NATO’S 75th Birthday: A PR Event for Biden That Bernays Would Love
Globalism Versus Nationalism. The real “Elephant in the Room”
The Symbolism of Today’s Events
John Fraim
7/12/24 – 1:20 am
(Written before reading any reviews of tonight’s debate)
Biden needed a “big boy” press conference as the President’s past few post-debate weeks have been horrible for his image.
He might have had his “big boy” press conference tonight when the leaders of NATO were in town to celebrate the 75th birthday of NATO. The conference kept getting put back in time. I think the President was asked questions from around six reporters.
But is was a perfect set (like film scene) for a president who felt now more at home and in touch with NATO leaders of over 30 nations of the world, than his own political party right now. These were his people, really. Even more than citizens of America. It was this globalism and sense of America’s position to the world as what Biden was most passionate about. Here there were representatives of the idea of globalism. All in America at one time.
It was really a coup it seems to me for the event planner of this whole week. And also, a tip of the hat to the master of American public relations Edward Bernays for putting the President in relationship to a global organization he feels passionate about. Think if other global groups like the European Union or the UN or World Health Organization.
Biden was attached to the 75th birthday of NATO and putting him with the group and taking credit for much of its work was an excellent PR idea, an excellent piece of event planning. The PR out of it was as impressive as things could be at this point for Biden. That is, show his global leadership. Put him with people he supports.
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He might have bought himself some more time with – most importantly – his donors with his Press Conference tonight. More times with his donors as well as his party? This remains to be seen. But he looked better in his answers to the reporter’s questions than he has looked in months. I think this is one of the longest press conferences of his years but I haven’t checked it out.
Except for saying Trump was his VP, he was more coherent and talking off script about many global issues. This is where he feels at home, global issues. It is apparent Biden is much more comfortable as being accepted as part of this global community. The same way that promotes green energy and climate change.
There is a huge connection between the idea/concept of global organizations like NATO and the big narratives of climate change and green energy. These are the people who run the European Union. As well as other global, as opposed to, national organizations.
And, which is more global than NATO?
That’s really the major problem with NATO for Trump and conservatives. The Globalism versus the Americanism. Biden sees his legacy in global terms not American terms. By getting rid of national borders, Biden (symbolically) wants to let the outside come into America. The nation becomes more like the global community from dropping its borders and rules for entry. Is it hard to see that Biden might want this somewhere in his psyche?
With the NATO world leaders in town for a week, it must have been a revitalizing week for Biden in some ways. Here were over 30 world leaders who have come to meet in America. And here is a president who has worked with them much over the years.
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I listened to almost the entire press conference and I didn’t hear one question about the number one problem in America today: the border crisis. Letting in estimates of anywhere from 12 to 20 million illegals through the Biden presidency and opening up this election to this massive voting block to vote via just checking a form when an illegal has contact with the government for assistance. There is the STAY Act of safety in voting act in Congress right now. Opposed by all Democrats except a handful. The bill stops illegals from voting in our next presidential election. The Democrats want to let this mass of illegals vote.
Republicans don’t want illegals to vote. Why should they? To them, its note necessarily a voting thing as much as a job thing. Especially, to most of America’s low wage earners. The illegal aliens effect this group the most. American citizens are having much of their rights taken away from them by illegal aliens that Biden has let into the nation. Illegals take employment away from Americans. This is the secret the Democrats don’t want you to know. I wish Republicans would start saying this and getting more low wage earners on their side.
The border crisis. The largest issue in the upcoming presidential election. The largest issue for Trump: the idea of making America a great nation again. Define borders and protect national identity and economy from terrible economic consequences of letting illegals into the nation.
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And the largest issue for Biden? The idea that America does not have a border and is becoming a global community. The scenario is somewhat like a cell is punctured, allowing outside fluids to enter. The Democratic strategy is to create more Democratic voters by letting in more illegal immigrants to voting via ballots by preventing the current STAY legislation.
The Republican/Conservative message has been weak and almost non-existent in educating Americans about the effects of illegals on the economy and on taking away American jobs. The fact is that illegals undercut the market rate and put Americans out of work. American minorities are most effected by immigration and allowing illegal aliens to vote.
The first impact of this Democrat strategy is that the Democrats have more voters. An almost impossible group to win against with all of the illegal voters. Great. In the end the Dems get the voters. But the effect of getting these voters is that America lowers its lifestyle, standard of living, education, health care system. At the same time, raises its crime rates. The question is whether this will become an issue in America as it is happening right now and will happen so much more as America has open borders and becomes part of the global community.
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The NATO birthday created an excellent event to put the president in front of his real constituents. A global rather than a national organization. Ed Bernays would be so proud of the last few days as a Biden PR event.
Biden’s Real Constituents
This is where his heart truly is. His “people” have come from all over the world. Who knows what NATO symbolizes to Biden? The global leaders of NATO. Traveling to America. Biden was symbolically the “host” welcoming them to America.
