Where is Biden? Where are the Democrats?

This Is How Biden Loses

Increasing numbers of Americans are seeing Democrats as complicit in or at best tolerant and indulgent toward the mad rioters who are trashing so many cities.

This article and the alarm of so many Democrats are so many confessions.

George Packer at The Atlantic joins Don Lemon and others calling for Biden and Democrats to hammer away at the riots and rioters.

Every day of silence makes credible the Duce's charges Biden is weak, putty in the hands of radicals and a party taken over by revolutionaries and America haters, a Trojan horse for friends of antifa, the worst of the BLM crazies, and the Red Guards and Culture Warriors smashing and burning American cities.

Every day the Republicans turn up the volume on exactly these accusations and attacks.

But it may already be too late for the late conversion at the top Packer is calling for.

And too little.

The whole party is stained.

In the crude terms of a presidential campaign, voters know that the Democrat means it when he denounces police brutality, but less so when he denounces riots. 

To reach the public and convince it otherwise, Biden has to go beyond boilerplate and make it personal, memorable.

Harris, a Black former prosecutor and now an advocate for police reform, seems uniquely positioned to speak to the crisis. 

But she has said little all week, which suggests that there might be things she doesn’t want to say. 

On Thursday, Harris directly addressed the events in Kenosha, affirming that Americans “must always defend peaceful protest and peaceful protesters. We should not confuse them with those looting and committing acts of violence.” 

She quickly moved on. 

Democratic leaders, from the nearly invisible mayor of Kenosha up to those on the presidential ticket, are reluctant to tarnish a just cause, amplify Republican attacks, or draw the wrath of their own progressive base (Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut deleted a tweet saying that both the Blake shooting and the riots were wrong after commenters accused him of equating the two). 

So Democrats continue to mute their response to the violence and hope it will subside, even though it has persisted straight through the summer.

. . . .

On Tuesday night, the CNN host Don Lemon warned his colleague Chris Cuomo that riots were hurting Biden and the Democrats: “Chris, as you know and I know, it’s showing up in the polls, it’s showing up in focus groups. It’s the only thing right now that’s sticking.” 

Lemon urged Biden to speak out about both police reform and violence. 

With Kenosha and the political conventions, the coverage seems to be changing. On Thursday, the Times ran a piece headlined “How Chaos in Kenosha Is Already Swaying Some Voters in Wisconsin.” 

Half a dozen Kenosha residents, reckoning with damaged buildings and businesses, expressed displeasure with the uncertain response of Democratic officials. 

Ellen Ferwerda, an antique store owner, “said that she was desperate for Trump to lose in November but that she had ‘huge concern’ the unrest in her town could help him win. She added that local Democratic leaders seemed hesitant to condemn the mayhem.”