Former president Barack Obama recently gave a speech in Philadelphia, hoping to support Joe Biden’s presidential election campaign. Much of the material he presented was a criticism of current president Donald Trump and his actions both as a person and as president. Throughout his speech, Obama encouraged voters to take the election seriously, and to vote despite the polls that currently predict Biden winning the election, saying “We’ve got to turn out like never before.” He added that last election’s polls predicted a Clinton presidency and were wrong, adding to his argument that voter turnout can majorly affect the outcome of this election.
While promoting Biden as a very fit president, Obama criticized Trump for multiple issues, such as only spending $750 in taxes in his last 2 years of presidency, holding hidden bank accounts in China, and what he claims to be weak environmental policies. He especially included an attack for the Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus, saying “Donald Trump isn’t going to suddenly protect all of us. He can’t even take the basic steps to protect himself.” Possibly as an appeal to moderates, he added: “I want to be honest here. This pandemic would have been challenging for any president. But this idea that somehow this White House has done anything but completely screw this up is just not true.” Although politically motivated, these claims aren’t entirely unwarranted. President Trump had supported the reopening of schools, and, directly after their re-opening in early August, the Guardian reported an exponential increase in student infections, forcing many schools to close once more.
It is not surprising that Biden is receiving support currently, as it is only a few weeks from the end of the election and there are key swing states that either candidate must win if they hope to win the election, even if Biden currently has the lead in the polls. Trump campaign communications director, Tim Murtaugh, took Obama’s speech as an opportunity to attack Biden, saying, before the speech, that “Joe Biden is clearly not up to the rigors of campaigning for president, so he's calling in Barack Obama as a reinforcement.” It will be interesting to see what support Trump and Biden receive as the election continues, and to see whether it is more oriented on attacking the other candidate or supporting the image of their own. Obama plans to hold more speeches in support of Biden before the election.
9 comments:
I think that it is very interesting that Obama is openly voicing support for Biden while criticizing Trump. For one, it might seem like this is his duty as a member of the democratic party to help support future democratic candidates. However, in the past, Obama was president and I believe that this entails a certain amount of transparency and unbias between the candidates from the former president even though it might currently be election season. Nonetheless, I am curious to see how, Obama's words will influence the election. 4 years ago, he endorsed Hillary Clinton but that did not seem to sway the election in her favor. Will Obama's support for Biden change the voting outcome this time? Will it lead to more support for Biden or will it only divide voters between Biden and Trump as the small percentage of voters who were on the fence between Biden and Trump but disliked Obama will now lean towards Trump?
I think that Obama's endorsement and support of Biden will overall help him a lot more than harm him. Although I definitely see Laurent's point that the voters who were in between Trump and Biden, but disliked Obama, could lean towards Trump I think that would only make up a small minority of people. Even many 2016 Trump voters are against Trump now, as even though many people may not necessarily support Biden, I do think many people are anti-Trump. There have just been so many scandals against Trump that it definitely makes it hard even for his own supporters to keep supporting him. Regarding the election turnout, it is definitely important that Biden supporters/anti-trump supporters do not have a false sense of security and assume that Biden will win just because he has a lead. However, as the election is coming up in less than 2 weeks now, and I don't think there will be any drastic changes in the polls.
I agree with Brian in that it’s unlikely that a significant number of people will change their candidate preference at this point. Thus, the most important thing anyone can do right now is vote. In the case of Obama’s speech, I think supporting Biden is Obama’s best platform to articulate the urgency of his message, kind of acting as a series in a final appeal to stop the U.S. from going in the direction that the Trump administration is leading it (not just in terms of economy, healthcare, etc., but the idea of protecting “democracy” as well, ensuring that minorities aren’t tyrannized and are ensured their voice). Rightly, Obama is warning not to be overconfident about the potential results; at the end of the day, predictions are merely predictions, and it all depends on who actually turns out (or at least, has voted by mail, etc.). Additionally, I think there is a clear underlying argument beneath Obama’s support for Biden that America just needs someone who isn’t Trump, and maybe that just happens to be Biden in this case.
