US President Joe Biden is a remarkable leader animated by a populist zeal to improve the lives of average Americans, or so his advisors would have us believe. The problem is that voters are simply unaware of his extraordinary accomplishments.
Such is the view of people like Faiz Shakir, a Democratic Party operative and former Bernie Sanders campaign manager tasked with advising Biden in the runup to tonight’s debate with former President Donald Trump. Dissatisfaction reigns over the octogenarian leader’s handling of issues such as Israel, Ukraine, and the economy. But liberal thought leaders insist the president only needs to do a better job of framing his revolutionary ethos and triumphs.
Commentator and podcast host Misty Winston joined Sputnik’s The Critical Hour program Thursday to appraise such views as Trump and Biden gear up for tonight’s anticipated and highly stage-managed faceoff.
Host Wilmer Leon began by sounding a note of skepticism towards the president’s reported strategy, asking, “How is Joe Biden from Delaware – Mr. Genocide, corporate Joe – how is he going to do this?” Biden has historically been recognized for his affinity with large financial institutions, many of which are headquartered in Delaware to take advantage of the state’s low taxes and lax regulation.
Biden has been criticized for promoting a bankruptcy bill during his time in Congress that made it more difficult for borrowers to discharge student debt; the lawmaker was often known as "the senator from MBNA” for his close relationship with the former banking conglomerate.
“I'm also very curious about this 'compelling anti-monopoly record,’” Winston said, referring to reports of his advisors’ attempts to portray him in a populist light. “I would like to see that. I don't know anything about that. So, maybe it's been kept a secret from all of us.”
“It is all about narrative,” the analyst claimed. “It has nothing to do with his actual policy positions, his actual record.”
“That's the arrogance,” said host Garland Nixon, responding to Democratic Party operatives’ insistence that “too few Americans know” about Biden’s economic populist record. “‘The economy is good, you people are just too stupid to know it! Joe Biden is a populist!’ All their argument is always, ‘we've got to get the message to these poor idiots and saps that just don't know… We're fools, that's the problem.”
“Yeah, it's always the voters’ fault,” said Winston mockingly. “ WikiLeaks exposed, I think it was in the [Democratic National Committee] leak, that the DNC was like, ‘listen, we like ignorant voters. We want them as ignorant as possible. We don't want them to know anything about anything.’ We know that. George Carlin was telling us that decades ago. They want you just smart enough to run the machines, and that's the dumbing down of America. We've all seen it take place.”
The famed comedian and social critic was well known for his biting commentary on US politics and society. “You don’t need a formal conspiracy when interests converge,” Carlin once observed, encapsulating the exercise of elite power in Western countries. “These people went to the same universities and fraternities, they're on the same boards of directors, they're in the same country clubs. They have like interests, they don’t need to call a meeting.”
“They know what’s good for them, and they’re getting it,” he claimed. “The things that matter in this country have been reduced in choice. There are two political parties, there are a handful of insurance companies, there are about 6 or 7 information [sources]... you have the illusion, you have the illusion of choice. You don’t get the real important choices.”
Recent polling suggests growing numbers of Americans share the satirist’s cynicism, with a record number of voters rejecting both major-party candidates in the 2024 election. A significant majority now believe the United States needs a third major party, but one has so far been prevented from gaining significant support.
The bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates, which previously set a high bar for the participation of third-party candidates in the televised events, was scrapped entirely this year as independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. threatens to garner a significant portion of the vote.
“I think that the voters are far more savvy than they're given credit for,” said Winston. “And I think a lot of people have started to examine these types of situations and examine the system in general. We're starting to see people really snap out of it and wake up to the game that's being played, and people are realizing that both teams essentially are owned and operated by the exact same people and they don’t work for the public.”
“So I think that that's really what they're contending with right now,” she concluded. “To me that's a really important and significant shift, seeing people come to that realization. And I think that we're on the cusp of a really dramatic mindset shift in this country amongst the voting population for sure.”