There is one thing about America that no movement, election or virus will change.
We like rooting for the underdog, those intrepid souls who fight on despite the odds, despite a Greek chorus of doubters and second-guessers who have already thrown in the towel.
President Trump, love him or hate him, is once again the underdog, and he’s fighting forces who refuse to concede an inch. A pandemic that punishes without regard to one’s worth or achievements. A China out to dominate the world by stealing intellectual property and monitoring what everyone thinks, says, and does. A new movement that accepts only 100% obedience, while rejecting any suggestion they obey the law. A media that preaches open-mindedness while practicing the most insidious kind of intolerance.
Yet in 2016, Americans chose Donald Trump – the outsider — to fight a system that had sentenced too many law-abiding people to a lifetime of hard work without just reward, that looked the other way when bad actors abroad threatened Americans at home, that refused to engage in the hard conversations (immigration, climate change, judicial reform) without assaulting one another with partisan vitriol.
Hillary Clinton never saw it coming, so mired in her condescension about America’s “deplorables” that she failed to recognize she’d become the poster child of the very system Trump identified as an albatross dragging the nation down.
Now fast forward to 2020, the heretofore virtual campaign, where Trump the fighter is set to square off against Joe Biden, the forfeiter. That’s an apt descriptor for a lifetime pol whose greatest achievement has been his climb up the political ladder, who knows how to engage the inside elite with back slaps while deluding the public with backstrokes and back flips.
The record speaks for itself.
Biden forfeited seniors’ security by repeatedly calling for cuts in Social Security. Trump has consistently fought to protect it, against any and all comers.
Biden forfeited America’s manufacturing base by backing the reviled North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Trump replaced it with an historic U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) that forged a tighter economic and trade alliance with our neighbors.
While Biden voted for the invasion of Iraq, in sync with the establishment on both sides of the aisle, Trump fought against it.
As American cities from Seattle to New York consider abdicating to the mob who increasingly represent chaos and calamity, Biden opened the door to much of it by denouncing nearly none of it. Trump drew a line. Peaceful protest? Yes. Bile-fueled lawlessness? Not a chance.
Now, we have the final proof of Joe Biden’s conciliation, capitulation and forfeiture. The selection of Kamala Harris, a VP pick that has little to do with leadership fitness and everything to do with identity politics.
Once we clear the hurdle of dueling virtual conventions, we will witness the final test — three televised presidential debates. Team Biden, knowing their candidate has grown slower of foot and less nimble of mind, are already trying to ensure these debates are virtual as well.
They want to claim the title without climbing into the ring. They want to win despite forfeiting the fight.
While Joe Biden hides out in his Delaware basement, Trump has boots on the ground, battling challenges to America’s survival while enduring body blows from petty partisans and even pettier media critics.
Another president from another century – Teddy Roosevelt — put it best. “It’s not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles … the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.”
The fighter versus the forfeiter. This isn’t just the fight of the century, but for the century, and for every American set to experience some or all of it.
Adam Goodman is a national Republican media strategist and columnist. He is a partner at Ballard Partners in Washington, D.C., and the first Edward R. Murrow Senior Fellow at Tufts University’s Fletcher School. Follow him on Twitter @adamgoodman3.