Hampshire primary.

But where do the Democrats go for a candidate with the chops to destroy a truly villainous slime like Florida governor Ron DeSantis?

A couple days ago Politico (aka “Tiger Beat on the Potomac”, thank you, Charlie Pierce), suggested Jon Stewart was the (kind of) guy Democrats need in a world where venomous pricks like DeSantis are regarded as anointed saviors of our white Christian nationhood. And given the performance of a smart, quick-witted, disciplined ex-comedian leading Ukraine in its fight against Trump supporter Vladimir Putin, I can follow their thinking. But the next guy/gal has to want the job, and Stewart doesn’t.

Part of the argument for a Jon Stewart candidacy, or an Oprah candidacy or any fill-in-the-blank-personality candidacy is that the low-information “persuadable” voters who can tip North Carolina, Florida, Arizona and Pennsylvania safely into a Democrat’s hands feel a child-like relationship with famous faces they see on TV. (Trump would never have gotten where he did if simpletons didn’t actually believe he was the business genius they saw on “The Apprentice.”) It’s a sad reality of human nature/modern life, but try convincing me or anyone it isn’t … a fact.

Which leads us to people like California governor, Gavin Newsom, a Hollywood-savvy glamor-puss who lately has been enjoying sticking it to … Ron DeSantis … with mocking comparisons of California v. Florida quality of life, including nuances like privacy and women’s right to choose. Newsom — tall, with ridiculously good hair and a gravelly, manly voice — is like something out of Central Casting and easily ridiculed for looking it. But as I and others weighing his chances have to concede, he pulls it off … and he likes the fight.

Glamor-aside, I’ve always been a fan of Pete Buttigieg. He was my pick in 2020 and with moments like this — on Fox no less — he’s shown time after time that he has the focus and composure for the relentless brawl with misinformation-spewing stooges. But Pete, clearly the smartest candidate in either party in 2020, doesn’t deliver the ineffable “matinee idol” ju-ju that someone like Newsom does.

Either way, Joe Biden will be much too old were he reelected in ’24. The modern world needs someone deeply, and when it comes to negotiating absolutely critical issues like climate change, I do mean “deeply” versed in the technologies and rhetorical warfare of this era.

I await the Times’ next call.

Note: This blog is supposed to be commentary about public issues, not personal reflections about the authors’ lives. I’m making an exception in this case, though maybe the struggle I discuss may feel familiar to others.

Valued friends and mentors sometimes tell me not to post about politics on social media.  Keep it to personal updates and humor, they counsel. The reasons they give for foregoing politics generally fall into three categories – it’s bad for your career, divisive, and futile.

My Defense

When deciding how to engage on social media everyone has their own unique circumstances to navigate. But for what it’s worth, this is my answer to those criticisms.

Criticism #1:  Speaking Out Is Bad for Your Career

I realize that speaking out politically on social media has hurt many a career, and therefore isn’t for everyone.  But in my case, I’m late in my career, so there isn’t much left to wreck.  Also, I’m my own boss, so my boss likes my politics. Moreover, a quick glance at my resume makes my political views pretty clear, so my viewpoints shouldn’t shock anyone.

Even so, if I was more guarded with my political views, it is true that conservative clients would probably be more likely to look past my past work for progressive officials and causes.  They could chalk it up to youthful naivete and ignorance, and assume I had outgrown my liberalism.

But I’m not convinced being unapologetically progressive on social media has led to a net loss of business.  While it probably has lost me business, it also probably has gained me business.  Given the nature of my clientele, I suspect I’ve gained a bit more than I’ve lost.  Just as consumer brands like Nike, Tommy Hilfiger, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Lyft, and Airbnb that have taken progressive stances don’t seem to have experienced a net loss of business, it’s possible something similar can happen to sole proprietors and individual employees like me.

But if I’ve guessed wrong about about that, if speaking out has hurt me more than helped, I’ll accept the financial consequences. At the risk of sounding self-righteous, I’d rather die financially poorer than morally poorer. 

Criticism #2: Speaking Out Is Divisive

This country is really dangerously divided, and I hate to think I might be making it even more so due to my social media blatherings. 

But the things that are most dividing America — bigotry, poor-bashing, greed, political corruption, unnecessary wars, etc. – undoubtedly will get much worse if we all shrug them off and effectively treat them as normal and acceptable. Indifference to divisiveness begets even more divisiveness.

I do try, with mixed results, to avoid using a tone that is needlessly divisive.  For instance, I try to avoid ad hominem attacks, and other types cathartic snottyness. I also mix in personal posts — have you seen enough of my new grandson yet? — and self-effacing humor to partially disarm people who say I’m taking myself too seriously.

