Tom Malinowski: Going after the biden, the gas prices and the crisis at the border (an ominous commentary on the case of Representative McCarthy)
He has mused publicly — purely in jest, his aides later insisted — about wanting to hit her with the oversized wooden gavel used to keep order in the House.
Nancy Pelosi has a close relationship with the man who is expected to be her replacement if Republicans take control of the House next month. And as the moment of the possible succession draws closer, she has become less and less interested in masking her contempt for Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the top Republican.
At a news conference last week, when asked to respond to Mr. McCarthy’s claim that she was not allowing Democrats to speak out about what he described as a crisis at the border, Ms. Pelosi said of the minority leader, “I don’t even know what he’s talking about — and I don’t know if he does.”
SCOTCH PLAINS, N.J. — When New Jersey’s congressional map was redrawn last year, Representative Tom Malinowski, a second-term Democrat, was widely considered a political goner.
President Biden’s popularity had plummeted, gas prices were soaring and Mr. Malinowski’s Seventh Congressional District — in which he barely eked out a re-election victory in 2020 — had been redrawn to include nearly 27,000 more registered Republicans. Mr. Malinowski said that he would run for a third term and quote an ominous Shakespearean battle cry, once more unto the breach.
Democrats think that the national political momentum has shifted to a point where even the race written off as a strategic sacrifice by some is narrowing as voters absorb the impact of the Supreme Court decision.
Any path by which Democrats are able to stave off a midterm rout or retain a slim House majority cuts straight through districts like Mr. Malinowski’s, where moderate, well-educated voters helped Democrats win control of the House in 2018 and are seen as crucial to holding it.
Herschel Walker: A Girl Who Doesn’t Wanna Win the Senate, but Who Wants to Win? Josh Holmes and the End of Walker’s Unexpected Campaign
The last week of Herschel Walker’s Senate campaign – beset by a report that he paid for a woman he was dating to have an abortion more than a decade ago – has been an utter disaster.
It was made worse by the fact that Republican strategists knew for a long time that Walker was a deeply unfamiliar and unpredictable candidate.
More than a year ago, in response to an Associated Press story detailing Walker’s turbulent past – including reportedly threatening his ex-wife and exaggerating his business successes – Josh Holmes, a longtime confidante to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, was blunt in his assessment of the situation.
McConnell was trying to get Walker to leave the Georgia Senate primary in order to help him in the general election.
Three sources close to the situation say that McConnell has suggested that former Georgia senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler look at running again after their narrow losses in January.
Ultimately those efforts went for naught. And by around this time last year, McConnell had given up – endorsing Walker’s bid. “Herschel is the only one who can unite the party, defeat Senator Warnock, and help us take back the Senate,” McConnell said at the time.
Donald Trump endorsed Walker. He was (and is) a celebrity in Georgia due to his football accomplishments. None of the other potential high-profile GOP candidates – like Perdue and Loeffler – ended up running.
He and a top political consiglieres were skeptical of Walker from the beginning. If you can not beat them, join them.
The first Democrat objected to Mr. Liggett’s continued insistence that the 2020 election had been stolen from Donald J. Trump. But the second one — a friend with whom Mr. Liggett, a 73-year-old retired gemstone dealer in North Carolina, had traveled to jewelry shows for 20 years — came as a shock.
Mr. Liggett said that he thought he was a good Republican. “One day he says, ‘I don’t want to talk to you anymore.’ And I said, ‘Why?’ He said, “Because I don’t believe in the Republican G.O.P.” using a far sharper insult.
As a new poll suggests, the increasingly stark ideological divides of American politics have come with personal consequences. A poll done last week by the New York Times and Siena College found that nineteen percent of voters say that politics has hurt their friends and family.
For all the worry about violent political rhetoric and political conflict in the United States, people with years of experience decided that they no longer agreed on any facts to argue for, which made the situation more sad than angry.
After two years out of power, the Republican Party’s keenness to return to the pinnacle in Congress is palpable, and has been the most important motivating factor in its midterm campaign strategy ahead of the election on November 8.
