Friday, March 6, 2020

On Biden and coronavirus

The worse coronavirus gets, the more sense it makes for Joe Biden to be the Democratic presidential nominee.

Why? 2 reasons:

1) Biden is uniquely credible because he has experience from when the Obama administration dealt with Ebola.

2) The risks of huge numbers of people coming to the US from everywhere else in the world are becoming more and more salient. This could put voters in a mindset where they’re not so disturbed by Trump’s hardline views on immigration. They might still think the administration has sometimes been inhumane. But they might deprioritize their empathy for masses of people from other countries, and give more weight to the health of their own families, coworkers, etc. In that context, it wouldn’t help Democrats to nominate someone who’s recently made statements that will strike many swing voters as too lenient on illegal immigration. The very fact that Biden was attacked so much in the primaries over the millions of Obama deportations means he’ll be less vulnerable to attacks from Republicans in the general over immigration.

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