Column: Dear Mr. President: Please don’t mess this up

Hello and happy Tuesday. There are 132 days until the election and today we’re talking about scary stuff, starting with the Orwellian-sounding Department of Life.

You’ve probably heard a ton about Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation plan to remake America as some kind of ultraconservative paradise/hell if Trump is elected to another term.

Over the weekend, Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts gave a terrifying interview to MSNBC about what that means — including rebranding the Department of Health and Human Services as the Department of Life. Because fascism is best served up by happy-sounding bureaucracies.

The DOL (not to be confused with the Department of Labor, which likely would no longer exist anyway) would be charged with protecting vulnerable Americans from “conception to natural death.” Overseeing it would be a secretary who will “proudly state that men and women are biological realities ... and that married men and women are the ideal, natural family structure because all children have a right to be raised by the men and women who conceived them.”

Somehow, that charming DOL vision also includes doing away with universal day care and the early education program Head Start, as well as pulling back $200 million in Medicaid funds from California. And killing off basically all LGBTQ+ protections. And women’s rights.

Folks, when they publish the playbook for making future generations oppressed and too uneducated to argue, you better believe they mean it.

Which is why Thursday’s debate between Old Guy 1 and Old Guy 2 is so important. And so hair-raising.

President Biden speaks in the State Dining Room at the White House in 2021.

(Associated Press)

Can Biden do it?

Biden and Trump are only three years apart at 81 and 78 respectively. Whoever wins, he will be the oldest president ever by the end of his term. They’re older than Velcro, Frisbees and bikinis.

Seriously, bikinis did not exist when these guys were born.

So the fact that Trump is all over Biden for being too old for the job is absurd. They are both too old.

But here we are. The real difference is that Biden is president and Trump wants the job back. So Biden has everything to lose and Trump everything to gain in this debate. Please, Mr. President. Do not blow this.

I’m going to give you the cheat sheet on what they’ll likely be talking about, but here’s the hard truth: Trump has created a brilliant shared narcissism around his own bad behavior. There is a kind of glee in supporting him no matter what.

Even for on-the-fence voters, the argument in favor of Trump is that he personally doesn’t matter — not his convictions, his hate-mongering, not even his open racism.

Voting for him is justified because it’s really just a selfish act meant to benefit that voter economically or socially. He could spend the debate drooling at the podium, and it likely wouldn’t hurt him.

So when folks tell me the stakes are high for Trump, I don’t buy it.

But Biden is a different story. One trip, verbal or physical, by Joe and nothing else will matter.

It will be “seized upon for everything from fundraising to late night comedy,” Justin Gest told me. He’s a professor of policy and government at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government who did a recent poll of undecided swing state voters with the Washington Post.

He reminded me that this election comes down to six swing states. And within those six swing states, down to the voters on the margins who haven’t yet decided. This debate — with its early summer date — is all about catching their attention. And it won’t be caught Thursday night, because they are not watching prime-time television on CNN. Because they were born after bikinis were invented.

It will come down to whatever 10-second clips make the rounds on TikTok, where those critical, disinterested voters live.

“I am definitely watching for what goes viral,” Gest said.

Ninety minutes of anxiety

But they do have 90 minutes to fill. So here’s some talking points to expect, and some suggested phrases for your drinking games:

• Abortion, of course. This is going to be Trump’s weak spot, not because he appointed an extremist Supreme Court that gutted basic reproductive rights. But because his slippery “states’ rights” answer is wearing thin even with undecided voters. It’s clear that there are a lot of states that want nothing to do with rights, unless they are for the fetus. So expect Biden to hit hard, especially since Monday was the two-year anniversary of Roe vs. Wade being mugged in a dark alley.
  
  • Quotes for shots: “It’s a beautiful thing”; “States will decide.”
• Immigration. We’ve swung so far right on this issue that Trump will likely feel free to spew hate here, because even Democrats are unhappy with Biden’s policies. Expect Trump to harp on isolated cases of crimes committed by undocumented men, including the tragic recent killing of Maryland mom Rachel Morin. An immigrant from El Salvador, Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez, 23, was arrested in that crime.

  Biden has tried to crack down on border crossings with a recent executive action, and also has created a pathway for undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens to gain legal standing. He’ll likely focus on those combined actions.
  

  • Quotes for shots: “It’s an invasion”; “Destroying our nation”; “Rapists and murderers.”

• The economy. No one wants to admit it yet, but this is really the only issue that matters. Trump is following in the footsteps of Ronald Reagan with the one question that moves voters: “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?”

  Whether we are or not, most of us don’t feel better off. Everything is more expensive, and wages haven’t kept up. So Trump has a visceral point here, never mind realities or reasons. And he’s exploiting it.

  Expect to hear him hit hard on his recent promise to end the taxing of tips. Nevada, a swing state with a lot of service workers (many of whom are traditionally union Democrats) is where he previewed this idea, and I think you’re going to hear a lot more of it because it’s good.

  It’s a “populist economic move that is immediately intelligible to any American whether you are a tip worker or not,” said Gest, the professor. “I wonder if President Biden doesn’t wish he had thought of it himself.”
  

  • Quotes for shots: “No tax on tips.”
    

What else you should be reading

The must-read: Law enforcement is spying on thousands of Americans’ mail, records show
The Trump world: They came to see Trump. First they heard a pitch to buy gold and silver.
The L.A. Times Special: Violence outside L.A. synagogue taxed LAPD, sparks condemnation from Biden, Newsom, Bass

Stay Golden,
Anita Chabria

P.S. How do I get an invite?

If you haven’t read my colleague Sam Farmer’s great piece about the little-known speakeasy inside Dodger Stadium, give yourself a few minutes to enjoy it.

Dodger fans inside the speakeasy.

(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

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