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The Witness Chronicles January 21, 2024

Pragmatic views on US politics, global issues, and climate change

Jan 21, 2024

polling station poster on clear glass door — Photo by Elliott Stallion on Unsplash

Trump is Going to Lose

This is not wishful thinking

Watching the PBS NewsHour and a man in a Nikki Haley sweatshirt is talking about how her supporters are afraid to display one of her signs in their yard. The man is a New Hampshire voter. When asked why, he said, I think we all know why.

Yes, unfortunately we do know why. But he cannot intimidate people in the voting booth and that is going to be his downfall. It’s estimated that 35% of the Republican base is MAGA, the hardcore Trump voters who not only don’t care about his craziness and criminal indictments but will vote for him no matter what.

That’s 35% of 50% of the voters in the country. That is not even close to a guarantee of winning anything. But in just the first few weeks of the primary season big cracks are showing in Trump’s support in the other 65% of Republicans.

The far right Freedom Caucus in the House, which the Republicans ‘control’ by just one vote, failed in their effort to shut down the government and their extremely conservative House Speaker turned to Democrats to shut them down.

And, surprisingly no one is calling for a vote to take Johnson down even after he committed the sun of working with the enemy. What this tells me is that the quietly anti-Trump GOP is waking up and realizing his vaunted base may not be the juggernaut he pretends it is, the hammer held over their heads.

They may be reminded that Trump’s endorsements have been failures, even in red states.

Another voter interviewed on the same newscast talked about the constant image of Trump bouncing between the courtrooms and the campaign trail, and how it made her question the voters who think that is not only ok, but somehow makes him more attractive.

He still looks likely to win the nomination and by all accounts has built a formidable campaign machine, but there is a problem there too, because their candidate cannot be controlled or stay on message.

The message he seems stuck on is his constant victimhood, a litany of ‘everyone is out to get me’ complaints and his claims of a stolen election (it was not, he lost). And a steady flow of childish insult names masking his racism and misogyny.

You’ll note that I have not so far mentioned Joe Biden or the Democrats. Biden is starting to openly attack Trump but he is busy dealing with terrible foreign policy issues including Ukraine, China, and a boiling over Middle East conflict.

The good news is that inflation is falling and it is starting to be noticeable. Wegmans, the posh grocery store chain headquartered in my home town, is now running ads touting price drops. That should steadily improve as the year wears on.

But Biden is being stonewalled by the Republicans on immigration, an issue that is festering, but will not do anything about. It’s too good a club to beat him with. The problem with that strategy is their record is no better on the issue, which has been building through several administrations.

The Democrats have one big advantage over the GOP: they are relatively unified in their desire to rid the country of Trump for good. That mission crosses ideological lines between progressives, liberals, and moderates that make up the party.

The Republicans have a major unity problem, a problem they have covered by publicly supporting Trump while privately finding him an untrustworthy leader who they know can and will turn against them at any time. His effective strategy of dividing all of us is starting to hurt his own party.

The primary debates on their side, which Trump ignored, turned into insult matches and Trump sat back and enjoyed them hacking away at each other. Campaigns and parties tend to develop a tone and voice and the GOP has devolved into schoolyard insults and accusations as their ‘normal’ image.

I am very aware that I may be in the minority in believing that Trump’s invulnerability is a myth, one he very effectively promotes. His court appearances until now have been in civil trials where his freedom is not at risk, and the charges are less clear than the criminal charges he will be facing soon.

In those cases we are going to hear a stream of devastating evidence about his theft of classified documents, his inciting of a deadly riot on January 6th 2021, and his recorded attempts to change election results in Georgia. That case will be presented as a criminal conspiracy using organized crime tactics to intimidate and threaten.

And we know advisors close to him are going to testify against him to protect themselves. It’s going to be hard to claim a vast Democrat conspiracy when the evidence comes from his inner circle, under oath.

This constant exposure to the breadth of his accused criminal actions is going to wear down Republican voters who are not members of his rabid base.

Finally, there is his possible mental instability. The man is under immense pressure with his business empire falling apart, the specter of real prison time, and a family that seems to be gradually disassociating themselves from him. He is looking more and more unhinged and we have not even started the criminal trials.

We are only a few weeks into 2024 as I write this and things are changing daily. That not only is not going to change, it is going to accelerate. This spring will see the Trump campaign thrown into a storm unlike any other ever seen in American politics.

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