But as much as I’d love to stay mute about public affairs issues, I don’t. The most divisive thing anyone can do is remain silent in the face of the toxic conservative policies and rhetoric that are tearing America apart.

Criticism #3: Speaking Out Is Futile

This is the criticism that gives me the most pause.  I’ll admit, speaking out on social media frequently feels totally ineffectual.  With most political exchanges on social media, minds are not changed, which often leaves me feeling exhausted and discouraged.

At the same time, social media has increasingly become a huge source of news for voters. Increasingly, people don’t subscribe to news publications, and don’t seek them out much. Increasingly, they get their news from what is shared on social media. I hate to leave this powerful news platform to conservatives, so I share things the some friends wouldn’t otherwise have seen.

Speaking out on social media has worked for conservatives, so why wouldn’t it work for progressives? For many years I’ve seen conservatives who are vocal on social media channels making significant messaging gains, in these three ways.

• Conversion. First, conservatives’ social media posts do change the occasional minds of swing voters, or voters who swing back and forth between parties in their voting patterns. Though I’m pretty sure changing minds is roughly as rare for conservatives as it is for liberals, it does happen.  I have friends who have become more conservative over the years in part because of the relentless conservative messaging they encounter on social media.  Just because conversation is relatively rare, doesn’t mean it never happens and can’t impact the kinds of close elections that are so commonplace these days.
  
• Retention.  Second, conservative posts help keep other conservatives conservative. That is, “preaching to the choir” ensures that conservatives are not tempted to listen to the liberal devils in their lives.  It gives them ammunition for bar stool discussions.  For any political movement, retention of supporters over time is not a given. Preventing erosion of support requires sustained repetition and reinforcement of messaging, and social media posting does that.
  
• Activation. Probably most importantly, conservative social media posters keep conservatives informed, entertained, and engaged, which sometimes helps move conservatives from being passive supporters into becoming activists and voters.  That evolution helps conservatives win close elections.

If conversion, retention, and activation are happening at the hands of conservative social media posters, I see no reason why liberal social media posters can’t make the same gains.

In fact, social media outreach arguably is more badly needed on the left, since progressives don’t have the equivalent of Fox News and conservative talk radio hosts persuading and re-persuading millions of conservatives on a daily basis. 

Why Bother?

To be sure, conversion, retention, and activation don’t happen without lots of relentless effort, and the weakening and loss of friendships. There are two quotes that frequently bounce around in my head when I’m pondering whether my incessant blathering is worth it.

One is from an author named Jim Watkins:

“A river cuts through rock not because of its power but because of its persistence.”  

Maybe that sounds trite, but when it comes to persuasion, it’s true. That metaphor helps this exhausted progressive social media gasbag stay patient, motivated, and persistent.

The other quote I can’t stop thinking about is from another Nicole Schulman, an author and daughter of a Nazi Holocaust-era Jew:

“Nice people made the best Nazis. My mom grew up next to them. They got along, refused to make waves, looked the other way when things got ugly and focused on happier things than “politics.” They were lovely people who turned their heads as their neighbors were dragged away. You know who weren’t nice people? Resisters.”

I’m ashamed to say, I’m pretty hard-wired to be “the best Nazi” that Schulman’s mom saw. I’m a conflict averse guy. I’m insecure enough to instinctively want to please everyone. So wading into the much-hated “politics on Facebook” isn’t instinctive or comfortable for me. 

Still, I can’t stand the thought of remaining silent as conservatives dominate social media channels unrebutted, and fascism grows unabated.  With the stakes that high, annoying my friends with political posts on Facebook feels like a democratic duty that’s well worth the trade-off. 

Republican gubernatorial nominee Scott Jensen just revealed why he is seeking the state’s highest office.

To help Minnesotans access more affordable health care by giving them a public option? Nope. To invest in building a world class education system? No way. To deliver guaranteed family and medical leave to struggling families?  He opposes that too.

Instead, Jensen is positively passionate about retaliating against the Minnesota Board of Medical Practice!

What did the Board, which exists to ensure the public is protected from unsafe and ineffective medical practices, do to Jensen?  According to Jensen, the Board is investigating him for encouraging the use of ivermectin.  In February 2022, Web MD explained the latest research on ivermectin.

Ivermectin, the controversial anti-parasitic drug, does not help treat mild to moderate COVID-19, another new study has found.

“The study findings do not support the use of ivermectin for patients with COVID-19,” researchers said in the study published last week in JAMA Internal Medicine.

