Biden and Bloomberg: Trump as “existential threat”
Biden labeled Mr. Trump an existential threat to decency, America’s standing in the world, and democracy.
We cannot afford four more years of President Trump’s reckless and unethical actions. He represents an existential threat to our country and our values. If he wins another term in office, we may never recover from the damage.The stakes could not be higher. We must win this election. And we must begin rebuilding America.
Is anything going on here other than hyperbole and propaganda? Neither Biden nor Bloomberg really explains what each means by “existential threat.” Why not just label him as a simple “threat”?
I think the word “existential” is in there partly because it sounds highfalutin and intelligent (Sartre, anyone?), as well as being an intensifier. It’s not enough to say that Trump merely threatens the Democratic Party, (which he does) or the Deep State bureaucracy (which he does), or even certain leftist causes such as increased gun control. He doesn’t just threaten to turn the judicial system to the right by appointing conservative judges and justices.
“Existential” indicates it’s not just leftist causes he threatens, or the left. No, he threatens the very existence of decency, of democracy, of our country itself.
Is the existence of “decency” so very tenuous, is it hanging by such a slender thread, that one man’s tweets can obliterate it?
And he’s an existential threat to “democracy”? Is that a reference to the persistent idea that Trump stole the 2016 election, or do they mean something more than that? They usually don’t bother to explain; we listeners are supposed to know.
Our standing in the world seems fine to me. The economy is booming, but Bloomberg – who certainly must know something about finance and economics – insists that America must be “rebuilt.” Strange; I don’t see it collapsing around me.
However, these messages of “existential threat” conform to what liberals and the left (and a lot of people on the right, too) thought prior to Trump’s presidency and still think now—that Trump will either cause the world to end (through climate change or nuclear war, for example) or will wreak irreparable damage on the US (though those two mechanisms or countless others—economic and racial strife for starters).
Prior to Trump’s presidency some of those fears were at least somewhat plausible. He’d never held office. He seemed like a loose cannon. He was a rich real estate developer, self-promoter, and reality TV star. It was difficult to picture him dealing with world leaders or a country such as North Korea (not that any other president had dealt well with it either, but Trump’s bombast seemed especially worrisome).
Three years of Trump’s presidency has proven those particular fears wrong. Most people on the right have abandoned them by now, but the left and liberals not only (bitterly) cling to them, it sometimes seems that such fears have increased rather than decreased. The MSM and Democratic politicians and pundits have been fanning the flames of the panic, and although some (or much) of what they do is tactical and cynical, I know many people who listen and are sincerely and deeply afraid.
It’s interesting that Biden and Bloomberg – candidates who present themselves as the most moderate of the Democrats – are using this kind of apocalyptic language to stoke the already-existent fears about Trump. It belies the idea that they are moderate at all. But to play to the base, candidates have to speak in the language of the base. And that’s what they’re doing.
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