The Party of Lincoln, the Campaign of Lyndon Johnson and Nancy Pelosi, and the Pseudoscalar Debate: The Case of a Two-Term Insurrection
The Republican Party’s embrace of its most basic instincts is particularly noteworthy and questionable due to the reality of the times. Most often, GOP leaders are enabling and embracing a twice impeached ex-President with clear autocratic tendencies who incited an insurrection to try to overturn a democratic election. They are elevating Trump followers who built careers in his image or lied to the voters about the election.
A year ago, pundits were praising Virginia’s governor for finding a way to win a blue state while keeping ex-President Donald Trump at arms-length and for creating a Republican campaign blueprint not based on outright election denialism. Youngkin held out his arms around Lake, an ultra-MAGA candidate in Arizona’s governor’s race. The nominee refused in a CNN interview on Sunday to commit to recognizing the result of her race if she doesn’t win and is running hard as a loyal member of the ex-President’s election denial movement.
Youngkin said that elections have consequences and that he must choose between being on the winning team or being on the opposing team.
There is nothing wrong with a political party focusing on winning power. Politics is the way of the possible. The election victories of the successful parties and leaders are of paramount importance. Democratic presidents from Lyndon Johnson to Bill Clinton were known for doing what needed to be done to win, reshaping their own principles if necessary. Johnson, a former Senate majority leader, especially was ruthless in wielding his authority won at the ballot box. And more recently, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has not dominated the House for nearly two decades without being determined to use her power.
For a party that once took pride in its heritage of promoting global democracy against tyranny, this is a striking leap. The party of Lincoln had prized the defense of such values against Trump, but then ostracized them. Flake did not run for reelection and Cheney, the vice chair of the House select committee investigating January 6, 2021, lost her primary this summer to a Trump-backed challenger. Meanwhile, extremists who promote conspiracy theories and question the election, like Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, for example, are superstars in the party because the Trump base loves them.
The most striking recent example of the naked pursuit of power could be seen when House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy rushed down to Mar-a-Lago to make up with Trump soon after criticizing him over the Capitol insurrection. The California lawmaker knew that he would need to improve his relationship with Trump in order for him to be the speaker of the House.
McConnell did not take a lot of pleasure in Trump’s term but he still didn’t want to lose control of the Senate, even in places that had been Democrats’ best chance in years to gain control.
McConnell did not take Trump’s attacks against his wife, Elaine, very seriously. He has done more than just keep quiet. The Senate Leadership Fund has poured tens of millions of dollars into crucial races in states like Ohio and Georgia in a bid to bail out misfiring candidates, who may have been anointed as party nominees by no other than Trump.
McConnell’s affiliated super PAC is even spending in New Hampshire, where the GOP nominee has said he wouldn’t vote for the Kentucky Republican for leader. But it’s another pickup opportunity that could bolster a possible GOP majority.
The impulse to win control of Congress at all costs – even if it appears to compromise values the GOP professes to stand for – was on display when several US senators flew into Georgia earlier this month to rescue controversy-swamped Senate nominee Hershel Walker.
The Democrat Wave is Now Defying a Republican Electoral Candidate: During the Presidential Scramble of the 2000s, Donald Trump vowed to retake office
The pro-Trump nominee had said he would support a national ban on the procedure with no exceptions and now has faced allegations that he paid for a woman to have an abortion. Although CNN has not independently confirmed that Walker denied the allegations, the furor highlights the risk of a presidential race because of his friendship with Trump.
Walker’s two surrogates – Florida Sen. Rick Scott, who heads the GOP’s Senate campaign arm, and Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton – behaved as though Walker was just any other Republican candidate.
To block Kemp’s reelection, Trump persuaded former Sen. David Perdue to run against him in the primary. The primary vote was a debacle for Perdue and Trump.
So while his endorsement may be valuable to Lake in a close gubernatorial race, her rising star power in Trump world also offered a strong incentive for his trip. He embraced the kind of political personality who wouldn’t have been allowed at his events last year after his speech.
