He’s Baaaaack! Now What?

  

As I watched Donald Trump’s long-winded, repetitious announcement (11/15) that he was officially running for President, I was surprised he stayed on issues… until he could not help himself. He iterated that he won the 2020 election with more votes than anyone ever got. Of course, his self-aggrandizing verbiage was filled with wildly inaccurate statements. He blamed the “radical left Democrats” for every ill imaginable and poo-pooed efforts to counter global climate change.

Trump also took credit for American oil and gas independence (which actually began in 2011), ending COVID in the United States (while his administration funded vaccine research, it was not until the Biden administration that people really had access to those inoculations), creating a wildly successful post-COVID economy (that only happened after mass vaccinations during the Biden era) and the fact that no foreign terrorist group had attacked the US (which was a record from the late in George W Bush administration that continued, unbroken, through the Obama and Biden regimes). The attacks came from domestic terrorists, most of them Trumpers.

Even as his party begged him not to announce, experts attributed this earliest pre-election presidential announcement for any major party in American history to Trump’s feeling the hot breath of criminal and civil prosecutions – New York’s tax evasion cases, Georgia’s election interference quest, civil lawsuits too numerous to mention and, of course, federal criminal investigations ranging from retaining classified documents, election interference to down and dirty sedition – and thus seeking shelter as “candidate for the presidency” fending off a “witch hunt” from political opponents (including the FBI). While his candidacy does complicate these prosecutions and maximizes the probability of undying support from his well-armed constituency, his disfavor with many Republicans takes down a notch some of the backlash fears from prosecutors.

Even the GOP reaction to Trump’s announcement was not all warm and fuzzy. Trump blamer, Mitch McConnell, was promptly returned to his status as Senate Minority Leader even as would-be House Speaker Kevin McCarthy faces a conservative backlash to take his nomination to full appointment. Former Trump champion, Rupert Murdoch’s approach has changed to becoming a DeSantis supporter, and his feelings are well-represented (on page 26) on the above November 16th cover of the NY Post.

Trump was less than subtle about his followers’ right to do what is necessary to regain “their country.” The intimation of violence was plain. And with the GOP about to take the House and maintain a filibuster vote in the Senate, despite Biden’s call for bipartisanship, the future suggests that what is really going to happen is congressional gridlock. If the Georgia runoff produces a victory for the Dems, at least they can get votes out of committee to the Senate floor (relevant particularly for judicial nominations) with a 51-member majority. We’ll see.

Indeed, Trump’s announcement suggested that the Republican Party use all of its tools to block Biden’s agenda, to investigate him and his son and to make sure they force success on issues like Social Security benefits reduction, making sure student loans are not forgiven and that immigration reform never sees the light of day. Or as the November 16th New York Times put it, we face: “Most likely a return to the gridlock and brinkmanship that have defined a divided federal government in recent years… A split between a Republican-controlled House and a Democratic-run Senate almost certainly means neither party will have the votes to enact major legislation. Democrats will probably be forced to set aside remaining items on their agenda, such as abortion rights protections and an expansion of tax credits for families with children.

“Republicans are positioned to trot out an old strategy: When a Democrat has been in the White House over the past few decades, congressional Republicans have embraced calls for reducing government spending, arguing that the debt and deficits were out of control. In the 2010s, Republicans used these threats to block spending bills and make it harder for Barack Obama to carry out his presidential agenda — at times risking government shutdowns and economic calamity… It is a political play. When Donald Trump was in the White House, Republican lawmakers approved budgets and tax measures that raised the debt and deficits to new highs…

“But the approach is nonetheless poised for a comeback once House Republicans can use the threat of shutdowns and economic consequences to restrain President Biden. Trump, who announced his run for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination last night, has pushed the party’s lawmakers to use these tactics to get concessions from Democrats.” Continuing aid to stop Putin in Ukraine and deter other expansionist autocrats? Uncertain at best.

And with GOP power still heavy in many state legislatures, continuing to eliminate opposition voters – perhaps accelerated with a rogue, right-wing Supreme Court – is likely to continue and even amplify. Eliminating urban voters, particularly minorities, will continue… but there is a new thought roiling through Republican circles: get rid of those pesky green and progressive younger voters. How? Writing for the Guardian UK (November 16th), Arwa Mahdawi reports:

“Do we vote for the forced-birthers or do we vote for the people who might give us a few rights over our own bodies? Hmmm. Still, that question seems to have stumped other demographics: Democrats lost voters aged 45 and older by at least seven points, including a 12-point loss among people over 65.

“The fact that young people don’t like them very much hasn’t bypassed the Republican party. Instead of rethinking their policies, however, some of them have decided to rethink the voting age. Over the last few days, a lot of Republicans have been proclaiming that the US ought to increase the legal voting age to 21. (One conservative radio personality even suggested it be raised to 28.) The same people who reckon a 10-year-old girl is mature enough to be forced to carry a baby, reckon a 20-year-old isn’t mature enough to vote.

“It’s not just rightwing Americans who want to stop young people from voting, by the way. In the UK, voter ID laws passed earlier this year have some very ageist stipulations: older people will be able to show their travel passes as ID to vote but young people’s railcards and student ID cards won’t be accepted. Labour protested the new rules but didn’t seem to put up much of a fight to stop them going through.”

MAGA Trumpism is more a religion than a political movement, with passion born of self-righteousness and an understanding that without autocracy in some form, right-wing purity is doomed to failure. White supremacy faces “replacement.” While Trump proselytized that he was loved by Hispanics, Asians and Blacks, those people of color were unsurprisingly sparse in the worshiping crowd at Mar-a-Lago during his announcement. Clearly violence is one very accepted tool. As Trump stated in his speech, the “corridors” in government buildings belong to the people… and they are coming to take them back. Stand back and stand by.

I’m Peter Dekom, and while it is plain that Trump could never win a free and fair election, there is plenty of time to make sure we never have a free and fair election ever again.