{"id":46336,"date":"2020-08-19T13:26:25","date_gmt":"2020-08-19T20:26:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=46336"},"modified":"2020-08-19T21:00:51","modified_gmt":"2020-08-20T04:00:51","slug":"trump-and-fox-news-invent-fake-opponents-because-theyre-afraid-of-biden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=46336","title":{"rendered":"Trump and Fox News Invent Fake Opponents Because They’re Afraid of Biden"},"content":{"rendered":"

As this extraordinarily unprecedented election season rattles on, Dona;d Trump continues to lag behind Joe Biden in every national poll, as well as in most of the crucial swing state polls. It must be humiliating to be losing so badly to someone you characterize as a mentally deficient socialist<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Joe<\/p>\n

The truth is that Trump is terrified about his abysmal reelection prospects. And he’s even more terrified of Joe Biden, a bona fide, old school moderate with bipartisan credentials. Given Trump’s hardcore wingnuttery, it’s impossible for him to present any kind of marketable image to a nation that already knows him as an extremist with totalitarian tendencies. He openly advocates for aggressively fascist, police-state tactics to muzzle free speech. He craves the sort of lifetime rule that his heroes Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un enjoy. To that end he has implemented initiatives to suppress voting and refuses to respect the democratic process. He has called for the persecution, and even execution, of his political foes, including Barack Obama and Joe Biden.<\/p>\n

Having no path to rehabilitate his abhorrent personality and horrendous record, Trump has embarked on a campaign to bring Biden down to his level. But even that is utterly implausible. Consequently, Trump is employing a desperation strategy aimed at trying to persuade voters that a Biden presidency would be subservient to the most radical leftist fringe of the Democratic Party.<\/p>\n

Trump, with help from Fox News, has been hammering on a preposterous theory that Joe Biden is a puppet of the radical left. They are elevating Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, or Bernie Sanders, or Kamala Harris as the real leaders who will drive the policy of a Biden administration. As appealing as that sounds, it just isn’t remotely true.<\/p>\n

Biden won an overwhelming number of votes in the Democratic primaries. That doesn’t mean that progressives won’t advocate for their agenda, just as activists of all stripes do. but it does mean that a center-left agenda will dominate the Biden White House. What Trump and Fox News are doing is substituting who they prefer to run against because they are afraid to run against the solidly moderate Biden. But what these radical rightists don’t get is that if a progressive agenda gets enacted it will be because that’s what the American people want. And that’s a concept that Republicans can’t comprehend and have never pursued.<\/p>\n

The problem with Trump’s strategy, other than how it’s cutting against reality, is that it does nothing to soften his own jagged edges. He isn’t even trying. This week he congratulated a QAnon crackpot<\/a><\/strong>, Marjorie Taylor Greene, who won a GOP congressional primary. He followed that up with congratulations for Laura Loomer, whose bigoted hostilities got her banned from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Medium, PayPal, Venmo, GoFundMe, Uber and Lyft. Then on Wednesday morning Trump tweeted this:<\/p>\n

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Don\u2019t buy GOODYEAR TIRES – They announced a BAN ON MAGA HATS. Get better tires for far less! (This is what the Radical Left Democrats do. Two can play the same game, and we have to start playing it now!).<\/p>\n

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 19, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n