Biden’s sharpened message, after all, has been delivered in Washington – not standing on stage next to Democratic candidates in the midst of the most heated races across the country.
But as things currently stand, despite the Democratic scramble and Biden’s own implicit acknowledgment that momentum has shifted back toward Republicans, White House officials see a path to bucking decades of history – and blunting a GOP wave.
Biden, in the last four days, has candidly summarized the pendulum swing of the last several months that drove the political narrative from a looming Republican wave, to Democratic momentum, to the current moment of Republicans again eying majorities in the House and Senate.
“The polls have been all over the place,” Biden said Monday in remarks at the Democratic National Committee. The Republicans are ahead. Democrats are moving ahead. Republicans are ahead. I think it will close, but with the Democrats ahead in the closing days.
It was a candid acknowledgement that found Democrats scrambling to think about a message to blunt the GOP’s momentum, a reality made worse by differing views within the party of where that message should actually land.
Whether that optimism is misplaced will be clear in 14 days. It is the basis of Biden’s view as voters contemplate two years of unified Democratic power.
In a home stretch in which undecided voters historically break away from the party out of power, is it possible that that will hold?
“We’ve managed to suck ourselves back into our own circular firing squad,” one Democratic campaign official said. “It was never as good as people seemed to think it was (at the end of the summer), and it’s not as bad as some are acting now. It might be if we don’t pull it together.
Biden’s advisers don’t pay attention to the weight of that history along with the economic worries that remain one of the top voter concerns in the polls.
Even though the White House officials say Biden is running ahead of where Obama and Trump were in their first terms, his own standing is not up to par.
The Road to Legislating: The Awakening of Biden’s Controversy in the Late Phase of the 2016 Midterm Election
Advisers say that it will start to change soon, with continued insistence that he will hit the road for larger campaign events after weeks of deliberately smaller scale official events dedicated to highlighting legislative accomplishments.
They point to two factors specifically on that front: gas prices, which have been on a steady downward trajectory for the last two weeks, and the third quarter GDP report, which analysts expect to show robust growth after two quarters of contraction.
Despite legislative accomplishments and a historically fast recovery from the pandemic-era downturn, the deficit in the economy won’t flip over the course of 14 days.
They see an opportunity to make gains or fight to a draw in the closing days, since gas prices have a close correlation with the electoral prospects of the Democrats.
But it’s one that officials say has been laid bare in a particularly acute manner by Republicans in recent weeks, whether on abortion, popular programs like Social Security and Medicare, or proposals to undo many of the individual provisions enacted by Biden that consistently poll in the favor of Democrats when taken in isolation.
Biden spent the last several weeks trying to highlight each of the individual issues officials see as key motivators for voters to turn out in a big way to counter Republican enthusiasm.
The Supreme Court ruling that struck down the abortion pill was viewed as overly optimistic by many inside the West Wing.
For the past 100 years, the average midterm gain in the House of Representatives for the opposition party is 29 seats. This year, Republicans needed just five seats, a goal that seemed so reachable that practically every pollster predicted the GOP would easily clear it, especially given the high inflation rate and Biden’s relatively low approval. The Republicans are struggling to reach the low bar.
Even with unconventional and deeply flawed candidates such as Herschel Walker and Dr. Mehmet Oz running for key Senate seats, recent polls are showing that the GOP is in relatively good shape overall going into the midterm election on Tuesday. Democrats are racing to defend seats and even candidates in blue states such as New York are at risk.
The Fourth Presidency of Donald J. Trump: The Democratic Case During the 2016 Midterm Elections, Revealed by Justin Zelizer
Biden, in fact, has said he chose to run for president in an effort to save US democracy. Given Tuesday’s results – even if his party loses control of Congress – he can take comfort in having made significant progress in achieving that goal. The elections were a success.
Editor’s Note: Julian Zelizer, a CNN political analyst, is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He has authored and edited 24 books, including The Presidency of Donald J. Trump: A First Historical Assessment. Follow him on Twitter @julianzelizer. The views are of his own. View more opinion on CNN.
