As Bobby Jindal and Marco Rubio will morosely attest, when the rebuttal to the State of the Union address gets as much or even more coverage than the speech itself, something has gone horribly wrong. This year’s entrant, freshman Alabama Senator Katie Britt, almost certainly agrees.
I saw on Seth Meyers' "A Closer Look" segment last night that Fox News personalities started referring to Biden as "Jacked-Up Joe" after the SOTU and complaining about how loud and angry he seemed. For one thing, isn't Jacked-Up Joe a better nickname than Sleepy Joe, and for another, anyone saying Biden seems loud and angry compared to Trump is obviously delusional.
You can judge the effectiveness of the speech by the tone of the insults. Nothing bespeaks the success of Biden's performance more than the desperation right wingers showed in resorting to precisely the opposite of what they've sneering for the past four years.
Your points about Dem messaging are spot-on. As noted, the words can be effectively tweaked, and seemingly subtle moves can serve as effective rhetorical bases and produce positive results. But your finale, invoking the possibility of discerning between hard-working contributors and the minority of immigrant criminals, betrays the biggest soft-spot of all. To invoke pro-immigration argument based on the overall economic benefits of cheap labor while the ever-widening wealth gap remains an inescapable source of frustration is the biggest drag on Dem prospects now. They will always struggle to make that hard sell.
That's true, but a new, reviled immigrant group starting off by doing the jobs no one else wants at less money than the native born until they become successful and accepted is the American story--Irish, Italian, Jewish, Eastern European, Latino, etc--and I'm sure Democrats can find a way to tell it if they try. As to the wealth gap--that one should be aimed at the middle class who, without realizing it, are being priced out of things they could otherwise afford. That's a good story to tell as well.
I saw on Seth Meyers' "A Closer Look" segment last night that Fox News personalities started referring to Biden as "Jacked-Up Joe" after the SOTU and complaining about how loud and angry he seemed. For one thing, isn't Jacked-Up Joe a better nickname than Sleepy Joe, and for another, anyone saying Biden seems loud and angry compared to Trump is obviously delusional.
You can judge the effectiveness of the speech by the tone of the insults. Nothing bespeaks the success of Biden's performance more than the desperation right wingers showed in resorting to precisely the opposite of what they've sneering for the past four years.
Your points about Dem messaging are spot-on. As noted, the words can be effectively tweaked, and seemingly subtle moves can serve as effective rhetorical bases and produce positive results. But your finale, invoking the possibility of discerning between hard-working contributors and the minority of immigrant criminals, betrays the biggest soft-spot of all. To invoke pro-immigration argument based on the overall economic benefits of cheap labor while the ever-widening wealth gap remains an inescapable source of frustration is the biggest drag on Dem prospects now. They will always struggle to make that hard sell.
That's true, but a new, reviled immigrant group starting off by doing the jobs no one else wants at less money than the native born until they become successful and accepted is the American story--Irish, Italian, Jewish, Eastern European, Latino, etc--and I'm sure Democrats can find a way to tell it if they try. As to the wealth gap--that one should be aimed at the middle class who, without realizing it, are being priced out of things they could otherwise afford. That's a good story to tell as well.