Some day in the not-distant future, people will look back upon August 31, 2022, and say: this was the moment when everything turned around for the Democrats on their way to an amazing, history-defying, triumph in the midterm elections!
At least, if you believe the rosy pronouncements on Wednesday's Morning Joe.
Pick your metaphor: was the Morning Joe gang putting on the flippers and plunging into the tank? Breaking out their pom poms? Or, perhaps, reading the tea leaves and seeing them come up all roses, if you prefer a mixed metaphor!
Keying off a Biden campaign speech in Pennsylvania yesterday, the panel claimed to see clear signs of a turnaround in Dem fortunes:
It started with this exchange between Joe Scarborough and Mika Brezinski:
Joe: There's a time in a game, a basketball game, you can just see it on the court happening. Football game. Soccer. And in politics. I've always noticed it in politics. I'm sure you have, too. Where a momentum shifts in a very significant way.
Mika: -- a turning point.
Joe: -- This is a turning point.
A bit later, Jonathan Lemire trumpeted:
"President Biden is, quite simply, on a roll. Democrats have momentum. They have the wind at their back . . . White House aides I've spoke to say the place feels revitalized. They feel like, as we hit Labor Day, the stretch run of this campaign, Democrats love where they are."
Even the normally more even-handed Willie Geist piled on, approvingly citing Scarborough's oft-repeated description of Republicans as "freaks, weirdos, and insurrectionists." Claimed Geist:
"He is stepping into this place right now where a lot of Americans are. Where things seem like they're going off the rails on one side of the aisle."
It seems clear that the liberal media are pushing two sharply contrasting narratives. On the one hand, "the walls are closing in" on Donald Trump, and by extension, on Republicans at large. But Democrats have "the wind at their back" and things are breaking their way. We shall see.
Note: in the clip Morning Joe played from Biden's campaign speech, at one point he prefaced a remark by saying, "look: I want to say this as clear as I can." That must have had his handlers holding their collective breath! And sure enough, in his spiel, Biden urged the crowd to elect Josh Shapiro as senator (he’s running for governor) and to elect John Fetterman as governor (he’s running for Senate.) Video here.
Later, Biden asked, "where the hell are we?" Now, he apparently meant that as an attack on Republicans for their rhetoric. But again, it was wording Biden should avoid, bringing to mind as it does images of a dazed-and-confused Ol' Joe having to be led off off stage in the right direction.
Here's the transcript.
MSNBC
Morning Joe
8/31/22
6:03 am EDT
JOE SCARBOROUGH: You know, Willie, there's a time in a game, a basketball game, you can just see it on the court happening. Football game. Soccer. And in politics. I've always noticed it in politics. I'm sure you have, too. Where a momentum shifts in a ivery significant way. And, again, we're still -- we're still a long way off until the election. I'm not saying that Republicans aren't going to have a historic year. They should. But last night was Joe Biden and the Democratic party off their heels --MIKA BRZEZINSKI: -- yeah.
SCARBOROUGH: -- for the first time, I think, since 2020 . . . This is --
MIKA: The turning point.
SCARBOROUGH: This is, this is a turning point.
. . .
WILLIE GEIST: Joe, I'm going to quote you for months now: freaks weirdos, and insurrectionists. You've been advising Democrats talking about Republicans. This is who they are, this is what they're doing, and the president effectively was saying that yesterday in different terms, perhaps. But that's what he was saying.
He was like tapping into something that is really out there. And his boost in the polls is coming from independents who are watching what's happening in the country and saying, no, it's not okay. It's extreme to defend an attempted coup of an American presidential election. No it's not okay to force a 14-year-old girl to have her rapist's baby. No, it's not okay to take boxes and boxes of classified documents to a country club and then lie about them and not turn them over when asked. That is extreme.
. . .
So it seems, Jonathan Lemire, that Joe Biden, maybe we'll see more of it tomorrow night in that prime-time speech. He is stepping into this place right now where a lot of Americans are. Where things seem like they're going off the rails on one side of the aisle.
JONATHAN LEMIRE: Think of the different places, a split screen between these two men right now. Donald Trump, you know, headlines going worse by the day about what the DoJ found at Mar-a-Lago. Republicans left to scramble to try to defend that work, in this case, distract, try to deflect, talk about something else. They see the polls. Their Senate candidates in a number of states in trouble. They're worried alsp now about their ability to flip the House.
And then you have President Biden, who is, quite simply, on a roll. Democrats have momentum. They have the wind at their back. A series of legislative wins. Some bipartisan, some Democrats only. And there's just a new energy. White House aides I've spoke to say the place feeks revitalized. They feel like, as we hit Labor Day, the stretch run of this campaign, Democrats love where they are. And they're painting Republicans as being out of touch with mainstream Americans on a number of issues.