But it was bigger than that. For years, Ms. Stefanik had crafted her brand as a model moderate millennial — “the future of hopeful, aspirational politics in America,” as her mentor, Paul Ryan, would describe her in Time magazine. But as her third term unfolded, according to current or former friends and advisers, it was becoming painfully clear that she was the future of a Republican Party that no longer existed. The party was now firmly controlled by Donald J. Trump, a populist president she didn’t like or respect — a “whack job,” as she once described him in a message obtained by The New York Times. She was attacked for not supporting Mr. Trump enough. Her friends were upset that she didn’t have more of an opposition to him. She would tell them that you don’t understand. You don’t get how hard it is. Democrats took charge of the House. Mr. Ryan was driven to early retirement. She told her friends she was thinking of joining him.
“The winning team is the winning team – elections have consequences,” Youngkin said, urging all Republicans voters to get behind Lake, but also encapsulating the ideological choice he must make for a future in the party.
There is no reason why a political party should be focused on winning power. Politics is the art of the possible. The election victories of the successful parties are of paramount importance. Lyndon Johnson, Bill Clinton and other Democratic presidents were known for doing what needed to be done in order to win. The ruthlessness of Johnson was on display as he wielded his authority 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.
This is a big leap for a party that used to pride itself on promoting global democracy against tyranny. Republicans who defended such values, which were once prized in the party of Lincoln, against Trump – including Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney and former Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake – were ostracized. In the summer, Cheney lost her primary election to a candidate backed by the Trump campaign, also not running for reelection. Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene is one of the stars of the party, because the Trump base loves her.
Kevin McCarthy went to Mar-a-Lago to mend fences with Trump immediately after he criticized him over the Capitol insurrection. The California lawmaker knew that his party’s hope of a House majority and his own dreams of being speaker hinged on a rapprochement with Trump and his base voters.
The path to power was explained to Senate Minority LeaderMitch McConnell by his experience with Trump over the last six years. The Kentucky Republican decided not to vote for a second impeachment trial that would have allowed Trump to return to power.
McConnell shrugged off the fact that Trump insulted Elaine Chao, his wife. He’s done more than keep quiet. The Senate Leadership Fund, the super PAC affiliated with the minority leader, has poured tens of millions of dollars into key races – including in states like Ohio and Georgia in a bid to bail out misfiring candidates effectively crowned as party nominees by none other than Trump.
New Hampshire, where the GOP nominee has said he wouldn’t vote for McConnell, is being spent in part by McConnell’s affiliated super PAC. It is another chance that could bolster the possible GOP majority.
The impulse to win control of Congress at all costs was displayed when several US senators flew into Georgia in order to rescue Hershel Walker.
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.
He’s doing much the same now – appearing with Trump candidates like Lake and Michigan GOP gubernatorial nominee Tudor Dixon, but also stumping with Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, who fended off Trump’s efforts to oust him earlier this year.
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. It explains the hug after his speech in which he embraced the kind of political personality who wouldn’t have been allowed anywhere near his events last year.
What Do The Past Tell Us About The Democrats? CNN Viewpoint: Trump’s Re-election Has Come and Found Like a Freedom After Eight Years
Editor’s Note: Julian Zelizer, a CNN political analyst, is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is the author and editor of 24 books, including his co-edited work “Myth America: Historians take on the Biggest lies and legends about our past”. Follow him on the social media website. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. There are more opinions on CNN.
It looks like former President Donald Trump is going to launch another bid for the White House. Sources familiar with the matter told CNN that the launch date for Trump’s campaign was November 14. Trump, it seems, is hoping to be the first person since President Grover Cleveland to win two non-consecutive elections.
This might shatter the status quo. Now that there are more Republicans, like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who could possibly do Trumpism in more effective fashion, the former president’s standing within the party inevitably becomes more precarious. The party’s weight, along with messages spread on conservative media, will likely lead to a viable alternative. The New York Post was disparaging Trump’s next run before this week even started.
Some Democrats may think that the re-emergence of Donald Trump is a blessing in disguise, as they breathed a sigh of relief after Biden won the election. The formula for defeating Trump seems to be in the possession of Biden, who has said that he wants to run again. The contrast that he automatically presents – a stable, experienced and low-key political leader– is powerful. Biden has been a strong supporter of the President and would likely unite the Democrats behind him if he were on the campaign trail.
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 in substantive ways after Trump left the White House while the “Never Trump” contingent failed to become a dominant force. Indeed, officials such as Congresswoman Liz Cheney were purged from the party.
