Last summer, as Washington analysts giddily hyped a coming red wave, Democrats anonymously peppered Beltway reporters with disparaging critiques of all the things President Biden should be saying but wasn't.
Pieces appearing in July in The Washington Post, Politico, and CNN questioned whether the president and his White House were “capable” of “meeting the moment” as “alternative voices” emerged to fill the void.
Perhaps understandably, Democrats yearned for more fiery rhetoric in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling decimating Roe v. Wade, a mass shooting killing seven at an Independence Day parade in Highland Park, Illinois, and the GOP's continued assault on basic pillars of democracy such as voting rights and freedom of speech.
But a closer review of Biden's speeches in the first six months of 2022 revealed the president delivered a number of sharp-tongued speeches challenging Republicans on everything from the Jan. 6. insurrection to the GOP assault on voting rights to the moral bankruptcy of a Republican Party that stands for nothing.
Roughly a dozen of those speeches didn't seem to break through, however, because they lacked an overarching theme. As I wrote last July, Biden's efforts had come across "more like one-offs" on a range of various topics. "The lack of a cohesive unifying narrative has led to some pretty solid and forceful speeches getting lost in the thicket of our pervasive 24/7 news cycle," I concluded.
But Biden's focus on freedom last week as he launched his reelection campaign is exactly the type of framing that would have woven those speeches together into a more coherent, sticky, and meaningful narrative for voters.
Campaign Action
When Biden last year accused Jan. 6 insurrectionists of holding "a dagger at the throat of our democracy" or when he dubbed the MAGA movement the "most extreme political organization" in recent American history, both remarks would have served as powerful observations about the Republican war on freedom.
The Biden campaign's first ad declared the president has made "defending our basic freedoms the cause of his presidency."
The beauty of freedom as a cause is that it’s broad enough to encompass issues as fundamental as GOP bans on abortions and books, yet also serve as a backstop to less obvious issues.
For example, Biden has now added the freedom of "our children to be safe from gun violence"; the freedom not just to vote, but also "to have your vote counted"; and the freedom of opportunity—"a fair shot at a good life."
None of these issues are new to Biden. In his Jan. 6 commemoration last year, Biden spoke of defending "the right to vote and to have that vote counted." During a rousing speech to the AFL-CIO last June, the president called for "an economy where all of us have a fair shot."
But by melding all these seemingly disparate topics together with the through-line of freedom, they all become more resonant and gripping. The framing also encourages people to contemplate how valuable freedom is to them, and the many ways in which it is under attack in their own lives.
Last year, President Biden received more guff than accolades for the speeches he delivered on the way to a surprisingly good showing for Democrats in the midterms. But all of that legwork was a necessary precursor to Team Biden landing on the powerful framework of freedom that will resonate through 2024 and beyond.
The past week seems to have packed in a month’s worth of news. Markos and Kerry tackle it all, from Joe Biden’s big announcement to Tucker Carlson’s early retirement from Fox News.
Embedded Content
Pieces appearing in July in The Washington Post, Politico, and CNN questioned whether the president and his White House were “capable” of “meeting the moment” as “alternative voices” emerged to fill the void.
Perhaps understandably, Democrats yearned for more fiery rhetoric in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling decimating Roe v. Wade, a mass shooting killing seven at an Independence Day parade in Highland Park, Illinois, and the GOP's continued assault on basic pillars of democracy such as voting rights and freedom of speech.
But a closer review of Biden's speeches in the first six months of 2022 revealed the president delivered a number of sharp-tongued speeches challenging Republicans on everything from the Jan. 6. insurrection to the GOP assault on voting rights to the moral bankruptcy of a Republican Party that stands for nothing.
Roughly a dozen of those speeches didn't seem to break through, however, because they lacked an overarching theme. As I wrote last July, Biden's efforts had come across "more like one-offs" on a range of various topics. "The lack of a cohesive unifying narrative has led to some pretty solid and forceful speeches getting lost in the thicket of our pervasive 24/7 news cycle," I concluded.
But Biden's focus on freedom last week as he launched his reelection campaign is exactly the type of framing that would have woven those speeches together into a more coherent, sticky, and meaningful narrative for voters.
Campaign Action
When Biden last year accused Jan. 6 insurrectionists of holding "a dagger at the throat of our democracy" or when he dubbed the MAGA movement the "most extreme political organization" in recent American history, both remarks would have served as powerful observations about the Republican war on freedom.
The Biden campaign's first ad declared the president has made "defending our basic freedoms the cause of his presidency."
The beauty of freedom as a cause is that it’s broad enough to encompass issues as fundamental as GOP bans on abortions and books, yet also serve as a backstop to less obvious issues.
For example, Biden has now added the freedom of "our children to be safe from gun violence"; the freedom not just to vote, but also "to have your vote counted"; and the freedom of opportunity—"a fair shot at a good life."
None of these issues are new to Biden. In his Jan. 6 commemoration last year, Biden spoke of defending "the right to vote and to have that vote counted." During a rousing speech to the AFL-CIO last June, the president called for "an economy where all of us have a fair shot."
But by melding all these seemingly disparate topics together with the through-line of freedom, they all become more resonant and gripping. The framing also encourages people to contemplate how valuable freedom is to them, and the many ways in which it is under attack in their own lives.
Last year, President Biden received more guff than accolades for the speeches he delivered on the way to a surprisingly good showing for Democrats in the midterms. But all of that legwork was a necessary precursor to Team Biden landing on the powerful framework of freedom that will resonate through 2024 and beyond.
The past week seems to have packed in a month’s worth of news. Markos and Kerry tackle it all, from Joe Biden’s big announcement to Tucker Carlson’s early retirement from Fox News.
Embedded Content