They are the people Biden supports. They symbolize the idea of globalism to him, the global community. A community that he wants America to be part of so much. Something that has not really been decided in America – to my knowledge – in any democratic or fair way. In many ways, it is that “elephant in the room” or “the medium is the message” that is behind American politics as a type of context or environment we live within. And, like environments, is invisible to us. As someone once said, we’re not sure who discovered water but we’re pretty sure it wasn’t fish.
The battle between globalism versus nationalism is one of the greatest battles being fought in the world today. It is that invisible environment we live within. Americans are the greatest conflicted with oppositions. The original symbol oppositions America was founded upon – equality and freedom, the common and individual – as expressions of the greatest symbols to Carl Jung, Feminine and Masculine archetypes
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Yet America was meant to be a conflicted nation. Maybe the greatest conflicted nation in history. The first nation where the symbols of Freedom and Equality were the paradoxical dual founding symbols of a nation. Masculine freedom (individuality) and its opposition symbol Feminine equality (commonality). The direction opposition of the key symbols in America have been the root cause of all of America’s problems and challenges in the world.
This symbolic dynamics has also been at the root of American exceptionalism in the world which made a nation hardly a hundred years old began to dominate the world. The speed of America’s ascent to the leading nation in the world is astounding and few have ever tried to explain this unbelievable fast rise to the top nation in the world. Many have written about this and offered their theories and ideas.
The real power of America perhaps was not in its founding ideals as much as the dynamics of its founding ideals put into play over it’s history. One symbol dominates a culture at one time yet the domination of its opposition starts to rise and eventually dominates. It’s the way the world and life operates. The change in life based on cycles that repeat themselves over and over. The change in domination of symbols is really the cycles, cyclic, way of looking at life.
Really, amounting to a paradigm for seeing life this way. It always fights against arriving at one particular ideology. Except the ideology of cycles or the back-and-forth symbolism of life. Yet it is not so much an ideology or idea as a dynamics of different, opposition, ideas between masculine and feminine, freedom and equality. Border security and open borders.
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The old symbols America was founded upon continue today. Freedom is individuality and free as a nation and keeping one’s individuality and economic and health benefits by protecting its borders. Equality is open borders.
In today’s world. A crisis in the American presidency. Global NATO leaders arrive at the time of an unpopular American president. But Biden was happy to have the group in America. Who knows what they represented to him?
One thing for sure, it was a far less hostile group to him than members in his own party and key donors. At a time when America was turning against him, there was the symbolism of the global community for him in the appearance of leaders from over 30 nations for NATO’S 75th. Not necessarily “for him” but not so adamantly against him like the leaders of his party.
A number of complimentary speeches were made. Mostly, I was more interested in the Tour de France or the upcoming Olympics. I wasn’t going to worry about the insanity of American politics. But the off-the-cuff answers of Biden to the reporters’ questions at the NATO birthday celebration were very interesting as it allowed Biden to speak not from note cards but from memory. These answers were some of the most impressive I’ve heard from Biden in a long time.
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If anything, the press conference focused on Biden’s benefit to the global community. There was nothing about the border crisis in it to my knowledge. The number one issue in the nation. The border crisis and its relation to the job market and the overall economy. I didn’t hear it mentioned by Biden once in the conference. This was not a conference about honoring America as a nation but of America as being part of a global community.
Globalism versus nationalism lurked behind the entire week when the NATO leaders were in America. For Biden, it offered a week of celebrating a globalism. And, getting away from his abandoned nationalism with his open border policy.
One could tell that Biden was having a good time in the midst of the global community. In many ways, this was his community. The one he felt most comfortable in. He was able to be passionate about something – again – in the midst of his dementia or whatever he has. The passion and vitality showed during the time NATO leaders visited the host Biden for their 75th birthday. It couldn’t have come at a better time.
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The extended, non-script answers to reporter’s questions showed the viewers a much different Biden than the debate Biden. This is a topic he loves talking about. Something dear to his heart. The idea of globalism. Over the idea of nationalism. He can go on about this. Even elegantly and passionately in the press conference. To Trumps questions about nationalism in the debate a few weeks ago, he went limp. Maybe it was all about dementia. Still, one’s passions in life might rise above dementia. Like it did when NATO came to America.
At the best time for a president to bolster his faltering image. At the same time, at a time when the president’s true grand ideology and perspective are placed more upon display more than ever before. When the global community comes to America. In honor of their 75th birthday. Who knows the effects of the mind at the president’s age? Might he consider this event the coming to America of the global community towards the end of his life. In fact, there is the possibility that Biden has been much more of a globalist than anyone could ever have imagined.
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Yeah, you can fault Biden for a number of things. But tonight I was surprised at the passion in his voice (for once) and his demeanor about something in life. Something that seemed more real for him than other things he talked about these days. Something that wasn’t phony to him.
Globalism.
A PR triumph for the president by matching him up to a historic birthday of a famous global organization. Perhaps some of the best Edward Bernays PR methods employed in an effort to revive the president. It is not about about Biden but of an organization fighting for world peace.
The strategy for PR worked pretty well for Biden.
We’ll see how things work out.
The NATO leaders have left town.