Even though the GOP has candidates running for Senate that are deeply flawed and unconventional, recent polls show the party is in a good spot going into the election. Meanwhile, Democrats are scrambling to defend several seats and even candidates in reliably blue states such as New York are at risk.
If Republicans win back the Senate and House next week, they will feel confident in their economic talking points for the next few years. 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. Even though there is lots of speculation about the rise of other Trump-alike Republicans like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, it seems that they will look a little shabby after the former President reenters the political arena.
Trump would gain more strength from a GOP victory. At this point, he has largely escaped accountability. Trump is still a political figure even though he is under criminal investigation.
The Department of Justice is considering the possibility of declaring a special counsel to oversee investigations into Trump if he runs for president. But that’s unlikely to stop Trump; we’ve seen his relentless attacks on former special counsel Robert Mueller, who oversaw the Russia investigation. It will be more difficult to prosecute Trump once he is a candidate. In the past,Trump has claimed that an investigation would be used to take him out of the running.
If Trump isn’t prosecuted, he’d unleash a fierce attack on the President, who could still be struggling with a shaky economy and divisions within his party. The loyalists who have been hacking state and local election offices to make sure Trump wins will be able to do it again if election deniers move into power after the new year. The fact that Trump has been to the rodeo before will give him a head start on the campaign. 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, who founded Truth Social, did not publicly state that he would return.
A Hard Day for President Biden During the Run-up to Midterm Elections: His Failure to Win or His Misfortune
The US is currently in a political era in which both sides think of victory as a loss of the nation, and the run-up to the midterms has reminded them of that.
To be sure, none of these developments mean that he is done. As many commentators have argued, including myself, there are a number of ways in which it is possible for Trump to secure the nomination in 2024.
A dispirited nation worn down by crises and economic anxieties votes Tuesday in an election that is more likely to cement its divides than promote unity.
Elections are often cleansing moments setting the country on a fresh path powered by people freely choosing their leaders – and those leaders accepting the results.
The cost of living crisis is the single biggest issue for voters who are still waiting for the return of normal after a once-in-a-century Pandemic that Biden had promised in 2020, according to polls.
There was a gusher of news on job losses just before polls opened and it made people nervous about a slowdown that could destroy one of the bright spots of the Biden economy. Americans are already struggling with higher prices for food and gas, now the Federal Reserve raises interest rates that could force them into more credit card debt, which in turn could lead to a recession.
The economic situation threatens to set up a classic midterm election rebuke for a first-term president – and in some ways, this would be a sign that democracy is working. Elections have for generations been a safety valve for the public to express dissent with the country’s direction.
Republicans failed to achieve the resounding midterm victory typically won by an opposition party against a president with a low approval rating. If Republican Herschel Walker defeats Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock in a June 27 election, Democrats will be able to increase their number in the Senate by one. If the Republicans win a House majority, they will do it by a few seats.
Tuesday looks set to be a tough day for Biden. The president did not spend the final hours of the campaign battling to get vulnerable Democrats over the line in a critical swing state. His low approval ratings will not hurt Democrats running for office in Maryland, where he was instead. While he did stump for Pennsylvania Senate nominee John Fetterman over the weekend, the venue of his final event encapsulated his drained political juice as he contemplates a 2024 reelection campaign.
Biden said it was going to be difficult. He admitted that life would become more difficult if the GOP took control of Congress, but he thought we would win the Senate.
The Power and Power of People Stories: The Case of President Donald Trump and the Capitol Insurrection, Attorney General Eric Schneider, Attorney-General Eric Garner, and Investigating Corrupt Practices
The personality stories fascinate for their color and detail; they appeal to the versions of history that place a singular individual at their center. The paper stories resonate for their clash of cultures and institutional heft; the findings and accusations of the House’s Jan. 6 committee offer but the latest plot point in this dramatic arc. The people stories are full of characters who face the unthinkable and decide to live there full time, who have experienced Trump’s America, and who decide to do so because they love it. Just about every Trump book that aims to shape the historical record and not just cater to momentary passions is a variation on one of these themes, even if most contain elements of all three. Depending on the accounts you choose and trust, you may come to believe that America is experiencing the death throes of the Trump era, awaiting its miraculous resurrection or feeling the birth pangs of Trumpism by another name.
A moment of trauma that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi experienced when she was told her husband had been attacked with a hammer was amplified by the shadow of violence that has hung over American policies since Trump incited the Capitol insurrection. She condemned certain Republicans in a exclusive interview with Anderson Cooper.