It looks like the former President is planning on running for president again. Sources say that top aides have been looking at November 14 as a potential launch date for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, after the mogul told his followers to get ready. Trump, it seems, is hoping to be the first person since President Grover Cleveland to win two non-consecutive elections.
While Trump has been hinting at another run for months, the news would certainly send shockwaves through the political world. Trump is one of the most controversial and destabilizing political leaders in US history. And as we have seen with recent Supreme Court decisions like Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization – as well as the toxic rhetoric and support for conspiracy theories within the GOP – his presidency was enormously consequential.
It turns out that Biden was right in declaring that democracy itself was at stake in the midterms. The argument resonated. Biden and the Democrats made that case because of Trump and the election-denying extremists he endorsed.
If the midterm campaigns have shown the Democrats anything, it is that the Republicans remain a strongly united party. Very little can shake that unity. The party didn’t change substantively and the “Never Trump” group failed to become a dominant force. Liz Cheney was kicked out of the party.
If Republicans do well next week, possibly retaking control of the House and Senate, members of the party will surely feel confident about amping up their culture wars and economic talking points going into 2024. And given the number of election-denying candidates in the midterms, a strong showing will likely create the tailwinds for the GOP to unite behind Trump. The rise of other Trump- like Republicans like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is still being speculated about, but they are not likely to look good when the former President reenters the political arena.
It is worth noting that a win by the Republicans in the election would be pretty much the same as everything else. The out-party is often more motivated and prepared for political battle than the party of the incumbent, which at some level is worn down by the realities of governance.
Trump, Mueller, and the Tea Party: The 2020 2020 Presidential Race is Coming to a Clos. The Democrats and the White House have a Problem. The Chase for a Solution
And if Trump announces his candidacy, the Department of Justice is weighing the possibility of announcing a special counsel to oversee two sprawling federal investigations into Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his alleged mishandling of national security documents kept at Mar-a-Lago. It isn’t likely to stop Trump from attacking Robert Muller, who oversaw the Russia investigation. It will be harder to prosecute Trump once he is a candidate. Trump, who plays the victim often, is sure to say any investigation is just a political witch hunt intended to take him out of the running.
If the President avoids prosecution, he will surely unleash a bitter attack on him, as he is currently struggling with a shaky economy and divisions within his party. If election deniers take control of the legislature after the mid-terms, Trump will likely use loyalists to make sure that he gets a victory, even if he escapes punishment for January 6. Trump will also come to the race having been to this rodeo before, which will mean he can perfect the technique and rhetoric that put him into office in 2016. And now that Elon Musk has purchased Twitter, Trump could be reinstated – giving him a way to direct and shape the media conversation once again. Trump has not publicly stated that he will be back at Truth Social, where he founded.
The midterms have shown that the Democrats’ focus on the radical nature of the GOP and the dangers posed to democracy are not necessarily enough to rally voters. These dangers have been outlined many times over, including in Biden’s closing speech Wednesday, but Democrats are nonetheless struggling to maintain power.
Of course, the fact that Trump poses a very serious threat in 2024 doesn’t mean he will win. Trump had turned off many independents and even some Republicans by 2020 and it remains unclear if he can win their support in crucial swing states. And as we have seen with President Barack Obama’s run against Mitt Romney in 2012, presidents who have faced tough reelection campaigns can still find a path to victory.
There is more than one looming crisis. Many attempts were made to subvert the result of the 2020 presidential election. The country’s saving grace was that there was little preparation behind that effort and Republicans in key positions — to say nothing of Democrats — proved hostile to the project. But as The Times reported in October, more than 370 Republicans running for office in 2022 have said they doubt the results of that election, and “hundreds of these candidates are favored to win their races.”
