The Witness Chronicles, February 28, 2024
Gifts for Joe and Trump’s phony numbers
Republicans Keep Handing Biden Big Sticks
He has been walking softly but the GOP better be wary
It was Teddy Roosevelt who made the phrase widely popular. Walk softly but carry a big stick. It’s good advice, especially when you are facing a bully and a blowhard who is known for whining when things don’t go his way.
We all know Joe Biden is a quiet man these days, in part because he must choose his words carefully because of a childhood speech impediment. As is typical of bullies, the right has taken every opportunity to mock him for it, standard bullying tactic number one.
But that quiet voice is misleading if they think it indicates weakness. And behind that voice is a man walking quietly with a whole quiver of big sticks, including many that the GOP under Trump thought would work in their favor.
For example, making demands for a tough border policy and then failing to pass one when Biden handed it to them. It’s hard to claim an issue is urgent when you don’t take action on it, even when you get what you want.
On Long Island they lost a desperately needed House seat when the Democrat who won it beat them hard with that club.
Now, with a possible impending shutdown of the federal government this week, they are handing Democrats yet another huge issue that has backfired on them every time they have failed to pass budget legislation to keep the doors open. History repeats itself and they won’t be allowed to forget it.
Then there is Ukraine funding, a popular bipartisan issue that goes to the core of our democratic beliefs. I sincerely believe that Joe Biden doesn’t want to have that failure as a weapon to use against Republicans. He wants us all to stand up and defend our ally in its defense of democracy against the most deadly dictator on the planet.
But the GOP’s softening towards Vladimir Putin, driven by the whole range of Donald Trump’s strange embraces of a war criminal, who regularly uses torture and assassination against anyone who crosses him, is unprecedented. Especially from a party that has traditionally been strongly anti-Russian and pro-Democracy.
This is profoundly disturbing to many Republicans, as are many of these stances. But Trump’s stranglehold on the party seems so complete that many of those old school stalwarts are choosing to leave public service. 22 in Congress so far have announced they will not be returning due to the toxic and totally unproductive far right obstructionism.
The Republican Party under Trump is successfully gutting the party of competence and voices of reason and it will have a hard time replacing them with equally competent candidates. More ammunition for Biden.
Then there is the abortion disaster, culminating in an extreme Alabama judge declaring that embryos are human and doctors can be convicted for any damage that happens to them. This effectively ends in vitro fertilization (IVF) in that state, the last hope of having children for desperate parents, regardless of political affiliation.
This emotionally charged issue has never been politicized, in part because it is wildly popular across political divides. Anti-abortion activists have always claimed their stance was about the sanctity of life, but in Alabama that sanctity has been taken to an extreme that will actually deprive embryos of life.
This week, on top of all this, we are watching Republican Congress members trying to find a resolution to this dilemma one of their own has forced upon them. They are scrambling to find a compromise on IVF, but compromising is not their strong point.
It is reasonable to ask what wins the Republicans have to brag about, other than obstructionism based on purely political motivations rather than any concern for the future of the nation. And that politicalization is the biggest stick they are handing the Biden campaign.
Do-nothingism. And the do-nothing gospel embraced by far right Trumpians comes directly on orders from Trump himself, and he is clear about his motivation for stalling any action by his own party. He has no legitimate policies or track record to run on so he needs weapons to attack Biden.
But I suspect he and the Republican Party did not consider that those weapons might be turned against them. And now it looks like it will be.
Trump’s Numbers Don’t Add Up
He did not ‘trounce’, ‘crush’, or ‘destroy’ Nikki Haley
The words in quotes above are all from headlines in mainstream media and to say they are misleading is an understatement. Yes, he won in South Carolina and won definitively by 60% to Haley’s 40%, but when you look at those numbers the story is not of a crushing win.
Don’t get me wrong, he will probably get the Republican nomination, barring a miracle. But Haley’s 40% in an extremely conservative Trump loving state is a scary number if you are a Republican campaign strategist because it is a significant percentage of the Republican vote and an indication that a lot of Republicans are not too happy with their guy.
In the context of expectations, Trump did not do that well in a state that he should have owned. The question now is, how many of those dissatisfied Republicans will vote against Trump in the general election? Those numbers were very low in 2020 but they are estimated to be triple this time around, from an estimated 6% in 2020 to 18% this year.
