Uncle Fluffy Stays Home

Hello, it’s the weekend. This is The Weekender ☕

On an episode of The West Wing, President Barlett’s senior staffers agonize over which form of the President will show up to a critical debate: The cutting, no-nonsense Nobel Laureate, or the folksy, inoffensive “Uncle Fluffy.” 

Biden’s Uncle Fluffy is whispery, long-winded, lost in the cadence and musicality of the speech. His sharp form is aggressive, even pugilistic, but with a palpable joy. He’s enjoying the sparring match, has been around long enough to know it’s part of the game.

On Thursday night, Biden left Uncle Fluffy at home. He eagerly threw punches, often goading Republicans to heckle him. At times he succeeded, getting them to boo their own plan to cut taxes for the rich and corporations. He was playful, offering to take back federal funds if they don’t want them for their local infrastructure projects. He settled on the most effective rhetorical tactic yet in addressing and dispensing with the age concern. He was sharp enough on the border bill Donald Trump killed to prompt Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), a dyed-in-the-wool, religious conservative, to mouth “that’s true” while he ticked off its components. 

It wasn’t the perfect speech, and Biden isn’t a perfect speaker. Still conquering a childhood stutter, he often swallows the ends of his sentences and rushes through inflection points (congressional Democrats and Vice President Kamala Harris on a pogo stick did wonders to soften some of those hard landings). He veered off script to parry with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), fumbling his point and twice referring to undocumented immigrants by the dehumanizing and disused-by-Democrats term “illegals” in an unfortunate blunder. 

But he was active and energetic, becoming particularly animated when he detailed the inequality in the tax system that overwhelmingly favors the rich (which happens to be a top concern about a potential Trump presidency for non-college educated and relatively low-earning voters, per a recent poll).

He spent 30 minutes hand-shaking, selfie-taking and taking down members’ mothers’ numbers on his way out of the chamber — chatting for so long that the House gavelled out of session and the lights dimmed (poor Harris stranded on the dias for much of it, icing out Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA)). 

Republicans and their media allies had to scramble to find a new way to criticize Biden, as no one was going to buy feebleness after that speech. (They settled on accusing him of shouting and taking uppers — of being too energetic.)

White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates — a Biden aide perhaps quietly worried about which version of the President would show up last night — gleefully tweeted in response to the right-wing

While anyone paying any iota of attention to politics has long known that 2024 would be a 2020 presidential rematch, the matchup became near-official this week. 

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R), who grew a fairly uninteresting and timid campaign into an admirable broadside against Donald Trump, suspended her run after Super Tuesday. While she was never close to winning the nomination, she left behind valuable information about Republicans who oppose Trump — data the Biden campaign will use to try to win them over. She also provided a temporary home to Republicans disgusted with Trump but allergic to various policies and ideologies espoused by Democrats.

Other races down-ballot clicked into place, many of the headline ones redounding to Democrats’ benefit. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ), having made herself radioactive to Democrats with splashy rejections of the left’s central beliefs, drove herself out of the Senate — clearing the way for Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) to focus his money and campaign on beating Kari Lake (R). 

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) ruthlessly boxed out Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA) of the top two Senate primary slots, disappointing progressives (and sparking a mini-controversy over Porter’s word choice when she characterized his tactics as “rigging the election”). But his victory and virtually assured general election win over Republican and former baseball player Steve Garvey mean Democrats won’t have to spend precious resources on an internecine fight. 

And in North Carolina, Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson (R), of Holocaust denialism and calling gay people “filth” fame, won his gubernatorial primary — giving Democrats a posterboy for this Republican class of candidates and potentially helping put the state in play for Biden.

As we head toward the general election with Trump at the top of the Republican ticket, experts are warning that many of the same dangers that threatened the 2020 election should be expected this November too. In discussions with TPM this week, they narrowed down the most pressing threats into five categories: election deniers who are still in office, election misinformation and disinformation, the potential for violence to election workers, the weaponization of a decentralized election system, and voter suppression and intimidation. 

Election workers are particularly concerned about the potential for violence, and are bracing themselves for a barrage of threats and intimidation this November. Among the steps to prepare: election departments across are incorporating mental health training and resources into their 2024 election training protocols.

TPM spoke to a handful of election officials across the country who explained the different types of workshops and resources they have newly implemented into their election training programs. 

“A lot of us did experience threats and harassment and things like that, so we know firsthand what everyone is going through,” Annie Mendoza, elections expert with the Elections Group, who has helped to create resources to support election worker mental health. “And I guess you can say we don’t feel like we can just sit back and not do anything about it, not help our colleagues.”

Last Saturday, the actress Sydney Sweeney hosted “Saturday Night Live” and the online right had many weird things to say about it. The thesis of these reactions could be summed up thusly: Sydney Sweeny’s cleavage had defeated wokeness.

As one would expect, many of the reactions to this were “What?” In reply, conservatives say something like “ha, libs owned.” And then, when “the libs” explain “actually we just don’t even know what you are talking about” — genuine, honest confusion — the conservatives say, “ha, the libs don’t even get humor” and “‘wokes’ love to pretend they don’t know what ‘woke’ means.”

Ah, but, there it is. There’s the answer. It’s not just confusion over the definition of “woke,” though people generally don’t know what this culture war stuff is about because only one side is engaged in the battle. To even understand what the online right is talking about requires being steeped in layers upon layers of grievances that go back years. But they don’t just assume you are versed in these baroque skirmishes: their dunk is predicated on the belief that engaging in them is your guiding ideology. That’s the vast chasm we’re dealing with here. What they think is a ubiquitous worldview doesn’t actually exist except as a prism through which they see the world.
 

So take the Sweeney stuff. It’s essentially a series of misunderstandings that fester over years into macabre takes like “tits will defeat the left.” First off, they’re mad about the body positivity movement, which tells people they should love themselves no matter what they look like. The right interprets this as telling people they should embrace being unhealthy. There are too many logical leaps there to get into, but it’s obviously dumb. An outgrowth of this grievance was the kerfuffle over putting a plus-sized model on the cover of Sports Illustrated. This was interpreted as a war against “hot” people. The DEI crowd is out here affirmative-actioning the girls in bikinis.

So just let that marinate for a bit. Settle into this worldview where the left is FOR being unhealthy and AGAINST beauty. Everything has to be binary, remember. The very idea of inclusivity is in fact exclusionary. Only now can you understand how anyone would think Sydney Sweeney’s boobs were obliterating the left, because you’ve started to make your way down the chain of grievance and misunderstanding.