President Joe Biden talks to Sen. Jon Tester after speaking alongside a bipartisan group of Senators after the group reached a deal on an infrastructure package at the White House on June 24, 2021 in Washington, DC. Biden said both sides made compromises on the nearly $1 trillion infrastructure bill. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
I’ll resist the temptation to make a Jon Tester fingers joke, but I’ll guarantee he’s smart enough to comprehend the one that his fellow Democrats have given to him — and by extension the rest of the country — as they play cutesy with fire.
Play with fire, as the saying goes, and you’re likely to get burned.
The Democrats in D.C. are demonstrating they’re no slouches when it comes to games of “what-aboutism,” the finely honed practice of responding to a serious question with another question meant to deflect and reflect back on their opposition.
As the Democrats pretend the aging but arrogant President Joe Biden didn’t sound like he did, didn’t appear dazed and very confused, they respond to any questions about his competence or acuity with a reply that often sounds something like this: What about Donald Trump?
As if Americans should tolerate either.
How much longer do Democrats, who are on the brink of a very important victory, want to continue to insult our intelligence by insisting that what our eyes see and ears hear is not important? If that were the case, why in the hell should we even be concerned about the last decade of Donald Trump, if we’re going to start disregarding what he says and how he appears?
Using the Democrats’ logic: We shouldn’t be concerned by Biden, but we should see some of the same characteristics of Trump as a threat.
Right.
Tester has been a master of distancing himself from the kind of reflexively partisan antics that have left Americans and Montanans with a persistent sour taste in our mouths. Now, when Tester is fighting to keep his Senate seat, in the midst of a hugely consequential election, the Democratic Party insists it’s not talking about the problems of Biden, and that he’s the candidate because Biden declares it so.
Well, it’s good the Dems can control the conversation just by declaring it so. The public will continue to talk about whatever it feels like, thank you.
Now, Tester is stuck in a terrible position: Support the party, which insists that we should not believe what we can so clearly see, and by doing so, the incumbent Senator keeps his political life alive while losing face with the same people who will vote in November.
So gridlocked is Washington, D.C., that the Democrats won’t even avail themselves of the living examples right across the aisle in Congress to see what happens when a political party kowtows to the insistence of one person, surrounded by a chorus of adoring sycophants.
Tester must now have to make a difficult decision, whether to trust his political party or trust his own eyes and ears.
So far, he’s managed a deft deflection of the issue, saying he’s worked with both Trump and Biden, and he’ll do so again regardless. But that’s the right answer to the wrong the question.
The same kind of logic that got us four questionable years with Trump, an insurrection and now the existential threat of a dictator, a word that Trump has openly embraced, is playing out on the opposite side as Tester’s fellow Senate colleagues, like John Fetterman, or the powerful House member, Jerry Nadler, can’t screw up much more than, “He’s our guy and so we’re getting behind him.”
“He’s our guy” isn’t so much an endorsement as it is a pathetic confirmation of Joe Biden’s existence. He is allegedly alive. And, he is the current Democratic nominee.
But that doesn’t just miss the point, it’s an abdication of the most fundamental reason people like Tester are in Congress — to make tough decisions, to think independently, and do the hard work which can’t really be classified as “hard” until it’s truly difficult. Like now.
As odd or even as bad as it may sound, the best thing for Tester to do is what he has been doing for a long time: Break with his party, thank Biden for his stability, but call for a candidate that seems up to the task to thwarting the darker parts of today’s conservative politics, which includes a renunciation of Project 2025, and its hopeful banishment deep to an unlocked guest bathroom in Mar-a-Lago.
Tester’s greatest asset is his unflinching and stubborn independence, something that doesn’t just resonate with Montana, but is part of our DNA.
Instead of the Democratic Party’s decision to sacrifice politicians like Tester in the name of ol’ Joe, Tester may want to think about turning the tables on the Dems and reminding us that what we’ve seen and heard is true. The real question that remains isn’t whether Biden is up to another four years.
That question has been answered. He isn’t.
The real question is: Where is the leadership to do something about it?
The post Tester deserves to give the Dems a taste of their own medicine appeared first on Daily Montanan.