“In our democracy, there is one party that is doubting the outcome of the election, feeding that flame, and mocking any violence that happens. Pelosi said that that has to stop.
“We will never use impeachment for political purposes,” McCarthy told CNN’s Melanie Zanona. It doesn’t mean that something won’t be used at other times.
If Republicans take the Senate, Ron Johnson would use the power given him by the Privileges and Responsibilities committee to further crank up his investigations if he wins reelection.
There’s something magical about democratic elections, when differences are exposed in debates and fierce campaigns. But there’s mostly, until now, been an expectation that both sides would then abide by the verdict of the people.
If you sign up you will get the weekly column as a newsletter. We looked back at the best, smartest opinions from CNN and other outlets.
Sherlock Holmes and the Black Hole: What Happened to the U.S. Citizens of the November 4th, 2008, Election?
In Arthur Conan Doyle’s story, “Silver Blaze,” Sherlock Holmes investigates the disappearance of a famous racehorse and the “tragic murder of its trainer.” The police inspector asked the detective if there was any point to which he would want to draw his attention.
It was only a little more than a week ago that Republicans thought they’d be savoring a crushing victory – and some Democrats were starting to blame each other for what they feared would be a disaster.
The New Yorker’s Benjamin Wallace-Wells reported November 4 that GOP campaign strategists said their candidates, including those in in competitive Senate races like Walker in Georgia and Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, were “heading for a clean sweep.” Wallace-Wells wrote, “The word that kept coming up in these conversations was ‘bloodbath.’”
“People sometimes wonder what it will take to get young people to the polls,” wrote Dolores Hernandez, a junior at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. They no longer have to guess after the next elections.
“Place in front of us an existential issue that could determine our future. Give us the knowledge that we can have a say about issues that affect us with our votes, and we will turn out in droves.” As a Gen Z friend, she viewed abortion as an issue that faced the future.
At the University of Michigan, student activist Isabelle Schindler noted that the line of students seeking same-day registration to vote “on Election Day stretched across … campus, with students waiting for over four hours. There was a palpable sense of excitement and urgency around the election on campus. For many young people, especially young women, there was one motivating issue that drove their participation: abortion rights.”
Nationally, exit polls showed that voters between the ages of 18 and 29 supported Democrats over Republicans by a 63% to 35% margin; no other age group was nearly as pro-Democratic, with voters over 45 strongly favoring Republicans.
After five months, there was a lot of anger over the Supreme Court reversing abortion rights and most other things were over. They argued that Joe Biden was out of touch when he focused on the threat election tampering posed to democracy in his major speech before the election. But both of those issues resonated.
“The abortion-rights side seemingly went a perfect five-for-five when it came to ballot initiatives, recognizing a state right to abortion in Michigan, California and Vermont,” wrote law professor Mary Ziegler. “Kentucky, a deep red state, turned away an attempt to say that the state constitution did not protect a right to abortion. Montana’s abortion measure, which threatened to impose criminal penalties on health care providers, was rejected by voters in Tuesday’s referendum.”
John Avlon saw the midterms as “a repudiation of former President Donald Trump’s election lies and at least many of the top-ticket candidates who parroted them.”
The opposition party gains an average of 46 seats in the House when the president is less than 50% approval rating, as Biden is. While the final number is still being determined, GOP House gains will be far less than that,” Avlon noted.
Roxanne Jones wrote that she was a relief. Over the course of the past few years, we have experienced a lot of divisive rhetoric, so it finally feels like a majority of voters want to move away from it.
In Pennsylvania, Democrat Josh Shapiro soundly defeated Republican candidate Doug Mastriano in the gubernatorial race. Joyce M. Davis wrote in The Patriot- News about how Mastriano upset many Pennsylvanians with his swagger and take-no-prisoners attitude. “He inflamed racial tensions, embraced Christian nationalism, and once said women who violated his proposed abortion ban should be charged with murder. On top of all that, he’s an unapologetic election denier,” Davis observed.
“Plenty of voters are worried about unchecked progressivism on the left, but they’re even more worried about unchecked extremism on the right,” observed Tim Alberta, in the Atlantic.
Extremity takes a wide range of forms: spreading false information about the assault on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, endorsing the January 6 assault on the Capitol, and delegitimizing our elections system. Donald Trump was shown to be the epitome of all of the extremism that many swing voters rejected on Tuesday.
