The 2024 GOP nomination isn't over.
If this were a movie, the music would be speeding up and the beat would be louder. The plot is taking a turn.
I am spending a week among partisan Republicans. A majority of Republican voters support Trump. Trump supporters recognize he is controversial, but are not convinced he deserves to be. A majority of people I have talked with think he is being picked on. They think Democrats plotted to get non-citizens or dead people to vote. They think Trump had every right to suspect there were suitcases of fake ballots. I heard from people staffing tables for Trump who were utterly convinced the rioters in the January 6 crowd were Democrats in disguise.
Events are closing in. GOP candidates are sharpening their criticism. Trump is flailing and screwing up. He is giving off a new vibe: Manic desperation.
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Trump made an "unforced error" in his comments on Israel and Hamas. He gave opponents an opening. Republicans are clear that Israel is a victim and the good guy deserving unqualified support. Trump called Hamas "smart." He criticized Netanyahu. This fits a pattern. Trump openly admires the cleverness and effectiveness of violence done by authoritarian leaders, in this case Hamas, but previously in remarks about Russia's Putin, the "iron hand" of China's Xi Jinping, and North Korea's Kim Jong-Un.
Trump has personal grudges. He is still unhappy that Benjamin Netanyahu phoned Biden to congratulate him on his victory. That was the theme of the NH Leadership Conference: Trump is all about himself, looking backward. Christie is running an ad calling Trump "foolish." Haley, Scott, DeSantis, and Hutchinson say Trump is wrong on Israel.
Trump has successfully managed the optics of strength and domination. He wins because he looks strong, cruel, hard-headed. and realistic about threats to himself and to Americans. Republicans see him as Goliath in contrast to feeble Biden. But President Biden is having the best week of his presidency. While Trump is flailing, Biden is solidly in support of Israel. He is sending aircraft carrier groups to Israel. He is entering the war zone.
Biden is ignoring and marginalizing the Squad comments critical of Israel. Biden looks like a sound, experienced leader, independent of his fringe, at the very moment that the GOP appears to be succumbing to its fringe as it chooses a Speaker.
Republican partisans deep in conservative media won't experience this moment of change in the 2024 drama. Conservative media describes Biden's sure-footedness here as a split in the Democratic coalition, amid references to Harvard students and a Cornell professor. But for people outside the cocoon, something is changing. Biden looks strong and Trump is weak. If polls start to show Biden defeating Trump. then the whole edifice that supports the Trump's inevitability crumbles. Trump looks like a loser.
Trump is making speeches in Iowa complaining of persecution. Trump the victim. Poor Trump.
Biden is on Air Force One on its way to Israel to represent the United States.
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8 comments:
Peter’s encounter demonstrates how, despite all the evidence to the contrary, Trump supporters still believe he only lost due to massive voter fraud, that Democrats in disguise attacked the Capitol and that Trump is a poor, picked-on victim. In other words, they’re as crazy as he is.
Some think that with empathy and understanding, they’d wake up to reality. I think they’re impervious to facts they don’t like and when it comes to things like elections and pandemics, that can be very dangerous. As Michael Luttig said, the former president and his Republican allies and supporters have declared war on American democracy.
In addiction circles, people often talk about "hitting rock bottom." When will the GQP finally hit rock bottom? They are addicted to their corrupt and deranged "leader." Frequently, the addict is in denial about his or her addiction. Hitting rock bottom is when the situation gets so bad that the person can no longer deny that he or she has a serious problem.
Unfortunately, as with all addictions, innocent people suffer from the misdeeds and recklessness of others.
Polling probably isn't predictive until after the primary and what the goldfish are paying attention to as we head into the general.
That the race is so close, unbelievably, is less about the candidates and more about the Republican constituency and how willing Republican politicians are to debase themselves pandering to their bigoted tinfoil hat idiocy. The apparent ascendency of Jordan is a new low, as if that was possible.
Hamas, yes, of course. Stupid mistake by me.
There are smart people like Republican consultant Mike Murphy, who still think there’s a chance that the Republican nomination primaries may produce a different nominee. 🤞
Trump looks like a loser.
Pete, did you mean Trump is a loser. And his supporters are foolish.
We have a year to go and anything can happen, but as it stands Trump has 57.6% of the primary vote and the runner-up (someone equally malignant) has 113.4%. Meanwhile, House Republicans are desperately trying to install Jim Jordan as House speaker – the guy who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Trump for his efforts to help overturn the election.
When Trump was nominated in 2016, Senator Graham said, “My party’s gone batshit crazy!” It’s gone downhill from there.
OOPS, that's 13.4% of course.
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