Wise up about "grow up"

Some recent polls have indicated a difficulty for Joe Biden's reelection chances in that young people in particular, a major area of support in 2020, are unenthusiastic about voting for him this time because they are upset with recent decisions and policies, particularly around Gaza, the Palestinians, and Israel.

And we have seen the thoroughly predictable response from several quarters among the party stalwarts: "Grow up!"

Well, I have some advice based on the experience of over 50 years of being one of the unrecognized, uncelebrated millions who have labored in the trenches of political activism.

You want to encourage people to vote for Biden despite their misgivings? Okay. First of all, DO NOT tell them to "grow up," you blithering idiot. It is rude, insulting, and condescending. It may make you feel extra-virtuous ("Look at me - I'm voting for Biden despite all my disagreements! See how politically mature I am?") but it won't do a damn bit of good. Put more simply, "Shut up and do what your betters tell you!" is not an argument. This is a mistake the Dems have made repeatedly, perhaps most disastrously in 1980 when they treated Ralph Nader voters as disobedient children to be scolded rather than adults to be persuaded and we got George Bush, AKA "Shrub," and all that entailed as a consequence.

The most important thing to do (as opposed to not do) if you want to convince someone overcome their reluctance to turn out for Biden is tell them why they should, meaning why they should vote for him, not just against Tweetie-pie, AKA The Great Orange Messiah. There certainly are positive arguments in his favor you can raise; COVID recovery aid, Build Back Better with its infrastructure and climate funding, the Inflation Reduction Act with its taxing the rich and start of negotiating drug prices, and student debt relief spring immediately to mind. None of them unqualified successes, but all undeniably better than what existed before.

Next, yes, compare him to Tweetie-pie but don't make that the sum total or even the focus of the argument. That's exactly the mistake the Dems made in 2016, when most of the campaign seemed to be "We're not that scumball Trump!" and we know how that worked out. Argue the "yes," not (at least not primarily) the "no," because resorting to "lesser of two evils" arguments are not going to fly.

At the same time, there are areas where the "lesser evil" can be argued and I am thinking specifically of Israel and Palestinians. Biden has not only failed to call for an immediate ceasefire, he has sent additional military aid to Israel, all as part of his "bear hug" strategy of holding Netanyahu close in the hope of being able to constrain him - a policy that has been a demonstrable, horrific, failure.

But where Biden has failed to constrain, Tweetie-pie would actively encourage. It's properly said you should not make the perfect the enemy of the good, but it is quite true that you can make the worse the enemy of the bad, the actively evil the enemy of the cruel failure.

Note that none of this addresses what is the biggest threat of this election: Tweetie-pie's unique threat to our ability to continue as a functioning democracy. And absolutely, after arguing for the "yes" and getting to the point of "Yeah, I suppose," then dive in with everything in your arsenal, including his increasingly-bizarre rants, his repeated praise of dictators, January 6, and Project 2025 and if you don't know what that is, look it up! (A few sources are offered at the end here.)

Look, the last major party general election presidential candidate I felt I really could believe in was George McGovern. There is nothing anyone can tell me about strategic voting or tactical voting or lesser-of-two-evils voting or even hold-your-nose voting. I have done them all at local, state, and national levels. For most of my voting life I have lived in one safely-blue state or another, so I usually could opt to vote third party without impacting the presidential outcome. But in 2020 I did and in 2024 I will again vote for Biden despite my disappointments and despite being in a safely blue state because I not only want Tweetie-pie to lose the electoral vote; I want him crushed in the popular vote. I want Johnson-Goldwater levels. I won't get them, but that's my target.

And sneering at those reluctant to vote for Biden to "grow up" is not going to get us anything toward that goal.

Some sources for Project 2025
https://www.youtube.com/hashtag/project2025
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2024/01/07/analysis-of-the-project-2025-plan-for-the-next-conservative-president/72008293007/
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/conservatives-aim-to-restructure-u-s-government-and-replace-it-with-trumps-vision
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/09/19/project-2025-trump-reagan-00115811
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/what-is-project-2025-the-political-plot-to-destroy-america-s-freedoms/ar-AA1gWxfK