There have been reports of people becoming hospitalized after taking ivermectin, and the FDA has even warned against its use.

The authors of the new study acknowledge the controversy: “Although some early clinical studies suggested the potential efficacy of ivermectin in the treatment and prevention of COVID-19, these studies had methodologic weaknesses.”

Even worse, Jensen also had been encouraging the public to endanger their neighbors by defying mask mandates during lethal COVID spikes.  The Hill reports on what the world’s top public health experts have learned about such mandates:

The BMJ, a global health care publisher, released a massive review Thursday that analyzed 72 studies from around the world to evaluate how non-pharmaceutical health measures reduced cases of COVID-19. Researchers found measures like hand-washing, wearing masks and physical distancing significantly reduced incidences of COVID-19. 

Researchers found that wearing a mask could reduce COVID-19 incidence by 53 percent. 

One experiment across 200 countries showed 45.7 percent fewer COVID-19 related deaths in countries where mask wearing was mandatory, according to the study. In the U.S., one study reported a 29 percent reduction in COVID-19 transmission in states where mask wearing was required. 

That’s a lot of research that Dr. J is ignoring in order to pander to the extreme anti-science right wing of his party. I don’t throw the term “quack” around lightly. But if someone talks like a quack and acts like a quack, then they might just be a quack. 

Here’s hoping the Board isn’t spooked by this political bullying, and does the job Minnesota patients depend on it to do.

If the Jensen experiment works, the retaliation model could become a rich vein of recruiting new Republican office-seekers. 

Tax cheats can be recruited to run to retaliate against the Minnesota Department of Revenue.

Polluters can be recruited to run retaliate against the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.

Enemies of democracy can be recruited to run to retaliate against the Minnesota Secretary of State’s office.

Abusive cops can be recruited to run to retaliate against the Minnesota Attorney General’s office.

Criminals can be recruited to run to retaliate against the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.

More quacks, tax cheats, democracy enemies, polluters, abusers, and criminals in public office!  What could possibly go wrong?

I suspect that only a relatively small proportion of Minnesotans are aware that DFL legislators want to finish work delivering tax cuts and popular investments to Minnesotans, while GOP legislators have walked off the job and left that important work undone. 

But state legislators spend much of their time with well-informed lobbyists and activists. The State Capitol is an insular island. Therefore, many legislators probably incorrectly assume that most Minnesotans already know all of this.

But many don’t know it, or don’t fully understand the damage it’s causing, so DFLers need to proactively and repeatedly tell the story.  

The policies that Republicans are effectively blocking by refusing to do more work are extremely popular.  Tax cuts. Education and child care investments. Long-term care spending. Police funding.  Infrastucture improvements. Moreover, Minnesotans believe in working hard, and not quitting just because the task is difficult. There is a strong case to be made here.

But if DFLers don’t proactively repeat the point about the GOP’s dereliction of duties, and the consequences of it, many voters will never know about it, or won’t remember come November.

To educate voters about what is happening at the State Capitol, and make it stick in their memories, DFL legislators need a series of provocative tactics that play out between now and the election. A few options to consider:

• Empty Chairs at Mock Legislative Sessions.  DFL legislative leaders should send a letter to all GOP legislators proposing a date and time to return to the Capitol Building for a Special Session.  Republicans won’t agree to attend, but all DFL legislators should show up in the House and Senate chambers at the proposed time anyway. They should wait for the missing Republican legislators for 24 hours or so.  They should use that time  in the half-empty chambers to make it clear that the GOP is refusing to do their jobs, and describe the contents of the legislation effectively being blocked by the Gone Old Party (GOP). 
  
  Then they should record video of the speeches, liberally interspersed with shots of the Republican incumbents’ empty chairs and offices. They should share short videos of the speeches and empty chairs via targeted social media. 
  
  They also should invite DFL challengers to come to the State Capitol to participate in news conferences about the refusal of the incumbents to do the jobs they were elected to do.  Those challengers could record “Looking for Rudy”-style videos to use in their campaigns, humorous videos portraying the DFL challengers searching empty offices for evidence of the GOP incumbent doing their jobs.

• Missing Person Flyers.  DFL candidates could also make tongue-in-cheek Missing Person-like flyers to be used in online ads and postcards. The “Missing Legislator” flyers would include a photo of the GOP incumbent, with a description of the unfinished business they left behind when they walked off the job they were hired to do. 
  
