Personality certainly matters. But it might be more useful, in terms of the actual stakes of a contest, to think about the presidential election as a race between competing coalitions of Americans. Different groups, and different communities, who want very different — sometimes mutually incompatible — things for the country.
The coalition behind Joe Biden wants what Democratic coalitions have wanted since at least the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt: government assistance for working people, federal support for the inclusion of more marginal Americans.
As for the coalition behind Trump? Beyond the insatiable desire for lower taxes on the nation’s monied interests, there appears to be an even deeper desire for a politics of domination. Trump speaks less about policy, in any sense, than he does about getting revenge on his critics. He’s only concerned with the mechanisms of government to the extent that they are tools for punishing his enemies.
If you’re an American, and you like what the Democratic coalition is after, then get involved, help with money if you can, and pay attention to downballot races too, not just the top.
Not really, no. You know what DOES matter, though, more than anything else? Policy and actions!
NYT never want to talk about those things, though.
When the preferred candidate of the DNC in any election is charismatic and personally popular, they want to talk about personality.
When the candidate isn’t popular, they want to talk up tribalism, they want to convince people to uncritically back the chosen leader for the good of the tribe.
They want people to forget that Biden is still enabling genocide. They want people to believe them when they say that Biden is seconds away from brokering a ceasefire. They don’t want people to believe the actual fact that they never stopped sending weapons and money to the fascist Netanyahu apartheid regime even as it became increasingly clear that they’re engaging in almost all named crimes against humanity.
They want minority groups such as Muslim Americans, black Americans, involuntarily pregnant, the LGBTQ+ community and people who lost their right to vote that Biden and his administration promised them justice but didn’t deliver.
Most of all, though, they want people to lower the bar. They don’t just want people to hold their noses and vote for Biden because a Trump administration would be much worse (which everyone definitely should, because it definitely would be).
They want to convince people that the lesser evil is in fact not an evil. They want people to believe that being in opposition to someone much worse makes it ok to be awful. That the very fact that there’s only an atrocious alternative makes Biden a good choice that should not just be tolerated, but celebrated and NEVER criticized, lest we “give Trump ammunition”.
Fuck. That. Bullshit!