Bear in mind that it is only February and we have endless months of watching Trump in court, Trump struggling to raise money for both legal bills and fines, and Trump increasingly appearing to show signs of early onset dementia, as he substitutes words with nonsense in his endless public ranting.
This, combined with his control over a do nothing Republican House of Representatives, is going to further chip away his support. One poll taken after the South Carolina primary showed a big drop in Republicans identifying as MAGA, the de facto Trump brand.
That same do nothing Congress will be facing a tipping point this week with the impending government shutdown on Friday and growing bipartisan support for passing the Ukraine aid bill, support that is bordering on outrage as Trump embraces Putin and the Freedom Caucus finds their Biden impeachment circus falling to pieces around them.
Besides the primary news, the other story bubbling up all over is that Republican embrace of the Russians, something that a lot of old school GOPers find extremely uncomfortable, given the recent death by apparent assassination of Putin opponent Alexei Navalny, a genuine hero.
The Party has a problem as publicity-seeking grandstanders in their ranks will say and do anything to get media time, including this dangerous flirtation with a despot waging a war on a US ally. Trump is the leader of that grandstanding group with his incredible need for attention at any cost, all the time.
We watch the media trying to equate Biden’s memory lapses with Trump’s incomprehensible word salad whenever he goes off the teleprompter, a comparison that does not hold up with experts like neurologists who equate Trump’s constant word substitution with dementia and early onset Alzheimer’s. Biden’s errors pale in comparison and anyone over the age of fifty will tell you that we all get those brain farts.
As we prepare to enter March, only the third month of the year, the Republican problems are just starting to pile up. Last week saw Alabama essentially make in vitro fertilization (IVF) illegal, a procedure that leads to 2% of births in the US and is wildly popular across party lines.
So popular in fact that Republicans, including Trump, are scrambling to somehow claim they support IVF even as they try to pass bills ending it. They want their cake and to eat it too.
Continuing the disarray, Republican National Committee head Ronna McDaniel resigned today, forced out by Trump. But committee member Haley Barbour, an old school GOP guy, is proposing that the party no longer fund Trump's legal bills as their funds dry up and donors protest at their campaign contributions going to inept lawyers who keep losing cases.
Meanwhile Trump continues to see that money, what’s left of it, as his own personal piggy bank, leaving the entire party starved for money to fund election efforts for candidates across the country.
So, well pundits and pollsters trumpet Trump’s victory, we are watching his Party disintegrate under his leadership or lack thereof. When we have had government shutdowns in the past, the backlash has been harsh for the Party behind it and this week will be no different. Hapless House Speaker Johnson seems incapable of managing anything like real legislation as he lets the crazies in his party run the asylum.
I firmly believe voters in this country have not lost their marbles across the board. As these stories build up, Haley’s 40% in South Carolina might not look like the huge loss we are told they are. Instead they may be the first signs of a voter revolt against Trump within his own party.
It’s early but Trump is not making the numbers he made in 2020, an election he lost. If his numbers are down again he will lose again and take the entire party with him.
Call me an optimist, I’ve been called worse.
Well, the second month of this bonkers election year is nearly done. It would be over if this was not a Leap Year, as all US Presidential election years are. Given that every day seems to bring some new story of incompetence and failure by the right, and developments in Ukraine and the Middle East, I can’t guarantee I won’t be writing about politics tomorrow.
Do I yearn to write about positive stuff? Yes, and there are days when immersing yourself in the news and punditworld is psychologically exhausting. But what is unfolding here is unlike anything we have seen before in the US and abroad, on so many levels.
Democracy is threatened. Climate change is going full tilt (here in western NY we had the warmest day ever recorded in February yesterday, with more on the way). Autocratic leaders are killing people to stay in power and do not seem to care.
But my readers care and it is uplifting to hear that. So, please support my work any way you can and keep sharing the dialog. And stay optimistic!
Thanks,
Martin
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~ I write The Grasshopper, a letter for creatives, The Witness Chronicles, a place for my articles on politics and climate, and The Remarkable, a recovery letter, about my addiction and reentry experience. All are weekly and free, however this is how I live and I strongly believe all writers and creatives should get paid, if we provide value. Your upgrade to a paid subscription helps make that happen.
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