Republican officeholders who don’t fully buy into Trumpist conspiracy theories may find themselves rationalizing compliance. We have already seen this movie. Most of the House Republicans who voted against certification of the 2020 election knew Trump’s claims were absurd. But they chose to hide behind Representative Mike Johnson’s bizarre, evasive rationale for voting as Trump demanded they vote without needing to embrace the things he said. Johnson’s solution was to suggest that pandemic-era changes to voting procedures were unconstitutional, thus rendering the results uncertifiable. It was nonsense, and worse than that, it was cowardice. The problem is not simply the Republican officeholders who would cause an electoral crisis. The larger mass of their colleagues who have already proved they will do nothing to protest is the enabling threat.
Not all crises begin with a political showdown. Some could come from a virus mutating toward greater lethality. Some could come from a planet warming outside the narrow band that has fostered human civilization. Some could come from the expansionary ambitions of dictators and autocrats. The past few years have brought vivid examples of all three. Over the last year, the Republican Party has shown itself to be at least somewhat hostile towards the preparation and responses of potential crises.
I criticized the Biden administration last week, for failing to find a way to finance public health initiatives. But such a path was necessary only because the Republican Party has swung so hard against efforts to prepare for the next pandemic. The budget of the Republican Study committee is an example of where the party has gone. It is not that Republicans are pro-Covid. The party’s energy is against anti-covid. Policy after policy attacking vaccine mandates and emergency powers of children. I couldn’t find a way to make sure we were better prepared for the next viral threat in its 100 pages.
It’s simple to imagine that such policies would be: The government was slow to approve certain new treatments, it took a long time to give out money for research, and it was not much innovative in using technology to monitor new and emerging diseases. This is a critique of government not a libertarian one. There was no discussion of how deregulation might bring about a better response next time.
The End of the Trump-Biden Term: White House Campaigning in the Shadow of Crime, Inflation, and the Death of Democracy
Republicans are betting big on gaining control of congress in Tuesday’s election, while the Democrats are fighting crime and inflation while warning that the GOP will destroy democracy.
Kevin McCarthy, the top Republican in the House, talked about his plans for power in an exclusive interview with CNN. He promised broad investigations against the Biden administration on the Afghanistan withdrawal, the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic and how the administration has dealt with parents and school board meetings. He wasn’t ruling out an eventual push to impeach Biden.
In a sign of the critical stakes and the growing angst among Democrats, four presidents – Biden, Donald Trump, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton – all took to the campaign trail over the weekend.
In Ohio, ex-President Trump will finish off his campaign for president with a rally for Senate nominee J.D. Vance on Monday. In his speech that ended in the pouring rain, President Trump predicted that voters would “elect an incredible slate of true MAGA warriors to Congress.”
Biden, who spent Saturday getting out the vote in the critical Pennsylvania Senate race with Obama, warned that the nation’s core values are in peril from Republicans who denied the truth about the US Capitol insurrection and following the brutal attack on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul.
Soon, Americans will probably have to begin enduring another season of presidential campaigning by the most disruptive candidate in living memory, a man who has shown only disdain for democracy. It is good to know that democracy prospered and that the country took a step toward sanity this week.
The president will end his effort to stave off a rebuke from voters at a Democratic event in Maryland. His poor standing in the election is reflected by the fact that he won’t try to boost someone in a key race on the final night.
Biden, McDaniel, and Kari Lake: The economic anxiety of the American people is too big to handle a president’s warnings
GOP chair Ronna McDaniel predicted on CNN’s “State of the Union” that her party would win both the House and the Senate and accused Biden of being oblivious to the economic anxiety of Americans with his warnings about democracy.
But the president warned in a speech in Pittsburgh on Saturday night alongside Obama that Republican concern over the economy was a ruse and claimed that the GOP would cut Social Security and Medicare if they won majorities.
They are all about the wealthy getting wealthy. And the wealthier staying wealthy. The middle class gets stiffed. The poor are worse off under their policy, according to Biden.
In another development on Sunday, a staffer at the headquarters of Kari Lake, the pro-Trump nominee in the Arizona gubernatorial contest, opened a letter containing suspicious white powder. Lake’s opponent, the current Secretary of State in Arizona, called the incident incredibly concerning.
