The 2024 GOP nomination isn't over.
If this were a movie, the music would be speeding up and the beat would be louder. The plot is taking a turn.
I am spending a week among partisan Republicans. A majority of Republican voters support Trump. Trump supporters recognize he is controversial, but are not convinced he deserves to be. A majority of people I have talked with think he is being picked on. They think Democrats plotted to get non-citizens or dead people to vote. They think Trump had every right to suspect there were suitcases of fake ballots. I heard from people staffing tables for Trump who were utterly convinced the rioters in the January 6 crowd were Democrats in disguise.
Democratic readers might take a moment of comparative empathy. GOP partisans desperately want to support their guy, so they dismiss inconvenient thoughts. They do exactly what Biden tells Democrats to do: Don't compare me with the Almighty; compare me with the alternative. Republican partisans consider Biden to be dangerous. They imagine him to share the politics of Bernie Sanders or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. They think Biden to be as dangerous as the anti-Trump 55-60% of Americans consider Trump.
I think the edifice of blindness is ending for Republicans. Events are closing in. GOP candidates are sharpening their criticism. Trump is flailing and screwing up. He is giving off a new vibe: Manic desperation.
Readers who never attended a Trump rally may not be aware of the Trump fundraising machine. Trump has my email address, as do tens of millions of others. I received by actual count 12 different emails to my gmail address from Trump yesterday. Twelve in one day. One or two emails suggest relentlessness. Twelve is crazy. They come with hyperbolic headlines. He sounds panicky. "GAG ORDER!!!" and "I WANT TO MEET YOU!" and "DON'T ABANDON ME, PATRIOT!!"
Trump made an "unforced error" in his comments on Israel and Hezbollah. He gave opponents something easy to condemn. Republicans are clear that Israel is a victim and the good guy deserving unqualified support. Trump called Hezbollah "smart." He criticized Netanyahu. This fits a pattern. Trump openly admires the cleverness and effectiveness of violence done by authoritarians, in this case Hezbollah, but previously in remarks about Russia's Putin, the "iron hand" of China's Xi Jinping, and North Korea's Kim Jong-Un. It is another iteration of Trump expressing his grudges. He is still unhappy that Benjamin Netanyahu phoned Biden to congratulate him on his victory. That was the theme of the New Hampshire Leadership Conference: Trump is all abvout himself, looking backward. Christie is running an ad calling Trump "foolish." Haley, Scott, DeSantis, and Hutchinson say Trump is wrong on Israel.
Trump has successfully managed the optics of strength and domination. He wins because he is strong, cruel, and appears to be hard-headed and realistic about threats. Republicans see him as Goliath in contrast to feeble Biden. And yet President Biden is having the best week of his presidency. While Trump is flailing and trying to backtrack, Biden is forsquare in support of Israel. He is sending aircraft carrier groups to Israel. He is entering the war zone.
Biden is ignoring and marginalizing the Squad comments critical of Israel. Biden looks like a sound, experienced leader, independent of his fringe, at the very moment that the GOP is handcuffed by its fringe. The GOP House caucus is appears to be succumbing to its fringe as it chooses a Speaker.
Republican partisans deep in conservative media won't experience this moment of change in the 2024 drama. If an avalanche is building, they won't see it. Conservative media describes Biden's sure-footedness here as a split in the Democratic coalition, amid repeated references to Harvard students and a Cornell professor. But for people outside the cocoon, Biden something is changing. Biden looks strong and Trump is weak. If polls show Biden defeating Trump then the whole edifice that supports the Trump's inevitability starts to crumble. It may not happen, but if it is it going to happen, we are seeing early signs of it now.
Trump is making speeches in Iowa complaining of persecution. Biden is on Air Force One on its way to Israel to represent the United States.
I believe it is Hamas, and not Hezbollah, that attacked communities in Israel an is being routed out of Gaza.
It felt good to be proud of our President this week. He is a man of compassion & his words comfort rather than create rage. We have plenty of rage & it needs to stop or we shall all burn.
As for tfg, every failure for him is a victory for it country. The tactics of Jordan reveal that he is a dangerous liar that puts our country at risk for his & trump’s agenda, which is nothing good.To see his win party stop him has been encouraging. Praying for the peace of Jerusalem.