“In exit polls, 28% of voters said they chose their House vote ‘to oppose Donald Trump.’ And just 37% said they had a favorable view of the former president, the presumed GOP front-runner, at least before this election. It should alarm the party.
“Despite his awful showing, Trump plans to declare his candidacy soon. Most Democrats find the prospect hard to stomach, but most Republicans would also like him to just focus on his golf game,” Ghitis noted.
A year ago, he won by less than a percentage point. His nearly 20-point win against Democratic candidate Charlie Crist on Tuesday sent the message that DeSantis, not Trump, can win over the independent voters who decide elections.”
Some careers were made – and others broken – in Tuesday’s election. Peniel Joseph writes that Wes Moore, who is the first black governor of Maryland, is a rising star. Joseph said that a campaign of equal opportunity, compassion for the incarcerated, education for all children, and hope in the future can be infectious enough to spread across the country. “Wes Moore’s victory has recaptured some of the magic that has been lost in our politics in the tumult of the past few years. Hopefully, this is just the beginning.
Nicole Hemmer thought that there were obstacles to his potential run for president. It is just as likely that the next few weeks will be the high-water mark of his presidential ambitions. The spotlight can be very quickly become a hot seat, with the potential to be a Trump foe as well as a national candidate. Those who see an easy pivot from the era of Trump to the age of DeSantis are likely in for another wave of disappointment, both because of the particulars of DeSantis’ victory and the persistence of Trump’s power.”
We Can Stop Being People’s Sexiest Person Alive, or Why We Cannot Have Sexiness At The Newsstands
For Sophia A. Nelson, the loss of Brian Kemp was similar to when she lost her seat to him four years ago.
Democrat Beto O’Rourke lost to the incumbent governor of Texas. After three big losses it is time for him to stop running for office in Texas, wrote Nicole Russell in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. We’ve had enough Beto for one lifetime. His liberal policies are not welcome in Texas.
His military machine is broken, his country is scarred, and his reputation as a geopolitical mastermind is in tatters. Putin-the-man may still cling to power for years, but Putin-the-legend is dead.”
Sara Stewart said that she thinks the appeal of Chris Evans “has not aged well,” referring to the fact that the actor was first bestowed on by Mel Gibson in 1985.
This is a great time to ask if we can get rid of the entire tradition of People’s Sexiest Man Alive.
Think about the ridiculousness of declaring someone to be the Sexiest Person in the World. Sexiness, by its very nature, is subjective. So it’s a winky joke that People offers up its own tastes as if they are everyone’s. And by making their subject male, they’re tacitly saying: See, we’re not objectifying women, we’re so evolved. Men can be objects of lust too! Maybe that was (arguably) a subversive statement in the 1980s, when Playboy, Penthouse and other magazines imposed a misogynist ideal of sexiness at the newsstands. But now? Not so much.”
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/13/opinions/five-lessons-midterms-opinion-columns-galant/index.html
Elon Musk and Roxanne Jones: Five-Leastons Midterms Opinion Columns Galant. How I Met Your Twitter
The new season of “The Crown,” which Netflix dropped on Wednesday, “charts the royals’ course through the turbulent 1990s, including Prince Charles and Princess Diana’s agonizing divorce and Elizabeth’s ‘annus horribilis’ in 1992, when a fire destroyed much of Windsor Castle,” wrote Holly Thomas.
“Details of the show’s storylines doing the rounds earlier this fall quickly drew ire, and one reportedly involving Charles, now King, lobbying for the Queen’s abdication prompted former UK Prime Minister John Major to describe the series as a ‘barrel-load of nonsense.’” The nation continues to mourn Queen Elizabeth II, who died two months ago, and Dame Judi Dench warned that the series may blur the lines between historical accuracy and crude sensationalism.
Elon Musk is going to have to try to fix Twitter without the help of journalist Roxanne Jones. She’s had enough. On the day that Musk became the platform’s owner, Jones deleted his account. It had been more than a year since I last posted on the social network and it was time for me to say goodbye and good riddance.