The Last Seven Days After the Pandemic: A Brief History of the 2024 GOP Presidential Nominating Contest in New York, where Barack Obama and Bill Clinton met
On a frenetic final weekend of campaigning, Biden and Obama tried to push Democratic nominee John Fetterman over the line in a Pennsylvania Senate race that represents the party’s best chance to pick up a GOP-held Senate seat. The chamber could flip to the Republicans in states like Arizona and Nevada. Republicans need a net gain of just one seat to win the majority.
The first major clashes of the 2024 GOP nominating contest, meanwhile, broke out in Florida with Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis holding dueling rallies Sunday night. The ex-president, who is expected to launch a third White House bid within days, coined a new nickname Saturday for the man who could prove to be his toughest primary opponent: “Ron DeSanctimonious.”
The governor called his opponent a donkey, and also turned his ire on Biden, ignoring the fact that he had disobeyed Washington officials and experts.
As he rallied for Rubio, who is seeking reelection, Trump didn’t repeat his mockery of DeSantis on Sunday but again teased the likelihood of a presidential run. In another sign the next presidential race is stirring, Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, who has long eyed higher office, announced he would not join the Republican primary.
On Saturday, Bill Clinton came to Brooklyn to campaign for New York Gov. Kathy Hochul. Democrat Hochul is currently facing off against Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin in a close reelection race that shows the strength of the national environment for Democrats.
“I know the average election rally is just ‘whoop dee doo do vote for me,’ but your life is on the line. Clinton said that the life of young people in the audience was on the line.
Biden, however, has not managed to speak effectively and personally to Americans craving a return to normality after the pandemic or to get across that he fully understands the pain of rising prices in a 40-year-high inflation explosion that his White House once repeatedly branded “transitory.”
Republicans have the ability to impose a vise on Biden’s legislative program and set up a series of political confrontations about spending and debt ceiling if they win back the House. There will be hearings into the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, the surge in migrants across the border, and the Bidens’ son, Hunter.
A GOP majority would contain scores of candidates in Trump’s extreme image and would be weaponized to damage the president as much as possible ahead of a potential rematch with Trump in 2024. Republicans in the Senate would undermine Biden’s hopes of balancing out the judiciary after four years of Trump appointing conservative judges.
What Does CNN Tell Us About the Democratic Party? An Analysis of the “Trumpbiden House Midterm Elections 2022 Gitis”
Editor’s Note: Frida Ghitis, (@fridaghitis) a former CNN producer and correspondent, is a world affairs columnist. She writes for The Washington Post and World Politics Review and contributes a weekly column to CNN. The views expressed in this commentary are her own. There is more opinion on CNN.
The question of control of Congress has not been answered. On this day after, we can draw some conclusions.
There was a red wave but it was less than a red tsunami. Predictions of a huge Republican victory at the polls did not materialize. The election was not very good for the GOP. In addition, it was a disastrous day for former President Donald Trump, who had hoped a Republican landslide would place him on a glide path to the nomination to become the party’s presidential candidate in 2024.
The challenge to democracy is not over. Deniers won the election. The non- election-deniers did worse than those who emerged victorious. They pushed away those who supported other Republicans by parroting Trump’s lies.
In exit polls, 28% of voters said they chose their House vote “to oppose Donald Trump.” Only 37% of people said that they had a favorable view of the former president before the election. That should cause alarm in the party.
On election night, Trump said that if the Republicans won he would get all the credit. If they lose, I should not be blamed at all.” The evidence shows he deserves a lot of the blame.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/09/opinions/trump-biden-house-midterm-elections-2022-ghitis/index.html
The Great Adventures of Kevin McCarthy, Ron DeSantis, and Herschel Walker: Where Do We Stand? Where Do They Come From? Where Are They Going? What Are They Worth? How Does Donald Trump Win?
They could well do it. Rep. Kevin McCarthy may replace Nancy Pelosi as House speaker, but even if Republicans take the House, the Democrats’ performance is little short of amazing. The best performance of the party since 2002 was presided over by Biden.
