WASHINGTON WATCH: On The Battle Over Rights, Where Is Joe Biden?
The president leads an immense communications and political juggernaut. He needs to be using it
The country is on fire.
Not literally, but figuratively, most certainly.
Americans are at the precipice of losing the guaranteed right to abortion services for the first time in just about half a century now.
And those on the political right have now made it clear that their assault on our precious civil liberties won't end there.
We could see everything from the reversal of women's access to contraceptives, same-sex marriage — even something as basic as interracial marriage for heterosexual couples.
This is the world which Republicans have to offer.
And I don't mind telling you that — as a woman, a trans woman, and a queer woman —this plan to shear away my civil liberties scares me to death.
This sort of crisis is precisely why I elected Joe Biden as president.
And, as both president and as the leader of the Democratic Party, President Biden has massive communications and political operations at his disposal.
Now is time to break the glass on all of that and put it in overdrive.
Biden needs to be doing a massive number of things both for public consumption and behind the scenes.
But, so far, all I hear are crickets.
No, no, press secretary Jen Psaki's job at talking about these issues from the podium of the daily briefing is encouraging — but not sufficient.
We need to be hearing directly from the president. He is the one who holds the necessary gravitas.
We should be hearing from President Biden for at least short bursts every damn day.
If there was ever a time for over-communication, this is it.
Put a face on these rights
Just for example, feature an average American at the White House who has benefited from these rights which Republicans are on the verge of depriving us of.
A person for whom these rights made a fundamental difference for their health, life or well-being.
Make it a person who is highly relatable and sympathetic for the large swath of the American people.
Do this…and then repeat it every single day, with a different American with a story to tell.
I covered the Clinton administration close-up, and they regularly employed this strategy for their various initiatives.
Between the staff at the White House and the Democratic National Committee, Biden has staff smarter and more able than me.
Put them to very visible work on these problems.
That's what we Democrats and Americans need to see: officials in Washington DC, who are as concerned with — and as scared, excuse me, as shit — as we are at what's about to befall us.
And this says nothing about the work President Biden and his top staff need to be doing, behind the scenes.
One of the reasons we elected Biden was his deep knowledge of inner workings and all of the subtle and hidden levers of power available to the president of the United States.
He and his staff need to be doing that, as well.
The excellent YouTuber, Steve Shives, put together one of his usually excellent videos the other day, in which he — rightly — pointed out how Democratic complacency and inaction is almost as responsible as the Republicans themselves in leaving us in the literally terrifying position we find ourselves at today.
To paraphrase Steve, Democrats have been playing chess while Republicans have been kicking us in the face.
It's now time for the president and everyone who works for him to put the chess away, and begin really fighting back.
The Republicans have been playing dirty and relentlessly for a very long time. If that's how they want to fight, we have to be just as vicious — and just as determined — in response.
Otherwise, a morning will soon come and we wake up and we won't even recognize the country in which we live any longer.
Washington Watch is our occasional opinion and perspective column.
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