President Biden’s campaign is seeking to remind voters of controversial statements and actions President Trump has said and done in an effort to break through what it sees as public amnesia over his tumultuous presidency.
On Tuesday, the Biden campaign took to social media to remind voters about the time Trump “bragged” about tear-gassing Black Lives Matter protesters in 2020 to clear the way for a photo op at a church near the White House.
“They went in, and it was like a knife cutting butter. Boom. I’ll never forget,” the Biden campaign wrote on the social platform X, echoing Trump’s own words at the time.
Last week, when the Biden campaign released an ad around the anniversary of D-Day, it devoted the entirety of the minute-long spot to reminding voters about Trump’s comments on veterans, including when he reportedly called them “losers” and “suckers.”
At a fundraiser earlier this month, Biden recalled the danger Trump would pose to the room full of well-heeled Democrats, recalling the past while predicting the future: “Here is what is becoming clearer and clearer every day. The threat that Trump poses would be greater in a second term than it was in his first term.
“This isn’t the same Trump who got elected in 2016,” Biden continued. “He’s worse.”
Recent polls suggest a number of voters are looking back more fondly at the Trump years than the Biden team would hope, as surveys show Trump leading the president nationally and in swing states.
The numbers have alarmed Democrats, who say voters are forgetting events like the Jan. 6th attack on the Capitol.
Biden wants to dredge up what his campaign hopes voters will see as the worst days of the Trump White House, casting his rival as the president who was supportive of Russia and North Korea, and as the same man who reportedly dubbed African nations a “—-hole.”
The Biden campaign will also continue to point to Trump’s efforts to diminish the 2020 election and his attempts to overturn the results.
“Democrats have to push back against a romanticized Trump era,” said Tim Hogan, a Democratic strategist.
Hogan acknowledged that some voters may think of the Trump years as the ones that came before the COVID-19 pandemic. “It’s a tricky task to untangle voters associating a simpler life before the pandemic with the early Trump years, but it’s an essential one. It was chaos then, it will be chaos again if he wins. That has to be embedded in the messaging.”
Philippe Reines, the longtime senior adviser to Hillary Clinton, said Democrats need to revisit the moment when Trump was defeated the last time, underscoring the fatigue many people felt at the time and the palpable sentiment that he was a danger to the country.
“America needs to be reminded of what we were thinking in November 2020 when Trump was defeated,” Reines said. “That feeling for many of being fed up with the lying, the antics, the hate, the embarrassment.”
Reines acknowledged that the amnesia is a real factor not just where Trump is concerned but across the board, as voters examine their lives now and then.
“While Jan. 20, 2021, was a hugely consequential date in each man’s life, no one in America remembers what a gallon of gas cost the day before they switched jobs versus the day after,” he said. “All they remember is what it costs now and who’s president now.”
In recent months — even as Trump has been sidelined by a New York trial centered on hush money paid to a porn star — Biden has struggled to win support even from some in his own party.
Voters have cast doubts on his abilities to handle issues including inflation, immigration and conflicts overseas in Ukraine and Gaza.
“I’m not sure I would call it amnesia,” said Shermichael Singleton, a Republican strategist. “I think people aren’t happy with the past four years of Biden.”
At the same time, Republican strategist Doug Heye — who does not support Trump — said “every president has benefited from an increase in approval after they’ve left office.
“Combine that with a lot of voters memory-holing COVID, and that has worked to Trump’s advantage,” Heye said.
Biden allies say they’re aware of this. And they say Biden will continue to bring back that visceral feeling voters had in 2016 when Trump was elected.
In one fundraising missive, earlier this year, Biden sought to go back to one of the darkest days for Democrats.
“Remember how you felt the day after Donald Trump was elected president in 2016,” he said. “Remember walking around in disbelief and fear of what was to come.”