• Poll Documenting Public Frustration.  The DFL Party should also commission a poll asking Minnesotans if legislators should return to work to finish the tax cuts and investments.  They should also use the poll to document the popularity of each of the major components of the unfinished business – tax cuts, education and child care investments, police spending, infrastructure investments, etc . They should publicize the poll results in news conferences and campaign materials. 
  
  Why a poll? The results of a survey would make it clear that this isn’t just an argument between the GOP and DFL. It’s also an argument between the GOP and the overwhelming majority of Minnesotans. That’s an important nuance to stress when framing this issue.

• Pink Slips.  Closer to the election, DFL candidates could develop termination notice forms (e.g. “pink slips”) to use  in advertising and mailing.  The pink slips would be filled in with the legislators name and reason for firing – “failure to show up for work when constituents needed tax cuts, education, and anti-crime help the most.”

Whether or not these are the right tactics, the larger point remains: DFLers need to develop an on-going campaign to make the 2022 elections a referendum on whether Republican incumbents should show up for work when struggling Minnesota families need help.  DFLers stand a much better chance of winning that referendum than the one’s Republicans are stressing, about whether Democrats are sufficiently committed to fighting crime and cutting taxes.  If DFLers allow Republicans to frame the election that way, they’re in trouble.

Mid-term elections are historically awful for the party in power. Beyond that, the post-pandemic economy is unpredictable and unsettling. To be sure, the DFL is facing stiff political headwinds.

For those reasons, this is no time to run a dull, conventional campaign using blah, blah, blah cookie cutter messaging. Desperate times call for desperate measures. DFLers need a provocative campaign that cuts through the message clutter by telling the unvarnished truth about the Gone Old Party and the damage its refusal to work is causing for Minnesota families.

You know and I know that despite the emotional pleas of the past 24 hours nothing whatsoever will be done about America’s gun insanity. If Mitch McConnell was able to rally his Senate caucus against the most modest invigoration of gun laws after 26 grade schoolers were murdered at Sandy Hook, he won’t even have to bother after 21 were slaughtered in Uvalde.

While the originalists on the Supreme Court plunge on ahead to take away a right supported by 70% of the public for 50 years, no conservative or red-district liberal is going utter a peep about serious gun control — beginning with universal background checks, red-flag laws and a ban on assault rifles — supported by 60%-plus of their voting age constituents. And we all know why.

Guns are existential for conservatives struggling to maintain authority through the country’s demographic shift. Republicans simply can not win elections without showing support for each and every relaxation of gun laws that gets traction in paranoid America.

You’d like to focus “existential” attention on the victims of our ceaseless gun slaughter. Not just the 21 murdered in Texas yesterday, or the 10 in Buffalo a couple weeks ago, or all those killed in the over 200 mass shootings … in just the first five months of 2022 … (27 in schools) … or those dying from single-victim, gun-homicides/suicides at the rate of … 110 a day, month in and month out. “Existential” has played out for all those people.

But the key to how this truly astonishing level of carnage is sustained lies in the existential threat to the careers of conservative politicians, most but not all of whom are Republicans, should they raise so much as a sympathetic eyebrow at the thought of any … any … kind of controls on the sale and use of guns and ammo. The hard, let’s make that “obscene”, fact is that guns are so deeply and thoroughly hard-wired into the insecure psyches of a deeply threatened minority of Americans they are the very definition of single-issue voters. They may tell pollsters that “immigration” is their biggest concern, but we all know, “immigration” is code for “more brown/black criminals I need to protect myself from.”

In my experience talking “Second Amendment” with “guns rights” supporters, the unmistakable takeaway is that a life without the potency that comes from gun ownership (and display) would be indistinguishable from castration. So good luck getting those remarkably reliable single issue voters to support restrictions on a fundamental life function.

A Pew Study says this:

“White men are especially likely to be gun owners: About half (48%) say they own a gun, compared with about a quarter of white women and nonwhite men (24% each) and 16% of nonwhite women.

“Like the gender gap, the education gap in gun ownership is particularly pronounced among whites. Overall, about three-in-ten adults with a high school diploma or less (31%) and 34% of those with some college education say they own a gun; a quarter of those with a bachelor’s degree or more say the same. Among whites, about four-in-ten of those with a high school diploma or less (40%) or with some college (42%) are gun owners, compared with roughly a quarter of white college graduates (26%).”

FWIW the same survey shows three times as many conservatives own guns as liberals. … if you’re assessing “the fear factor.”

In a country not held captive by an electoral college system that sustains minority rule …

Assault rifles would be banned.

Internet gun and ammo sales would be banned.

Red flag laws would be universal, with heavy penalties for any seller who violated them.

