What’s striking about the video launching President Biden’s reelection campaign is not what is different from the one he put out exactly four years earlier, but what is the same: Both show scenes of violence and hard-right extremism in the opening moments.
And both put the focus right where it should be, on the question that will define the future of the United States.
In 2019, his campaign announcement featured the August 2017 march in Charlottesville, during which, candidate Joe Biden recalled, “Klansmen and white supremacists and neo-Nazis come out in the open, their crazed faces, illuminated by torches, veins bulging and bearing the fangs of racism. Chanting the same antisemitic bile heard across Europe in the ’30s.”
Four years later, his announcement recalls the bloody riot that took place at the U.S. Capitol in the weeks before his inauguration, in which supporters of then-President Donald Trump tried to overturn the result of a fair election in which the results weren’t all that close. “When I ran for president four years ago, I said we are in a battle for the soul of America — and we still are,” Biden said.
But there is also something almost missing this time around — much mention of Trump, who still holds the Republican base in his thrall.
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The former president is shown only fleetingly, embracing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who at this early stage of the race is considered Trump’s leading rival for the 2024 GOP nomination. As the other face of “MAGA extremists,” the video features Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) in her Cruella de Vil fur-lined coat heckling during Biden’s State of the Union address. The message is that extremism is not a problem that has been — nor will be — cured by barring Trump from the Oval Office.
In the title of his announcement video, Biden also seizes ownership of a word that Republicans, notably DeSantis, have claimed as their own and twisted beyond recognition: freedom.
This is surely a note Biden will keep sounding, although Americans should not need reminders in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade, the measures that are being taken by Republicans across the country to make it harder to vote, the lies with which Trump and his supporters have undermined the integrity of our election system, the efforts to roll back LGBTQ rights.
“Every generation of Americans have faced a moment when they have had to defend democracy. Stand up for our personal freedom. Stand up for the right to vote and our civil rights,” Biden says. “And this is our moment. Let’s finish this job.”
“Finish the job” is hardly the most electrifying of battle cries. Biden no longer claims that he can find his way to an old-style bipartisan working relationship with Congress. There are doubts, including within his party, whether a man who is in his 80s (and often looks it) is up to the job he seeks to finish. And, of course, there will be many unknowable events between now and November 2024, at home and in the international arena, that could shift what voters see as their top concerns.
In 2019, his strength as a foil for Trump was clear, although most people — including yours truly — were doubtful he would survive a crowded primary of younger, more dynamic, more progressive rivals. This time, that won’t be a problem; the field appears all but clear for him to win renomination.
And as an incumbent president, he has the most demanding of day jobs, which gives him the luxury — which his advisers say he will use — of not being expected to spend all that much time on the hustings, where his lifelong tendency to say the wrong thing is sure to create instantly viral awkward moments.
Finally, he has a record. No, these four years haven’t been the New Deal or the Great Society, as much as his strategists and most ardent supporters would like us to believe otherwise. But there have been achievements: an infrastructure program that his predecessors couldn’t deliver, pandemic aid, massive investments to curb climate change, an economy that is growing despite rough waters. It is hard to see how he could have gotten much more done, given the domestic and international challenges — including the pandemic and rallying the Western allies after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — and the political constraints of a sharply divided government.
In 2020, Biden was right. Americans were looking for a corrective to extremism and division. He can’t argue convincingly that things have gotten all that much better since then, even without Trump in the White House. But the stakes are even clearer. This is still about the character of the country.
And both put the focus right where it should be, on the question that will define the future of the United States.
In 2019, his campaign announcement featured the August 2017 march in Charlottesville, during which, candidate Joe Biden recalled, “Klansmen and white supremacists and neo-Nazis come out in the open, their crazed faces, illuminated by torches, veins bulging and bearing the fangs of racism. Chanting the same antisemitic bile heard across Europe in the ’30s.”
Four years later, his announcement recalls the bloody riot that took place at the U.S. Capitol in the weeks before his inauguration, in which supporters of then-President Donald Trump tried to overturn the result of a fair election in which the results weren’t all that close. “When I ran for president four years ago, I said we are in a battle for the soul of America — and we still are,” Biden said.
But there is also something almost missing this time around — much mention of Trump, who still holds the Republican base in his thrall.
Follow Karen Tumulty's opinionsFollow
The former president is shown only fleetingly, embracing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who at this early stage of the race is considered Trump’s leading rival for the 2024 GOP nomination. As the other face of “MAGA extremists,” the video features Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) in her Cruella de Vil fur-lined coat heckling during Biden’s State of the Union address. The message is that extremism is not a problem that has been — nor will be — cured by barring Trump from the Oval Office.
In the title of his announcement video, Biden also seizes ownership of a word that Republicans, notably DeSantis, have claimed as their own and twisted beyond recognition: freedom.
This is surely a note Biden will keep sounding, although Americans should not need reminders in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade, the measures that are being taken by Republicans across the country to make it harder to vote, the lies with which Trump and his supporters have undermined the integrity of our election system, the efforts to roll back LGBTQ rights.
“Every generation of Americans have faced a moment when they have had to defend democracy. Stand up for our personal freedom. Stand up for the right to vote and our civil rights,” Biden says. “And this is our moment. Let’s finish this job.”
“Finish the job” is hardly the most electrifying of battle cries. Biden no longer claims that he can find his way to an old-style bipartisan working relationship with Congress. There are doubts, including within his party, whether a man who is in his 80s (and often looks it) is up to the job he seeks to finish. And, of course, there will be many unknowable events between now and November 2024, at home and in the international arena, that could shift what voters see as their top concerns.
In 2019, his strength as a foil for Trump was clear, although most people — including yours truly — were doubtful he would survive a crowded primary of younger, more dynamic, more progressive rivals. This time, that won’t be a problem; the field appears all but clear for him to win renomination.
And as an incumbent president, he has the most demanding of day jobs, which gives him the luxury — which his advisers say he will use — of not being expected to spend all that much time on the hustings, where his lifelong tendency to say the wrong thing is sure to create instantly viral awkward moments.
Finally, he has a record. No, these four years haven’t been the New Deal or the Great Society, as much as his strategists and most ardent supporters would like us to believe otherwise. But there have been achievements: an infrastructure program that his predecessors couldn’t deliver, pandemic aid, massive investments to curb climate change, an economy that is growing despite rough waters. It is hard to see how he could have gotten much more done, given the domestic and international challenges — including the pandemic and rallying the Western allies after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — and the political constraints of a sharply divided government.
In 2020, Biden was right. Americans were looking for a corrective to extremism and division. He can’t argue convincingly that things have gotten all that much better since then, even without Trump in the White House. But the stakes are even clearer. This is still about the character of the country.
