Remember well: the incumbent usually gets the edge in defining a somewhat-mysterious opponent. It doesn't always work well, as Jimmy Carter shows. Carter tried to show that Ronald Reagan was a capricious and reckless extremist just as the LBJ did to Goldwater and Nixon did to McGovern in blowout landslides. The Capitol Putsch will continue to fail in the 2022 and 2024 elections, and anyone connected to it will have some explaining to do.
President Biden did a good job of connecting the Putsch to a contempt for democracy among Republicans. The problem is that about 45% of Americans may have a contempt for democracy as pushed in high-school civics texts. Many Americans have a crazy idea that democracy simply means that the politicians pander to their views on cultural and ideological matters irrespective of other issues that can more severely affect their lives (economic downturns, wars that can cost the lives of their precious children, environmental degradation, and labor-management issues).
It was always a dumb strategy by the Democrats to use against Reagan given that Reagan when he was just as an actor won California by 15 points in a state LBJ won by 19 against Goldwater and against a Democratic incumbent who defeated two California Republican Powerhouses like Knowland and Nixon.
Its why he lost that debate so badly rather than Reagan doing extremely well in the debate. Its just that when the perception of being an extremist was proven to be false, Carter just lost the only thing that was keeping that election close(he was still down in the averages).
