Trump uploaded a Photoshopped picture of himself as Lord of the Rings character Aragon—with the beard—shortly after Joe Biden labelled him the “great MAGA king.” The words “The Return of the Great MAGA King” were written beneath the image.
“Under my predecessor — the great MAGA king — the deficit increased every single year he was president. The first year of my presidency, the first year, I reduced the deficit, literally reduced the deficit by $350 billion, first year,” Biden had said in remarks at an International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers conference in Chicago.
Whether or not Mr Biden understands the actual meaning of the acronym is now under speculation as Trump has clearly taken the so-called jibe as a compliment.
Jen Psaki defends Biden’s MAGA King statement
Jen Psaki, the outgoing White House press secretary, defended President Biden on Thursday for referring to his predecessor, former President Donald Trump, as “the great MAGA king.”
Psaki was asked whether the president’s statements were uniting during her daily press briefing by Fox News.
“Well, I would say that the president is not afraid to call out what he sees as extreme positions that are out of line with where the American people stand,” Psaki responded.
“And whether that is supporting a tax plan that will raise taxes on 75 million Americans making less than $100,000 a year, or whether it is supporting efforts to overturn Roe v. Wade, something that two-thirds of the American people in a Fox News poll, may I add, supported, and there are countless examples from there.”
“The president believes that there is still work we can do together,” she continued. “The bipartisan innovation is a good example of that. But again, he is not going to stand back and stand aside while people are pushing for extreme positions that are not in the interests or supported by the vast majority of the American people.”
The prospects for ‘The Return of the Great MAGA King’ look quite good
Today, Democrats find themselves in a dire scenario. President Biden has attempted to divert focus away from his own record and toward Donald Trump because he is facing bleak chances in the approaching midterm elections. “This is not the Republican Party of your father. This is a MAGA party, after all,” he declared last week during a news conference He referred to Trump as “the great MAGA king” in a speech on Wednesday.
To be fair, the president doesn’t hold many cards in his hand. With poor approval ratings and voters’ top concerns being the economy, crime, and immigration, it’s difficult for Biden to portray his administration as a success. Timothy Noah argues that Biden’s “poor statistics are seriously unfair” in an article defending the MAGA gambit, citing the relative success of US policy on Ukraine and some favourable economic indicators. The problem is that these difficulties are either undervalued or masked by other causes, most notably, high inflation.
In general, challengers do better than incumbents when they appeal to negative partisanship. The risks of a power transition are speculative for most voters. The problems with the status quo, on the other hand, are very genuine. This includes issues over which the president has only indirect control. To use one dramatic example, it may not be quite fair to blame Biden for the lack of baby- food formula that’s trustworthy. That is, however, how politics works, regardless of who is in the White House.
Because voters have a propensity of voting against the president, the incumbent party has lost nearly every midterm election since the Civil War. The president’s party has suffered massive losses three times in the last three decades: in 1994, 2010, and 2018. The most recent exception was in 2002, when Republicans gained seats in both Houses of Congress as a result of the 9/11 attacks. Democrats made up for it in 2006, when they reclaimed control of both chambers of Congress.
Beyond the historical pattern, Terry MacAuliffe’s lost governorship effort in Virginia last year demonstrates the specific limitations of a Trump-focused campaign in a contest where Trump is not on the ballot. Many people believe that appeals to election legitimacy or condemnations of the Jan. 6 riots are too vague and historical to be meaningful.
It’s possible that Democrats will benefit from the ostensibly doomed precedent of Roe v. Wade, which is supported by a majority of the people in principle. The most ardent opponents of abortion, on the other hand, have long been Democrats. And the party’s maximalist approach to the issue appears to appeal more to progressive activists than to moderates who see abortion as a generally horrible thing that can be tragically justified in some cases.
It’s natural that Biden is attempting to incite hatred toward Trump and MAGA. It’s simply not going to help. Biden understands he’s in the same boat as Pappy O’Daniel after half a century in politics, but he and his party are at a loss for ideas.
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