Three reasons why Biden should rethink his 2024 strategy

Barring extraordinary events, we will see a rematch between Donald Trump and Joe Biden in 2024.

But Biden’s theory about this election alarmed me.

In an extensive profile published in The New Yorker This week, Biden and his top strategists have indicated they want to campaign on democracy, or “the soul of the nation,” which they say will work just as it did in 2020.

Mike Donilon, a longtime Biden adviser, predicted that by November “the focus will become overwhelming on democracy. “I think the most important images in people’s minds will be those of January 6th.”

I’m not so sure.

First, Biden’s 2020 election strategy had little margin for error.

If about 30,000 people in the right states had voted differently, Trump would have won.

And that was when Trump’s behavior was fresh in people’s minds (he was still president) and Biden hadn’t been through all the ups and downs of a presidential term.

Second, relying on democracy alone rarely works.

It didn’t work recently in Turkey, when the opposition relied on the theory that concerns about democracy and the economy would lead to the president’s defeat. Recep Tayyip Erdogandespite an opposition candidate who many have described as uncharismatic and unpopular.

Instead, Erdogan reached his third term with almost 50% of the votes.

In Hungary, Viktor Orban He is serving his fourth consecutive term.

Many countries have seen similar results.

Third, it is difficult to change voters’ minds about more abstract issues like democracy in such a fractured media environment.

Even if the main newspapers only published headlines on democracy, the rule of law and corruption until November, large swathes of the electorate would be informed elsewhere.

Biden staffers say they want to emulate Bush’s 2004 strategy by focusing on national securityl, but this was two decades ago the Internet.

David Axelrod, a Democratic strategist, told the New Yorker that Trump’s entire campaign was based on the fact that a strongman is the solution to a world out of control.

“I think we need to think about how to counteract that,” he said, “and how to address fears about Biden’s condition.”

This is probably correct for the important segments of the electorate still in play.

Biden will take longer than January 6 to attract voters. You will have to convince them that their personal life under Trump would actually be worse than it is now.

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