Bullets would be taxed at a 400% rate.

A license, showing certified training and insurance would be mandatory for every gun owned by anyone anywhere. The market would determine premium prices.

Manufacturers of firearms could be sued, just like manufacturers of death-and-injury causing cars, microwaves and fast food.

But we don’t live in same galaxy as that imagined country. Instead we have the latest mass murder — of school children — in a state where the Republican Governor (Greg Abbott) — who, along with Donald Trump and Ted Cruz is scheduled to speak to an NRA convention in Houston this coming week. A state where Abbott and his mostly (but not all) Republican legislature recently relaxed gun laws to the point customers aren’t required to even take training before toting a gun to church.

And a country where instead of acting with conscience conservative politicians routinely release the same anodyne responses to the most vile tragedies.

When you hear the phrase “race to the bottom” that kind of overt pandering to paranoia and cynical contempt for public safety is what they’re talking about.

P.S. Minnesota’s unemployment rate under DFL Governor Tim Walz is also the lowest in recorded history, just 2.2 percent.

“This is Democrats’ fault too, because they’re so bad at messaging.”  This is the go-to blame-shifting critique I get from self-identified “moderate” friends, well-intentioned folks who dodge conflict, critical thinking, and/or accountability by continually declaring equal disgust for “both sides.”

In the wake of the leak of the forthcoming U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing states to ban abortions, I’m hearing this a lot. It’s hardly the first time.  I hear it every time there is another preventable mass shooting, and every time some jaw droppingly stupid piece of legislation passes, such as “don’t say gay” teacher censorship or something that further aggravates climate change.

The moderates’ flippant “this is Democrats’ fault too, because they suck at messaging argument” is patently ridiculous responsibility avoidance.

Let’s start with the “this Democrats’ fault too” part of their claim. To state the obvious, Democrats didn’t appoint the justices overturning Roe. Republicans did. Democrats didn’t vote for the politicians who appointed those abortion-banning justices. Republicans and moderates did.  So, where is moderates’ unambiguous criticism of Republicans?

Because these facts are so undeniable and damning, moderates, ever-wary of decisively taking a side on an issue, quickly shift to the “yeah, but Democrats are to blame too because they can’t message” condemnation.  This invariably gets the moderate bobbleheads nodding in self-righteous agreement.

I don’t buy that either. As for messaging effort, while conflict averse moderates too often have been silent on the sidelines of the unpleasant abortion debate, Democrats have been leading the fight for reproductive health rights for decades, including in the largest protest in American history.

Democrats have even been fighting for abortion rights in jurisdictions where they know it will hurt them politically.  For example, my former boss Tom Daschle lost his reelection bid in no small part because he courageously stood up for reproductive freedom in a state where he knew doing so would hurt him.

Beyond an alleged lack of messaging effort, moderates also criticize Democrats’ messaging skills. 

My question back to moderates: “Tell me, have you discovered the magic words that convince your anti-abortion friends to preserve Roe? If so, could you please share them? Has any human being on the planet come up with those magically persuasive words? 

Market researchers tell us there are words and arguments that seem to work better than others. But they still don’t change many minds.

If the magic words don’t seem to exist, maybe messaging skills isn’t the problem here.

Maybe the audience, not the messaging, is the problem.  Maybe the audience is unpersuadable on this issue.

This “it’s Democrats’ fault because they suck at messaging” line of blame-shifting is not just irksome, it’s one of the root causes of the coming abortion ban.  The moderates’ mindless, self-indulgent “both sides are equally bad” and “why should I support them if they can’t message” viewpoints frees moderates to continue using their election-swinging votes to empower Republicans. 

Too many moderates give Republicans their votes, often out of greed, because there is a tax cut promised, or out of shallowness, because of some kind of an irrelevant personality preference. They subsequently express shock and dismay when the Republicans they helped elect do the things they promised they would do on the campaign trail, such as making abortion illegal, censoring teachers, opposing gun background checks, blocking efforts to make health care and child care more affordable, and effectively empowering white supremacists and insurrectionists.

While all of us, including congressional Democrats, could and should get better at messaging on these issues, let’s not kid ourselves. The primary reason abortion is about to be banned in about half of the states isn’t messaging. The primary problem is that there are too many Republican extremists in office. That happens in part because there are too many moderates giving them their votes. That happens because there are too many moderates rationalizing their votes for extremist Republicans with self-delusional “both sides are equally bad” arguments. 

So the next time you hear moderates say something bad is happening because Democrats suck at messaging, please stop nodding your heads, and hold them accountable.