Fred Randall
2024-08-20 15:55:18 UTC
Whose inauguration, not Trump's, that would be way too soon.
Fat Flabby Feeble Fascist Felon Trump will be locked up by September.He's too frail to last long there. Hope for the best behind bars.
Why Trump Wont Win
His threats to democracy make him dangerous. They also make him a weak
candidate.
Over the past few weeks, warnings about the threat posed by Donald
Trumps potential reelection have grown louder, including in a series of
articles in The Atlantic. This alarm-raising is justified and
appropriate, given the looming danger of authoritarianism in American
politics. But amid all of the worrying, we might be losing sight of the
most important fact: Trumps chances of winning are slim.
Some look at Trumps long list of flaws and understandably see reasons to
worry about him winning. I see reasons to think he almost certainly
wont.
Yes, recent polls appear to favor him. Yes, Joe Biden is an imperfect
opponent. And yes, much could change over the next 11 months, potentially
in Trumps favor. But if Bidens health holds, he is very likely to be
reelected next year. Its hard to imagine any other Republican candidate
galvanizing Democrats, independents, and even some Republicans to vote
for the current president in the way that Trump will.
Im not arguing that anyone who wants President Biden to winand, more
important, anyone who wants Trump to loseshould relax. To the contrary,
Democrats, and any other sensible voters who oppose Trump, need to
forcefully remind the American people about how disastrous he was as
president and inform them of how much worse a second term would be.
Thankfully, that is not a hard case to make.
David Frum: The coming Biden blowout
The former president enjoys some clear advantages. About a third of
Republicans are fiercely loyal to him, meaning that he has the unwavering
support of a small but potent segment of the broader electorate. Once he
is presumably crowned the Republican nominee, which seems inevitable and
will probably occur by Super Tuesday, the GOPs electoral and fundraising
machine will whir into motion on his behalf. In all likelihood, the
leaders in his party will unite behind him. Large numbers of Americans
will vote for anyone running as a Republican against a Democrat.
Trumps media supporters, above all at Fox News, will offer support,
propagating a set of myths about his record in office, particularly the
supposedly great economy over which he presided. Trump will be able to
run as both an incumbent, because hes a former president, and an
outsider, as in 2016, because he is out of office. That will make his
attacks on the deep state and his own persecution narrative more
convincing. Trump intends to use his various criminal and civil trials as
proof that theythe Biden administrationare going after him because he
represents ushis voters. A certain segment of the public will buy into
these messages.
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Trump might also enjoy a relative advantage in the Electoral College
because of the counter-majoritarian aspects of the U.S. political system.
He soundly lost the popular vote in both 2016 and 2020, and almost no one
expects him to win a majority of votes in 2024 either. But if the race is
close enough in the right places, the undue power of rural voters in
smaller or less populated states could tilt the outcome in his favor.
Finally, Biden is not the candidate Trump ran against four years ago. He
is older, his approval rating is suffering, and, during his four years in
office, he has given certain segments of the public reasons to be
dissatisfied with him. Thats reflected in the current polling, where he
appears to be losing support among key groups, including Black and Latino
voters.
All of that notwithstanding, when the general election gets under way,
and presuming that Americans are faced with a binary choice between Trump
and Biden, Trumps chances will start to look much worse. Even if most
Republicans unite behind him, a significant portion of both Republicans
and independents will have a hard time pulling the lever for him. Some
Republican voters might well stay home.
Trumps flaws look far worse today than they did eight years ago. To take
one example that should concern conservative voters: his behavior toward
and views of service members. In the 2016 campaign, Trumps attacks on
Senator John McCain and on the Gold Star Khan family were bad enough. Now
we have a litany of testimonies that he expressed contempt and disgust
for wounded veteransdemanding that he not be seen in public with
themand that he debased fallen soldiers, describing them as suckers
and marveling, What was in it for them? According to an Atlantic
report, when he was scheduled to visit a World War Iera American
cemetery in France in 2018, Trump complained, Why should I go to that
cemetery? Its filled with losers. Trump has always posed as a patriot,
but he has proved himself unpatriotic, anti-military, and ignorant of the
meaning of sacrifice.
From the November 2023 issue: The patriot
Similarly, in 2016, Trumps campaign was briefly rocked by the Access
Hollywood videotape in which he boasted about grabbing women by the
genitalia. He survived, in large part because many voters chose to accept
his comments as locker room bluster. Several women accused him of
sexual misconduct, but Trump fended off their allegations too. Now he has
been held civilly liable by a New York jury for sexually abusing the
advice columnist E. Jean Carroll in 1996. A federal judge has said that
the jury concluded that what Trump did to Carroll was rape in the common
sense of the term. Some Americans will shrug that off, but many wont be
able to.