That act may not make a difference to the millions of people who use the social networking site. Power and self-care were the reasons I quit the social networking site. I was setting boundaries for what I will and won’t allow in my life.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/13/opinions/five-lessons-midterms-opinion-columns-galant/index.html
Five-Leastons Midterms: Buying a Lottery Box to Help the Powerball Go On a Barbecue
Bill Carter and his wife don’t normally buy lottery tickets, “having long concluded that it felt like burning a $10 bill (sometimes a $20 bill) on a barbecue grill.”
As the Powerball went toward a $2 billion annuity they decided to buy some tickets. How could we not do that? Think of what we could do with the money.
“Really: What would we do with all that money? After helping the kids, donating to charities, buying several homes, etc., what else? How about make a money bin and have it swim around like Scrooge McDuck? Unwise. Money can make you liquid, but it is not, in fact, liquid.)”
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/13/opinions/five-lessons-midterms-opinion-columns-galant/index.html
The Man of Steel: The Birth of Superman and the Birth of Hero, Deborah Shuster, and the Loss of Her Mother Lois Lane
The origin story of Man of Steel is well known. The creators of Superman came up with a revolutionary idea at the age of 18. He was the first superhero, a concept so unprecedented that, as Siegel detailed in his unpublished memoir, every newspaper syndicate in the US rejected it for being too fantastic for children to relate to.”
But as Schwartz wrote, Shuster had a relationship with Helen Louise Cohen, a fellow resident of Cleveland, who might have borne a resemblance to Superman’s eventual wife Lois Lane. Her sketches of Superman and Cohen were sent along with other letters in a neat script.
Ultimately, she broke it off, choosing instead to marry “a dashing officer, later awarded the Legion of Merit and eventually becoming a colonel in the Army’s 88th Infantry Division.” Shuster was too nearsighted to enlist in the military during World War II.
Cohen told her sons that she was too mild-mannered for them. Schwartz wrote that the family is sharing his sketches and letters with the world.
The Republican Party is in a fight for the majority in the House after its dream of controlling the Senate in 2023 was dashed.
There are still several House races that will determine control. The election for Georgia’s seat in the Senate won’t affect the majority but will take place on December 6.
Trump is about Trump, but isn’t about him: Tax fraud, falsifying tax returns, and his presidential runoff win in Georgia
Trump is eager to launch his 2024 campaign for a variety of reasons, including, but not limited to, his desire to close off momentum for other contenders (most notably Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis) and, perhaps, to try to insulate himself from his own mounting legal problems. He wants to change the story about his role in the election from the GOP blame game.
The Republican Party will be thrust into the race thanks to Trump, who will try to get the endorsements and fealty of officials who are still trying to figure out what happened last week.
The Point: Trump is about Trump. He is the leader of the Republican Party, yes, but he ignores the good of the party over his own good.
Donald Trump is getting more expensive to support in the Republican Party. The former president has gone through one of the most tumultuous weeks possible, with fresh evidence of why the party’s connection to him – and his potential nomination in 2024 – could be extraordinarily damaging.
A Manhattan jury found two of the companies in the Trump Organization guilty of criminal tax fraud and falsifying tax business records on Tuesday, though Trump and his family were not charged in the case.
And in Tuesday’s Senate runoff election in Georgia, Trump’s handpicked candidate, former football star Herschel Walker, lost to Sen. Raphael Warnock, giving Democrats a 51-seat majority in the Senate. That was also the day Trump posed for photos with a prominent QAnon conspiracy theorist at Mar-a-Lago.
On Wednesday, the Washington Post reported that a team of investigators hired by the former president’s lawyers, under a federal judge’s order, found two documents with classified markings in a Florida storage unit.
Trump hasn’t been criticized for his antisemitic behavior during his first two terms in office: What did he do in 2016?
Nor was this week some sort of one-off. After his decision to eat with Kayne West, he made more antisemitic comments. Also at the table that evening was Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes, who is a notorious promoter of racism of all kinds.
Commenting on everything that has happened, Republican strategist Scott Reed called this week, and the two that came before, “devastating for Trump’s future viability.” The writing on the wall, Reed told the New York Times, seems clear. “Abandonment,” he said, “has begun.”
Why might all of this matter now? After all, turmoil is Trump’s main currency. When it came to generating controversy, he was always counting on it for his central strategy of getting media attention. He has used investigations and attacks that come his way to position himself as a anti-Establishment figure who can sympathize with the common person.
Trump never strives to be loved but, rather, he seeks to weaponize the anger and vitriol that he generates. Despite Trump’s name-calling and personal drama, he twice won the GOP presidential nomination – and the 2016 election. The same dynamic held true throughout his one-term presidency.
