The Republican Party’s latest casualty is optimism about America’s future. The most Reaganesque presidential candidate in 2020 is the Democrat, Joe Biden.Once upon a time, that would have been the ballgame. Until recently, the most optimistic candidate almost always won the presidency. Still, for Democrats, optimism might be the key to the 2020 election.That’s because the so-called “Trump-Biden voter” could be the most vital bloc of swing voters in November—and people yearning for a “shining City on a Hill” instead of more “American Carnage” could do worse than a candidate who is taking a page from the Gipper’s playbook. As an added benefit, by tapping into Reaganesque language, Biden can aesthetically signal kinship to this constituency without bucking his progressive base on policy issues.Trump Needs a Villain to Demonize, and Joe Biden Ain’t ItThat this was already an overt Biden strategy eluded me until recently, when I saw the Lincoln Project’s latest video, which features rhetori...
