It was of course a given that yesterday’s indictment of Donald Trump would be a media circus. The media are addicted to Trump, not because Trump matters anymore (he doesn’t; he’s ruined) but because of the spectacle that Trump has always created as a way of seducing and using the media. Truth is, the media (especially cable news, which I don’t watch) would do just about anything to keep the Trump circus going.
So while the media were focused on the circus, the real story yesterday was submerged.
The most important part of the real story from yesterday is that Janet Protasiewicz, a liberal, was elected to the state supreme court in Wisconsin. And it wasn’t that she merely squeaked by. She won by 11 points. In the 2016 presidential election in Wisconsin, Trump won over Hillary Clinton by a slim margin — 47.22 to 46.45. In the 2020 president election, Wisconsin started to recover its sanity. Joe Biden beat Trump by a slim margin, 49.45 to 48.82.
Yesterday’s 11-point margin says a great deal about how fed up this country is with Trump and with Republicans. At this point, except in the reddest of places, Democrats can win just by fielding candidates who are reasonably sane and sensible. As MAGA Republican clowns flaunt Republican meanness and know-nothingness in front of the cameras, Republicans are doing all of Democrats’ campaigning for them. Does anyone see a trend that would indicate that the Republican Party is capable of squelching the clowns and finding a presidential candidate for 2024 who can expand the appeal of the Republican Party rather than causing voters to beg Democrats to save them?
While the media ran photos of Marjorie Taylor Greene in her aviator glasses screaming into a megaphone, Heather Cox Richardson calmly reports in this morning’s newsletter that “There were far more Trump opponents than supporters in the crowd outside the courthouse.”
As I see it, here is where we stand today. Trump is defunct. There will be more indictments in Georgia and from the U.S. Department of Justice. Even if Trump somehow got the Republican nomination for president in 2024 (are Republicans that stupid?), Trump would lose in a landslide. Whatever happens with Republicans in 2024, Republicans are probably fatally split. MAGA Republicans probably would just stay home if Trump is not on the ticket. Democrats certainly have a problem to solve, because of Biden’s age and the lack of a younger rising star (at this point, anyway). But the Democratic Party of today has much smarter leadership than, say, the Democratic Party of 2015.
The media, no doubt, will continue to try to scare us by saying, for example, that the New York indictments are weak. That line keeps the circus going by flattering Republicans while keeping Democrats scared. What the media want is turmoil and circus, with story lines that tell us that the elections of 2024 are going to be really, really close and that Trump might be on the ticket.
Yesterday’s election in Wisconsin tells us something else. It tells us that most Americans are horrified by what they’ve seen of Republicans and what Republicans do with power. Not only that, the Republican Party is split. Trump, who you will remember did not win the popular vote even in 2016, is a guaranteed loser.
If the leaders of today’s Democratic Party are as smart as I think they are, then in 2024 we should see a Democrat in the White House and Democratic majorities in Congress. This country’s fascist nightmare will be over. As for the Republican Party, should we call it suicide? Or should we say that Trump destroyed the Republican Party the same way he destroys everything he touches?
3 Comments
Trump supporters are so desperate to keep the dream of him as a dictator alive. They live in a world of total confirmation bias. Every news source is either for Trump or against him, so they only care about the ones that deliver news that they want to hear.
What you said about who the Republicans will run in 2024 has been on my mind the past few days. Particularly, can Trump supporters imagine anyone else? I bet it feels like a betrayal for them to give up -not a betrayal that he did to them, but them letting go. It frightens me that there are, for the most part, rational people out there who want that man as our nation’s leader indefinitely. The mental gymnastics to come to the conclusion he’s the best choice must be Olympic-level.
I know that Democrats have a serious problem for 2024, too, but I think they have more popular options, at least in theory. Michelle Obama’s name has been brought up, and if we’re talking celebrities, there’s Jon Stewart. I don’t know if running Joe again, or even Kamala, are feasible, winning options.
Hi Dan: My guess is that it’s unlikely that Biden will run again. It would make sense for him to say he’s running up until the time Democrats have settled on someone who can quickly become the frontrunner. They’ve got some time on that. Kamala needs to stand aside and bargain for a cabinet position. I have gained a great deal of confidence in the past two years in Biden’s political wisdom. I would expect him to be a steady hand who would do a lot to help guide a new frontrunner into position. I hope that Democrats at the national level understand how we need someone young and charismatic to inspire the young generations to vote.
Yes, thank you
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