On to Part IV.
Amazingly, at this point, it appears increasingly likely that the race in 2024 will be a rematch of the Presidential race of 2022, in spite of an overwhelming majority of the public disliking, with good reasons, the ancient Joe Biden and nearly as ancient Donald Trump. Both parties are captive of their systems, which in the case of the GOP means that the extreme populist right remains in control and the Democrats can seemingly find nobody else they're willing to back against him.
Those in the race, right now, are:
Donald Trump. We all know who he is.
Nikki Haley, who is discussed above.
Asa Hutchinson. He's a well known former Arkansas Governor who is an outright opponent of Trump's.
Testing the water, the names are.
Ron DeSantis. He's been in the news a lot lately as the non Trump, Trump.
Chris Sununu. Well known Governor of New Hampshire and an anti-Trumper.
Glenn Youngkin. Somewhat known Governor of Virginia.
Kristi Noem. South Dakota right wing Governor.
Liz Cheney. We all know who she is. She's been mentioned, but I doubt she'll run.
Chris Christie. Former Governor of New Jersey and clearly thinking of running.
May 10, 1923
Donald Trump was found liable for Sexual Abuse in a New York civil trial.
Wyoming's Congressional delegation was silent on the verdict. My prediction is, however, that it will have no impact on the race.
Civil verdicts are not criminal ones, and juries in them are not held to the same standards, although the standards rare high. Juries do make mistakes, however. Sexual abuse in New York, it should be noted, is not rape, in spite of what some are stating, but it is very serious. It amounts to unwanted sexual contact. Again, while serious, it is distinctly different from rape.
Any other candidate found liable for sexual abuse would be dead in the water politically, forever, but this will probably freakishly prove not to be the case now. And indeed some things seem to matter less in our current era, sadly, than they did in any prior one. None of which will keep the same people who will ignore this, in regard to Trump, from continuing to accuse Biden of impropriety in regard to Hunter Biden, strangely enough.
Trump has agreed to appear on a CNN Town Hall.
Elizabeth Cheney started running an anti Trump advertisement on New Hampshire television.
This did draw an immediate rebuke from Harriet Hageman.
May 10, cont.
The Republican reactions, which is to say the lack of them, on Trump's current legal woes has been interesting.
On the conviction itself, a person should be careful to respect the jury, while also being aware that juries do get things wrong. Of interest here, the jury apparently retained somebody who was a regular viewer of a far right wing political show, with that juror apparently overcoming a perceived bias that would be in Trump's favor, maybe. It's also important to note that Trump was found liable due to sexual abuse, not sexual assault, although that's also serious.
Having said that, Republican candidates won't touch the matter, for the most part, with a ten foot pole, while the GOP elsewhere is perfectly comfortable slamming President Biden for what they suppose Hunter Biden to have done. It's much like calling attention to President Biden's age, and he is old, but not Trump's and he's old. Trump has a long history of having a personal life that's not wholly admirable, but none of that seems to matter to a party which still claims to stand for traditional values. But frankly, this isn't really unique to Trump at this time.
Trump has been declaring his innocence and intent to appeal following the verdict. Of note, only Chris Christie, who may be the last really traditional Republican with a voice in the party, did react to Trump's post verdict declarations, going so far as to state; "How many coincidences are we going to have here with Donald Trump He just has random people he’s never met before who are able to convince a jury that he sexually abused them. I mean, this guy, it’s one person after another." Christie went on to state that Trum's conduct “is unacceptable for somebody that we call a leader, and he wanted to take leadership again.”
Christie is almost obtaining a Cheney like level of opposition to Trump. He looks like a long shot, right now, for the Oval Office, but if we consider that the GOP nominee has to beat Joe Biden, not Trump, in the General Election, he looks pretty good. A Christie-Cheney ticket might do well in a match up against Biden-Harris.
Getting through the primaries is the problem.
May 10, cont
The Trump town hall on CNN was tonight. I missed it, and perhaps I am missing it right now, for which I am truly grateful.
May 11, 2023
Following his CNN "Town Hall", a number of U.S. Senators have indicated they will not support Trump in the primary elections.
May 15, 2023
So far, migrant crossings into the US have actually dropped.
Are we surprised? Trump has always had some sort of weird relationship with Putin.
Also on the weekend shows, on Meet The Press former Texas Congressman Will Hurd appeared and made a powerful, rational, anti Trump Republican appearance.
I really hope he runs.
And this exchange happened on This Week:
KARL: And he actually said he (Donald Trump) doesn't like to talk about winning or losing.
CHRISTIE: Yeah.
(CROSSTALK)
(LAUGHTER)
And you know what, I think the congressman is right in the sense that people are talking about kind of the show -- the Trump show and how offensive that was. What I think is even more offensive about what I saw at that Town Hall was what he was saying about the important issues that are facing the country right now. You know, certainly your point on Ukraine, I think, is extraordinarily important. But also, that he would allow default unless there were serious cuts.
