Last month, as congressional Republicans devolved into endless chaos and the political world finally accepted that Donald Trump would almost certainly be the GOP presidential nominee in 2024, Joe Biden's campaign decided it would highlight the fact that the president and the Democrats continue to do their jobs professionally and behave like leaders. They called this the "split-screen" strategy, and according to press reports they sent out talking points and daily memos to illustrate the contrast between the steady leadership of the Biden administration and the constant turmoil on the Republican side .
For instance, while the president was addressing the U.N. in September and walking the picket line with striking auto workers, Republicans in the House were squabbling over a defense spending bill they couldn't pass and preparing to oust their own speaker of the House because a handful of members had a personal grudge against him. Donald Trump was whining about all the legal problems he's faces and ranting about Republican officials he deems to be disloyal. The contrasts have only gotten starker since then.
But Trump is also deploying his own version of a split-screen strategy, and it's a lurid fantasy that rivals anything in "Game of Thrones." His split screen has Joe Biden on one side as a senile incompetent, while all around him crime is rampant, violent immigrant hordes are invading the country, decent Americans are starving and begging in the streets, children are being molested by transgender teachers and the nation's cities look like something out of "A Clockwork Orange." On the other side of the screen is the utopia of the Trump years: Everyone was rich, the world was at peace and the whole country was happy and content like pampered children in a fairy tale, all because of their unfairly-defeated Dear Leader.
Whether Trump consciously conceived such a strategy is unclear, but that's not likely — it's probably just the natural offshoot of his endless bragging and his relentless insults directed at anyone who opposes him. He believes, not without reason, that if he says this kind of stuff often enough lots of people will believe him, and that he can rely on right-wing media to help him convince half the nation that 2017 to 2020 were the apotheosis of American happiness and achievement and that since then we've been plunged into a nightmarish hellscape with no end in sight.
His problem, of course, is that the Biden split-screen is mostly grounded in realities that even the right-wing media can't fully ignore. At this moment of global crisis, after a catastrophic terrorist attack in Israel with a major war unfolding, the president is behaving like a statesman, conferring with world leaders and giving speeches expressing empathy for the victims. His sincere horror at the Hamas attack was obvious and his administration has supported Israel's right to defend itself. More recently, the Biden administration has shifted its public rhetoric, with the president and others emphasizing over the past few days that they are trying to calm the situation. Biden appeared on "60 Minutes" on Sunday evening, making clear that he is pushing for a process to protect civilians in Gaza from the consequences of what is likely to be a devastating Israeli invasion:
Scott Pelley: There are about 2 million people in Gaza, as you know, Mr. President, 2 million people trapped. About half of them are children. Are you asking Israel to establish a humanitarian corridor in that area or get humanitarian supplies into it?
Joe Biden: Yes, our team is talking to them about that. And — whether there could be a safe zone. We're also talking to Egyptians — whether there is an outlet to get these children and women out of that area at this moment. But it's — it's hard.
Biden went on to express his support for a Palestinian state — difficult as it is to imagine that prospect at the moment — and warned the Israelis not to reoccupy Gaza. One hopes that pressure, mediation and diplomacy behind the scenes reflects the careful balancing act he's attempting to achieve in public and that it will help temper Israel's response, which has already resulted in more deaths than the original Hamas attacks. Just try to imagine Donald Trump in this situation. Or rather, don't.
Trump can't really compete from his presidency-in-exile in Palm Beach, but you might have expected him at least to make statements that appeared serious and on point. That's pretty much the president's main job, and he's running to get that job back. Instead, Trump's first words after the Hamas attack came four days later at a rally for his supporters, where he complained that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had let him down when he was president, called another Israeli official a "jerk," and made the ludicrous assertion that the attack would never possibly have happened if he were president. Of course he was under no obligation to praise Netanyahu, which nobody in the world is doing at the moment. But his petty and intensely self-centered response struck a sour note, to put it mildly. After hearing criticism from his Republican rivals — a rare event in itself — Trump backtracked slightly, saying that he supports Netanyahu. But the damage was done.
The Biden team isn't spending any time on this particular split-screen contrast. They've focused instead on congressional Republicans, whose dysfunctional spectacle gets more and more preposterous every day. While the president carries out his actual duties, speaking with other world leaders and addressing groups like the Human Rights Campaign — as he did this past weekend, delivering a fine speech about empathy, solidarity and tolerance in a time of great upheaval — House Republicans are still unable to perform even the most basic tasks assigned to them as the majority. From what we can gather at the moment, the MAGA candidate for speaker, Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, still doesn't appear to have the votes, and nobody else does either. Nothing can happen in the Congress until they get that done.
For a group that bleats incessantly about the Democrats' supposed "weakness," the House Republican majority is offering one of the most pathetic displays of impotence in political history.
So, we have a number of split screens happening. There's Trump's Peter Pan fantasy, in which the former president portrays Biden's America as the poorest, most derelict country in the world and tells his followers to clap their hands and bring back the (completely imaginary) perfect and beautiful years. Then there is the split-screen showing the competent and experienced current president on one side and the absurd circus of the House Republican caucus on the other. Finally, there is the screen that shows Joe Biden acting like a statesman and Donald Trump whining endlessly about how mean everyone is to him. I wish I had confidence that most Americans will be able to tell which of these screens depicts reality and which is total fantasy, but I don't. It all depends on which screen you like the most.