Trump hopes that his legal troubles will prove a boon to his campaign,
allowing him to paint both law enforcement and the judicial system as
part of a massive conspiracy against him. He has even requested that his
federal trial regarding efforts to overturn the 2020-election results be
televised. Thats unlikely, but the more airtime these prosecutions get,
the better. Among Republicans, Trumps polling has improved since his
indictments, but many other Americans simply wont be impressed,
inspired, or persuaded by someone who faces 91 felony counts, in addition
to civil cases. Trump already has been found liable for fraud and sexual
abuse in New York. To that may well be added a criminal conviction at the
federal level. Even if none of the trials has concluded by next fall,
much of the evidence that prosecutors have accumulated is already in the
public record and will be powerful fodder for anti-Trump attack ads. And
Democrats will benefit from the attention Trump draws to the election-
subversion cases. Even many of Trumps most ardent supporters are tired
of relitigating 2020; voters would prefer to focus on the future, not the
past.
David A. Graham: A guide to the cases against Trump
On top of all this, Trump has a strong record of electoral losses, with
his 2016 upset, which apparently surprised even him, as the lone
exception. His party suffered the standard midterm defeat in 2018. Then
he lost the 2020 election. Then Republicans lost control of the Senate
after Georgias runoff in early 2021. Then his party was denied the
standard midterm victory in 2022, barely eking out a four-vote House
majority thanks in large part to his own handpicked, election-denying
candidates, almost all of whom lost in competitive races. There is no
obvious reason that 2024 should constitute a sudden break from this
pattern of MAGA defeat.
Presidential elections are usually decided by a relatively small group of
swing voters in six or seven swing states. The most important are
independent voters and suburban voters, two groups that appear to have
turned away from Trump since 2016. He hasnt done anything to win them
back since 2020, instead running in recent months on a platform thats
more radical, extreme, and openly authoritarian than ever (except on the
issue of abortion, where he is less extreme than his Republican-primary
competitors). With Trump promising vengeance, retribution, and
dictatorship, at least on day one, as he recently told Sean Hannity,
will these swing voters be wooed back into his camp? Are Americans so fed
up that they will want to elect someone who has advocated for the
termination of the Constitution in order to keep himself in power?
Recent polling suggests that Biden is in real trouble, including with a
number of core Democratic constituencies, which is leading many Democrats
to yearn for a different candidate or to despair that Trump will be
reelected. In fact, Biden has a strong record to run on. In his first two
years, with a tiny House majority and only a tiebreaker in the Senate, he
managed to pass more progressive, consequential economic legislation
than, arguably, any president since Lyndon B. Johnson. Unemployment is
low, and inflation is cooling. Perhaps the public has not fully felt
these positive developments yet, but they will almost certainly have
registered by next November.
Americans have reported to pollsters that although they believe that the
economy is bad for others, they themselves feel economically secure.
Biden should ask voters Ronald Reagans classic question: Are you better
off today than you were four years ago? The answer can only be yes, given
the dire situation the nation found itself in during the early months of
the coronavirus pandemic (to say nothing of the general sense of chaos
throughout Trumps presidency). But Biden and Democrats need to make this
case. Without prompting, voters might not readily remember how
challenging a time 2020 was.
Derek Thompson: Everything is terrible, but Im fine
The abortion issue, opened up by the Supreme Courts overturning of Roe
v. Wade, has consistently played in Democrats favor, and thats unlikely
to change next November. If the Republican nominee were former United
Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, women might not rally so powerfully to
the Democratic side. But Trump claims responsibility for the decision
overturning Roe by virtue of his Supreme Court appointees. That, plus
Trumps treatment of women, gives Biden a huge opportunity with female
voters.
Bidens pro-Israel policies during the ongoing war in Gaza might cost him
support from Arab and Muslim Americans, but probably not enough for him
to lose Michigan, for example, to Trump. Voters in those groups seem
unlikely to support the author of the Muslim ban, who is threatening to
reimpose similar restrictions, and the Peace to Prosperity Israeli-
Palestinian proposal that invited Israel to annex 30 percent of the
occupied West Bank. Some will stay homea potential danger for Bidenbut
many will, perhaps reluctantly, turn out for him despite what they say
now.
The 2024 election will be a referendum on democracy, with both candidates
claiming to stand for freedom and American values. On this matter,
Bidens claims are obviously stronger: He has been governing as a
traditional president, whereas Trump promises authoritarianism and openly
says he wants to be dictator for a day to accomplish certain policies,
namely restricting immigration. But what if his plans take more than a
day? What if his one-day dictatorship extends to a year and then never
ends? Americans know that strongmen dont keep their promises.
Biden is old, but so is Trump. Biden has grown unpopular, but so has
Trump. Biden has liabilities, but Trumps are considerably worse. Biden
has lost the backing of plenty of voters, but the results of the past few
elections suggest that Trump has lost more. Meanwhile, Trumps record as
president and sinceJanuary 6, the devastating testimony from his former
senior officials, the ongoing trials, and whatever additional self-
inflicted wounds he deliverswill contrast very poorly with Bidens track
record and steady leadership. By November, enough Americans will surely
understand that they arent voting for Biden over Trump so much as voting
for the Constitution over a would-be authoritarian.
The case against Trumps reelection is obvious and damning. As long as
his opponents prosecute that caseand they willTrump isnt going to win.