If the president himself is not regularly and forcefully communicating his policies and accomplishments - no surrogate can do it for him. politico.com/news/2021/11/2…
If the president himself is not espousing what his party stands for (eg supporting local police forces; taking pride in US history), then opponents can seize on wayward remarks by down-ballot loudmouths without effective rebuttal.
In a vast, regionalized, polarized country where almost 70 million people speak a language other than English in the home, it's futile to imagine that "the media" can communicate what the president does not / will not / cannot.
Those who are intensely politically engaged - myself included - need to work hard to remember what the world looks like to the tens of millions of Americans who are not.
Trump never delivered an infrastructure bill. He barely even bothered to try. But he *talked* about it all the time - and inescapably what a president says is news. I bet there are a lot of Americans who to this day hear "Trump" and think he must have built something.
I have no insight into why it's so, but Joe Biden is the least audible and visible president since maybe Eisenhower's second term. Mentioning that invisibility is considered bad form in some quarters. But it's no less a problem for being unmentionable.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