Some speculate that Trump may have gone too far but this never proved to be a concern to the Republican powerbrokers. This issue is not the motivating factor for them.
Almost nothing that happened in recent weeks is totally new to Trump, unless a person hasn’t been paying attention. He has been involved in many scandals since he started in politics. As president, he constantly flouted the limits of power. And he has a history of making remarks that invoke antisemitic tropes.
But now things might start to look different. The 2022 midterms could turn into a dividing line in the history of the Trump-Republican relationship. In Republican politics, partisan power drives decision-making above all else.
The ability of Trump to command attention by making outrageous and threatening comments is something he has excelled in in the past, drawing attention to himself in the media. It is unclear if many Republicans are willing to break with him in a serious fashion. Every Republican alternative who looks good on paper might look more like former Texas Gov. Rick Perry in 2012 and 2016, or former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush in 2016. Both GOP presidential candidates went from seemingly inevitable superstars to minor sideshows in primaries.
If Trump is going to solidify his position, he will need to convince more Republicans that he can deliver votes and that he is not a “loser,” in his own parlance. This has become much more difficult with Republicans seeing Democrats in power in the White House, Senate, and many state legislatures and governorships they were hoping to win. Trump will have a much harder road ahead if Republicans conclude that by not fighting his nomination tooth and nail, they might end up handing Democrats a united government two years down the road.
The New Democrats: What Do They Want? Why Do They Think They Are Wrong? How Do They See Their News? Why We Think It Matter?
That was the plan. And it succeeded. The “New Democrats” won the war inside the Democratic Party, defeating the traditionalists. They got a lot of chances to rule. They triangulated and sought grand bargains. Today we live in the future to which they built their celebrated bridge, with a deregulated Wall Street, a devitalized heartland and college diplomas held up as the answer to all problems. The Democrats didn’t take the opportunity offered by the financial crisis to remake the financial system, instead preferring to focus on populism. Some of them were able to identify with that system.
In some respects, liberalism from top to bottom has been a success. The highly educated are now solidly Democratic, and the wealthy are moving rapidly our way. The party’s candidates raised more money than the Republicans. Even though President Biden is sympathetic to blue-collar workers, the 1990s’ strategy of courting the learning class, winning the affluent suburbanites and talking about innovation seems to still be the way to go today. According to exit polls, the party continues to hemorrhage working-class votes despite inspiring victories like John Fetterman.
A perfect summary of how they see themselves is the combo of high net worth and high moral virtue that the Democrats offer. For party leaders, it has meant something even better: lucrative second careers at Silicon Valley behemoths, compounds on Martha’s Vineyard and presidential libraries that surpass those of the Republicans in soaring monumentalism. Maybe it is a bargain if you consider the price the country has to pay for such things.
When viewed from a distance, these things can be seen, but liberals can never figure it out. They keep expecting the right to die off, even if it’s poison, and the Republicans continue to dream up new culture wars against the liberals.
What do the liberals do? We dig in. We cheer for ourselves and we demand that everyone else do the same. We react hysterically to bad news, we refuse any analysis that doesn’t begin by ascribing Satanism to the G.O.P., and we go on Twitter to scold those who don’t measure up to our standards in some way. This is not strategy. It is a group of people.
The Adventures of a Young Congresswoman in the era of the ‘Demagogy of the Partisan Project’: Donald Trump’s No. 3 House Leadership
When journalists write books on the presidency of Donald Trump, they tend to choose one of three options. They write about people, personality, paper, or both.
In the wake of the 2018 midterms, the young congresswoman was sick of commuting to Washington from upstate New York and weary of dialing for campaign dollars. She was demoralized that the voters of the republican primary had rejected so many of the women she helped persuade to run for congress. She was angry that she didn’t get the respect she deserved after Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made MzE MzE MzE MzE the youngest woman ever elected to the House.
She embarked on a political change that was quite brazen. Ms. Stefanik embraced the theories of the conspiracy that have made him famous, and she made herself into a fervent Trump apologist by embracing breathtaking speed and alacrity. Democrats are being criticized as the Party of Socialists, illegals, criminals, and Communist Truth Ministers. In the process, she has rocketed from the backbench to the party’s No. 3 House leadership job, presiding over the conference’s overall messaging.