Tudor was defeated by 11 points in the governor’s race in Michigan and that resulted in a blue wave in the state. In Illinois, the Trump-backed gubernatorial candidate lost by 10. The Trump candidate lost in the governor’s race.
The football star Herschel Walker could still win the runoff in December. But anyone who heard him campaign or learned about his past knows he should never have been on the ballot. It was just like that when Trump thought fame would do the trick. So, he also backed TV star Mehmet Oz for the Pennsylvania seat. Oz lost to John Fetterman, who after suffering a stroke struggled to regain his verbal prowess, a key skill for a political candidate.
If Trump was the big loser of the night, the biggest winner was his top rival for the nomination, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who won in a landslide, and was greeted by supporters at his victory party with chants of “Two more years!” an acknowledgement that his eyes, like Trump’s, are on the White House in 2024.
That all happened within hours of Trump deploying one of his mob-style tactics, threatening to reveal “things” about DeSantis if he runs. The former president hinted darkly, “I know more about him than anybody, except perhaps his wife.”
Despite his awful showing, Trump plans to declare his candidacy soon. Most Democrats find the idea hard to stomach, and Republicans would prefer him to concentrate on his golf game. He is a threat to the party.
A New Look at the Donald Trump era: Toomey’s Coming to the End of the Republican Party and What to Expect Next-Generation Senatorship
Republican Pat Toomey is retiring from his Pennsylvania Senate seat at the end of the term. But before he goes, he is speaking some hard truths to his party.
Toomey wasn’t done. He added that: “All over the country, there’s a very high correlation between MAGA candidates and big losses, or at least dramatically underperforming.”
Trump, for his part, is entirely unwilling to consider that he was – and is – anything but an unalloyed good for his party, declaring a “Big Victory” on his Truth Social website Friday.
Even if it’s to electoral destruction, there is a portion of the Republican party that believes that and will follow Trump wherever he goes.
It is not a good thing that Toomey was brave enough to speak out against Trump, given that he has already left the Republican Party. But his voice is part of a growing chorus of Republicans suggesting that Tuesday’s election was the final straw for Trump. Will base voters listen?
The party is receiving political consequences. In Pennsylvania, Arizona, and several other states, Trump-backed candidates lost important Senate races. On Saturday, Democrats clinched control of the Senate with a hard-fought re-election victory for Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada. Neither party secured a majority in the House despite predictions of a wave.
Since Tuesday’s election, The Wall Street Journal editorial page and The New York Post — owned by the conservative media baron Rupert Murdoch — have called for Mr. Trump to be tossed aside. Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears of Virginia and Robin Vos, the powerful Assembly speaker in Wisconsin — both major Trump allies during and after his presidency — said Mr. Trump shouldn’t be the party’s presidential nominee in 2024.
Republican moderates used the moment to bemoan the party’s plunge into conspiracy theories and divisive issues that light up the right-wing media. Romney advocated for a return to fiscal conservatism. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire said that Mr. Trump might jeopardize the party’s chances of winning in Georgia.
Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa said that it was time to move on from Mr. Trump after he spoke at a Trump rally. “Quit talking abt 2020,” he wrote.
Editor’s Note: David Axelrod, a senior CNN political commentator and host of “The Axe Files,” was a senior adviser to President Barack Obama and chief strategist for the 2008 and 2012 Obama presidential campaigns. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion on CNN.
That politician was Joe Biden, who whispered that salty line (in fuller form) to then-President Barack Obama a dozen years ago at the signing of the Affordable Care Act, only to have it captured on a hot mic.
If Biden hadn’t shouted it from the roof of Cambodia, he would have been forgiven if he had known that Senator Masto was expected to keep her seat in the Senate.
It was the third turning point in an amazing election week in which Democrats broke every rule and shocked the political world by performing better than they had ever done before.
Few pundits, politicians or pollsters would have guessed that on the same night that Cortez Masto secured the Senate for the Democrats, Republicans would still be scuffling to win the necessary seats to seize back control of the House of Representatives.
