11/18/23
I have long contended that the 2024 presidential race will
not be a Trump/Biden rematch. I grow
increasingly convinced of this contention with every passing day. Why?
Let’s take a look at the situations both parties face from the
perspective a hypothetical mainstream member of either party, in the first
person.
FROM A HYPOTHETICAL MAINSTREAM DEMOCRAT
“We’ve got a problem.
Our president is not a popular guy.
Polls show him either neck and neck with, or losing to, Donald
Trump. Donald Trump! This thing could go either way. If last week’s CPI numbers are right,
inflation might be down, maybe way down, by election day, but, then again, that
recession everybody has been predicting may finally hit us next year, which would
probably kill us in any case but would certainly kill us if Joe is our
candidate.
“We have two hot wars going on and who knows if the Chinese
are going to make a move on Taiwan? Our
big time adversaries sense weakness, real or perceived, in our leaders; look at
what Khrushchev did back in ’62 when he thought Kennedy was a lightweight? He almost started World War III! Speaking of World War III, any of these
geopolitical flashpoints could lead to just that. But let’s not get crazy here and just stick
with the current situation. Foreign policy
could hurt us if things get out of control.
Or it could really help us from a political standpoint if people decide
to rally behind their leader, not switch horses in mid-stream, or that sort of
thing. Probably foreign policy won’t
make any difference because most Americans don’t give a damn about foreign
policy. But I don’t like playing those
odds.
“Even if inflation goes down, the economy continues to grow,
unemployment remains low, and things don’t blow up overseas, Joe will still be
81 years old and, er, not a young 81.
Even people in our party think the guy is losing it, and nobody could be
blamed for wondering if the guy is going to make it another four years, making
our candidate, in a lot of people’s minds, Kamala Harris, which presents
another set of problems. And even if the
“age issue” doesn’t do in Joe, we still have crime and the border, which the
electorate always, rightly or wrongly, blames on the president.
“Yeah, we could still win this with Joe. We could really beat the Republicans over the
head with the abortion issue, which has been a big winner for us ever since Roe
v. Wade was overturned. Why do you
think the House Republicans are looking like a bunch of clowns? I
guess we should thank the Supreme Court for that one, but I sure as hell won’t. But I digress. And if Trump is the GOP candidate, we could
make this a referendum on Trump rather than on Joe. Yeah, we could get Joe over the goal line on
abortion and Trump, especially if inflation is down and the economy is still
holding up, but I say ‘Why take the chance?’
“We should just nominate a young, vigorous candidate who is as
far to the left as most of the Party but can be sold as a moderate to most of the
voters, sort of like a fresh version of Joe Biden. We’ll win this election if we do that, especially
if the GOP nominates Trump.
“Yeah, we’ll have some problems. The true believers on the left will scream
bloody murder. They have some arguments
with Joe, especially on things like the Middle East, and it really makes them
nuts when he talks about being Catholic.
But, in Joe, they have a guy who will do most of what they want while being
promoted, with a straight face, as a moderate by our friends in the media. And Joe, even on those points on which he
disagrees with the true believers, is not in any condition to put up much of a fight. They might get blowback from a more capable moderate
who sees the more outrageous aspects of their agenda for the silliness that we
secretly know it is, but not from Joe.
“Then we will have the Kamala problem. If we replace Joe as our candidate, she’ll
surely feel that it is her time; she’s the Vice-President, for God’s sake. But if we run her, we might see 1972 all over
again.
“But we can figure out a way around these problems. Yeah,
Joe is a stubborn old Irishman and won’t leave quietly. But Joe is nothing if not vain, and maybe we
can sell him with a story about how he saved America from Trumpism but, if he runs
again, his great victory will be effectively overturned. Does he want to be the guy who saved America
from Trump or the guy who returned Trump to power? Joe might buy it.
“As for Kamala, we can come up with something nice for her,
maybe a seat on the Supreme Court the next time one opens up. That’s a permanent job that she won’t have
to run for, and running for office is not her strong suit. She’ll go for something like that.
“Regardless of the difficulties, we have to have somebody
other than Joe bearing our standard in 2024.
