Donald Trump and the Republicans smelled blood. President Biden had recently been on the defensive about his age. A series of polls released over the weekend heightened Democratic concerns. The Republicans knew the press would treat a misstatement or minor gaffe during Biden’s State of the Union address as a campaign-ending transgression.

Before the speech, MAGA Inc., a Trump-aligned Super PAC, released a brutal ad concerning Biden’s age that questioned whether he would survive a second term.

And just to twist the knife, they ran the ad during Morning Joe, which, like Message Box, is a staple of the President’s media diet¹.

Republican House members in the room tried to goad Biden into a mistake. Marjorie Taylor Greene, dressed in full MAGA regalia, staked Biden out as he walked to the dais and then tried to interrupt him while he spoke about border security.

None of it worked. Biden delivered a boffo performance, and the media coverage and online conversation have all been about the strength and vigor he demonstrated.

Thursday night demonstrated the folly of Trump’s “Sleepy Joe” strategy.

Low Expectations

So much of American politics is about expectation setting. Points are rewarded not for succeeding, but for exceeding whatever expectations were set.

Biden did a great job delivering the speech by any measure. It was energetic and feisty and showed viewers how hard he would fight for them and their freedoms. But even if he hadn’t performed well, he still would have dramatically exceeded expectations.

Trump and the Republicans (with help from the political media) set a low bar for Biden. Generally, you want to raise expectations for your opponent to the point that they are impossible to meet. Trump did the exact opposite.

Just watch the Trump ad. It takes out-of-context clips to make Biden seem totally out of it. It literally claims Biden is on death’s doorstep. That portrayal is consistent with how Trump, Fox News and other Republicans talk about Biden — they say he is senile, demented, and is in such cognitive decline that others are secretly running the country.

If the Trump ad, some Fox News stories, or the unflattering clips circulating on TikTok were your only exposure to Joe Biden, you would be blown away by the President onstage Thursday night.

Biden was very good, but his success was irrelevant because the Trump campaign fell ass backwards into their own trap.

Believing Their Own Bullshit

This time around, Trump’s campaign is being run by savvy operatives. In 2016 and 2020, Trump surrounded himself with grifters, clowns, and the dregs of the Fox News greenroom, but Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita are well-known, experienced professionals. So, how did they make such an amateur error by lowering the bar of expectations and giving Biden a big opening on the biggest stage?

Like so many other Republicans, they believe their own bullshit.

Fox News, Trump, and others propel the myth that Biden is senile and question his mental fitness because it serves their political purposes and makes their Right Wing audience of Biden haters happy. Somewhere along the way, they lost plot and began to believe the caricature.

For a long time, Republican politicians and political operatives understood that Fox News and the rest of the Right Wing media were propaganda operations designed to excite the base and damage the opposition. They were in on the joke. But in the Trump era, most of them followed the former President down the rabbit hole. They stopped getting their news from legitimate sources and live entirely inside the MAGA media bubble. They turn on Fox and think it’s a window instead of a mirror. They believe voters — the vast majority of whom could not find Fox on their cable package — see the world the same way they do.

They are shocked when the real Joe Biden appears. Sure, he looks a little older than he used to, but he is still sharp and full of fight. Marjorie Taylor Greene seemed legitimately shocked when Biden didn’t collapse on stage while she tried to engage him on border issues.

Biden’s age is still a legitimate concern for voters. One speech does not make it go away. Reassuring them will be a theme of the entire campaign, but Trump and the Republicans are overplaying their hand.

The Biden campaign is clearly aware of this, so they released an outstanding ad this morning that directly addresses the issue of age.

Republicans rarely learn their lesson, so I hope they keep running against the caricature of Joe Biden because that will make it easier for the real Joe Biden to win in November.

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