Senate Republicans also were confident going into Election Day about their chances to break the 50-50 deadlock that has given Democrats control of the Senate on the strength of Vice President Kamala Harris’ tiebreaking vote. Now Harris’ vote may not even be needed if Democrats and Sen. Raphael Warnock tackle Herschel Walker in the Georgia runoff on December 6 and claim a 51st seat.
Democrats will continue to control the agenda on the Senate floor and in committees, which is no small thing — particularly if Republicans take the House.
The Senate has the authority to confirm judicial nominations and key executive appointments even if a Republican house blocks other major Biden initiatives.
By allowing Trump, and not Obama, to fill the Supreme Court vacancy and speeding Barrett through in record time, McConnell and his Senate majority changed history.
The ruling that upended abortion rights was one of the most radical decisions of the high court and was the one that opened the door to radical decisions. In Nevada and elsewhere, a backlash may have had something to do with Democratic victories this year.
The Blessing in Disguise of Winston Churchill, His wife, Lady Clementine, and the Courage of Political Science: A Brief Account of the 1945 London Reheating
After losing his majority in the 1945 parliamentary elections in Britain, Prime Minister Winston Churchill supposedly received assurances from his wife, Lady Clementine, that it was a “blessing in disguise.”
But this year, the typical referendum on the ruling party and President became equally a judgment of the opposition and its putative leader, Trump. It was a response to election denialism, extremism and coarseness.
Republican politicians who have stuck with Trump despite knowing better are not the only ones who have done so. Watching the rapid departure from his camp of his media empire led by Murdoch has been amazing. For them, losing cannot be allowed, but against democracy and decency.
While Biden was overseas, the verdict from Nevada came while he was meeting with peers from around the world and getting ready to meet with China’s president.
The President was likely hobbled by the thumping in the midterms. It would have intensified growing doubts among our allies and adversaries about the durability of American democracy and about Biden’s political viability.
The people had their say, thumbed their nose at the purveyors of conventional wisdom and dealt a blow to Trump and extremists and election-denying Republicans.
Mehmet Oz and the Ruling of a Celebrity Doctor: Donald Trump’s Naked Story at Mar-a-Lago
Marriage is hard. Even the happiest couples will occasionally bicker, nitpick or wear on each other’s nerves. So consider just how bumpy things could get if someone’s thin-skinned, emotionally erratic, accountability-averse husband started criticizing her for his high-profile screw-ups.
At Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump is getting upset over his role in the Republicans face plant in the Pennsylvania Senate race. Mr. Trump backed his old buddy Mehmet Oz, and the celebrity doctor turned out to be a loser. The former president has blamed everyone but himself for his poor pick, including the first lady, according to The Times. (Mr. Trump, of course, hopped on Truth Social to denounce the “Fake Story” and insist he “was not at all ANGRY.”)
By now Mrs. Trump must be somewhat accustomed to her hubby’s tantrums. This round of ragey finger-pointing is especially offensive, considering that Mr. Trump may have weakened Republicans in the Senate race. He helped kneecap the party up and down the Pennsylvania ballot, giving the Democrats in the crucial swing state one of their best Election Days in ages.
The Republican Party is reeling after seeing its hopes of controlling the Senate in 2023 dashed and finding itself in a nip-and-tuck battle for the House majority.
There are still several uncalled House races that will determine control. There will be a Senate majority decided by the December 6 election, but it won’t be decided by Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker.
The Point: Trump is about Trump, but he doesn’t prioritize the good of the party over his own good (I know what happened last week, but I had no idea what happened)
Donald Trump is eager to launch his campaign in the next year or so because he wants to get the attention of voters and close off the support for other candidates. He may want to change the narrative from Republicans who are complaining about him for his role in the elections.
Thanks to Trump, the Republican Party will be in the middle of the race and the former president wants endorsements and fealty from elected officials who are still in the dark about what happened last week.
The Point: Trump is about Trump. He is the leader of the Republican Party, but he doesn’t prioritize the good of the party over his own good.