With Obama supporting Biden I cannot say that it is not a surprise as Biden was Obama's VP and both are Democrats. In addition, I only see this helping Biden as in the past Obama had been able to garner a lot of support from people around the country. This most likely won't sway anyone who planned on voting for Trump, but it may be able to get some of those stragglers who are in the middle. Lastly, this move might help Biden with minority demographics in America as a large number of minorities such as African Americans and Hispanics supported Obama and may now transfer some of that support over to Biden. In the end, this will only help him.
Obama supporting Biden is nothing out of the blue. Obama has been supporting Biden since he was his VP. Im pretty sure this speech was given in Florida which I think has a majority of trump voters right now. I don't think this is going to help their chances in Florida, but having Obamas face supporting Biden might be a great help in getting him elected. As for what Obama said about Trump, nothing is an absolute. He says that the White House completely screwed up the job of keeping the pandemic in check. That is a great way to gain followers if they believe him, but it is a great disservice to the work Trump, his workers, and the US citizens who have been fighting this pandemic. Then he says it is simply not true that they did a good job. Truth is subjective nowadays and he feeds into that by trying to convince people that his word is the truth. Obama is an amazing public speaker and he definitely gained some votes for Biden.
I agree with many of the other comments, it shouldn’t be shocking to see Obama support Biden for Presidency as Biden was his VP and share similar views as they are both Democrats. Even though it won’t convince Trump supporters to change their vote, there are plenty of moderates who may have liked Obama and were unsure with Biden but after seeing how Obama really supports Biden, will be choosing to vote for Biden in the upcoming election. His urgency of telling everyone to vote despite predictions is important, these are only guesses, things can change. To ensure what you want as a citizen, you need to advocate for your points and not just leave it for everyone else and hope for the best. During his speech, Obama also brought up tons of good points on how the government hasn’t been working currently through the pandemic and a great way to bring people in who are currently dissatisfied with Trump. Overall, despite people criticizing Biden for having Obama advocate for him, allowing Obama to do a speech has most likely benefited him more than harming his campaign.
Obama advocating for Biden is nothing out of the ordinary. Obama's support for Biden could date back to when Biden was his Vice President who withheld similar democratic views as him, so that would explain their political interests and relationships. This speech given by Obama would and possibly has most likely benefited Biden's campaign as he pointed out several flaws that the current government is having due to the U.S. late responses to protect the people from the coronavirus. Obama stated that when he left office, there was literally a "handbook" that guides the president and the government on how to take care of the situation, but this did not happen under Trump's leadership since his late response to regulate and be outspoken about social distancing and mask-wearing. Obama points out Trump's inability and inefficiency in leading and protecting a country, which because of his past credibility for being a president for two terms, his words could have easily swayed many voters to become more interested in Biden's campaign. This overall brings together people who are unfavorable of Trump and an attempt to call for unity.
I agree with many of the comments above. I think that Obama's support and outspoken advocation for Biden was an effective technique to get voters excited to vote for Biden. His speech was definitely aimed more to voters already voting Biden rather than moderates stuck in the middle. He openly criticized Trump which just further highlighted the common saying that Biden is the "lesser of two evils" to more leftist voters. However, I do feel like Obama did a goo job is creating mistrust to Trump through highlighting his bank account in China and lack of tax returns. He made a comment that if he was the one with these accusations, Trump would be tearing him apart. As Laurant said, Obama used the tactic of highlighting Trump's flaws in order to persuade voters against him. Especially in this election, I feel like many voters aren't voting for the candidates, but voting against the other, and Obama used this idea strongly to his advantage of endorsing Biden.
There's been a long standing norm that ex-Presidents stay out of politics. If Trump wasn't seen a threat to democracy itself, Obama would stay on the bench. Obama certainly wouldn't be doing events separate from Biden if the crowd size wasn't capped super low by the drive in format -- Obama would get much bigger crowds than Biden and upstage him. This is more like it: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/07/15/how-bill-clinton-and-george-w-bush-got-over-their-politics-and-became-bffs/
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