Come, friends, and let us clutch our pearls together, for the president of the United States—in saying what needed saying years ago, in identifying the rot eroding our institutions, in echoing the increasingly dire warnings of democracy scholars about the illiberal, authoritarian movement that has consumed conservative politics—might have hurt the fuck-your-feelings crowd’s feelings. The speech at Philadelphia's Independence Hall last week—billed as a major address on the “battle for the soul of the nation”—will likely be most remembered for its strangely ominous optics, like President Joe Biden’s comms team leaned in a little too hard to the Dark Brandon memes, with red floodlights and a Marine honor guard silhouetted behind him.
Come, friends, and let us clutch our pearls together, for the president of the United States—in saying what needed saying years ago, in identifying the rot eroding our institutions, in echoing the increasingly dire warnings of democracy scholars about the illiberal, authoritarian movement that has consumed conservative politics—might have hurt the fuck-your-feelings crowd’s feelings. The speech at Philadelphia's Independence Hall last week—billed as a major address on the “battle for the soul of the nation”—will likely be most remembered for its strangely ominous optics, like President Joe Biden’s comms team leaned in a little too hard to the Dark Brandon memes, with red floodlights and a Marine honor guard silhouetted behind him.