If we don’t, there’s a pretty decent chance that we get four more years
of Trump, and, unless you are the type of Democrat who puts Party above country
and focuses solely on putting the Party in a good position for the next
election, you can’t possibly want that outcome.”
FROM A HYPOTHETICAL MAINSTREAM REPUBLICAN
“We’ve got a problem.
Donald Trump is running away with the nomination. Even if you like the guy, you have to admit
that, by now, he is a proven loser. Regardless
of what he says, he lost in 2020 and took us down in the Senate that year by
his antics in Georgia to boot. He,
along with abortion, turned what should have been a red wave, maybe a red
tsunami, in 2022, into a disaster in the Senate and a barely perceptible
majority in the House, which has led to us looking like a bunch of clowns as we
try to form an effective majority out of a bunch of people who just don’t like
each other and regard those who don’t agree with them as corporatist,
anti-American RINOs, gun-toting right wing loons, or, in AT LEAST one case, “bitches.” Donald has been a disaster for the Party.
“Yeah, some of the polls show Trump ahead of Biden,
especially in the battleground states, and, if you watch Fox News enough, you would
be convinced Trump is going to win against Biden in a walk. But it’s not going to happen. Trump is not going to cut substantially into
the Democrat’s share of the Black vote, even if that Democrat is Biden. Trump is not going to win back the
suburbanites whose antipathy toward Trump turned hundreds of deep red counties
purplish blue. And even if Trump runs
an inside straight policy wise, he is still going to be 78 years old, which is
young only relative to Joe Biden. And
has anybody noticed that Trump is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, either? That may be due to factors transcending age,
but only compared to Biden could he look strong and in control of his faculties. Further, Donald could be a convicted felon
by the time election day rolls around. While
that may make him more attractive to a lot of people, there are plenty of
people who simply won’t vote for a convicted felon, regardless of what they think
about the motivations behind those convictions.
A lot might change between now
and election day, and probably not in Trump’s favor.
“Sure, the economy could get so bad that memories of the
Trump prosperity will carry Donald over the electoral threshold. Further trouble in the three (and counting)
world hotspots could shake the people out of their foreign policy indifference
and induce them to support a guy who at least argues that he could handle the
likes of Putin and Xi better than Biden.
And we always have the border, which is a disaster, and crime, which may
be the biggest issue in the election
“Yeah, all those things could combine to put Donald back in
the White House, but I say ‘Why take the chance?’ If we nominate somebody who embodies
conservative principles but carries none of Donald’s baggage, we will win,
especially if we are facing Joe Biden.
The Democrats only win this thing if they can divert attention from their
candidate. Why should we let them do
that?
“There are lots of problems with replacing Trump. Trump is so far ahead in the polls that it
looks like he is unstoppable. True
enough, but it is still early and Donald has set expectations so high that even
a minor stumble opens up the field. Let’s
see what happens in Iowa and New Hampshire.
One gets the sense that there is
room, albeit only a little room, for one of his opponents to emerge as the sole
alternative to Trump, and then it could get interesting. This is admittedly a long shot, and many of
us are probably talking more out of hope than facts here, but it could happen.
“The biggest problem is that many, maybe most, of Donald’s
loyal followers don’t give a rat’s hindquarters about the Republican
Party; in fact, they see part of Trump’s
mission as destroying traditional Republicanism and replacing it with what can
be vaguely described as Trumpist Populism.
So any argument that Trump will destroy the GOP’s chances either has no
appeal to them or indeed further increases their ardor for Trump. But do these voters really want to see
another four years of Biden or a younger version of him? Is that really preferable to four years of,
say, Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, or Chris Christie? Maybe the most ardent Trump backers would
never support Nikki or Chris, but, surely, Ron would be acceptable to them…right?”
BACK TO YOURS TRULY…
You see where this is going. One, or both, of the parties is going to
somehow dump its front-runner. And
whichever party does that, assuming the other party keeps its front-runner,
will win. The country is yearning for an
alternative to Trump and Biden, and it’s not going to emerge from any of these
nascent Third Party efforts.
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