Where were the serious cuts in the four years of the Trump Administration? In the four years of Trump Administration, he left with the biggest budget deficit of any president in American history. He added more to the debt at that time than any president in American history. This is a guy who says one thing and does another.
But I remember back to 2016, Jon, and you will remember this too. He said he was the king of debt.
KARL: Yeah.
CHRISTIE: Now, all of a sudden, he wants to be the king of budget cuts. It doesn't make sense. But, Governor Hogan is right. Until somebody is out there and taking it to him, this is all being done in a vacuum.
KARL: So, is that going to be you?
CHRISTIE: I don't know. But I'll tell you this, someone better do it.
HOGAN: I have been taking it to him for six years. But we've got to get some people in this presidential election.
CHRISTIE: Get into the ring. You got to get in the ring and do it.
BRAZILE: Yeah.
CHRISTIE: You have to get in the ring and do it, and take the risk that goes along with that.
KARL: So what's holding you back?
CHRISTIE: You know, Jon, these are tough decisions. And if you want to run for president, you can't just --
Hogan had endorsed Christie in 2015, and they know each other. But they're both right. Get in the ring guys.
Trump himself was responsible for major additions to the deficit.
May 16, 2023
Pence is forming a super PAC.
Of all the Republicans, indeed all the candidates, now running, Pence is the blandest and has managed to be almost totally non-committal regarding post insurrection statements by Trump. Pence would never have had a chance at a Presidential run but for Trump, and frankly has no chance now. He should abstain from running.
May 22, 2023
An excellent recent edition of NPR's Politics:
Who is Vivek Ramaswamy, the 37-year-old entrepreneur and GOP presidential hopeful?
Ramaswamy is a long shot, unfortunately, but not due to being sincere and really open with his opinions. Rejecting the term "conservative" which he clearly is, and espousing openly "Judeo-Christian" values, and accepting the term "nationalist", he interestingly cannot be accused of being a Christian Nationalist as he's a Hindu.
Like his politics or not, Ramaswamy represents a highly intelligent stain of American conservative thought and the new strain of Christian Nationalism. In a country in which those supporting Trump actually thought about what they were doing, he'd be the clear GOP front runner.
May 26, 2023
The Trib reports that Cynthia Lummis, who has stated Ron DeSantis is the head of the GOP, is abstaining from endorsing anyone for the Oval Office at this time.
In spite of a rough start, the DeSantis campaign raised $8.2M in its first 24 hours.
June 2, 2023
Peter Sonski has been chosen s the nominee for President by the American Solidarity Party.
June 6, 2023
Mike Pence announced earlier this week that he is officially a candidate.
Chris Christie announced today that he is a candidate.
June 7, 2023
CNN is going to give Christie the same platform it recently gave Trump.
June 8, 2023
Doug Burgum, the Governor of North Dakota, has entered the GOP primary race. A self-made billionaire, his 2016 race for governor was his first political contest.
June 9, 2023
Donald Trump has been indited for taking and retaining classified records.
Vivek Ramaswamy immediately promised to pardon him if elected.
June 11, 2023
Trump, predictably, promised to stay in the race even if convicted, which it is not clear if he could actually legally do. It would certainly lead to litigation.
June 20, 2023
According to its founder, Nancy Jacobson, the nascent third party No Labels was the subject of a meeting between Democrats (for Joe Biden) and anti Trump Republicans who fear that the group will torpedo Biden's chances in the upcoming election.
The fear is widely held.
On This Week, one of the invited commentators this past week gave No Labels a chance of being successful.
YouTube removed a Jordan Peterson interview of Democrat Robert Kennedy, who is attempting to build a campaign against Joe Biden, for misinformation on the COVID vaccines. He also suggested chemicals in water are interfering with natural human gender.
June 20, 2023, cont:
Wow, Face The Nation featured Bill Barr and Chris Christie. Barr's interview was really revealing on Trump. Barr feels that Trump is so narcissistic that he's basically, without outright saying it, somewhat mentally ill.
June 24, 2023
Will Hurd, mentioned above, has announced that he is running.
June 27, 2023
Analysts are making excuses for this, including that she's a woman, but this misses the obvious. She's in the dedicated left, is hauled out by the Administration to boost left wing causes, and she's personally highly annoying in her presentation.
Biden would be well advised to dump her as a running mate.
As noted, one of the reasons that her approval rating is probably in the dumper is that Biden has strategically had her be the point man for the darling causes, principally abortion, of the left. In my view, political strategists have grossly overestimated the popularity of abortion as a cause, but Biden may be somewhat savvy to this fact, although recently he's begun to take it up more extremely (and should be informed that at this point his positions put him pretty clearly in a state of mortal sin, if he's not confused on the matter somehow). Chances are good that the abortion issue serves to push conventional conservatives into the GOP camp as well.
To add to it, Harris comes across badly. Her voice is whiney and she appears to be snarky. Perhaps that shouldn't matter, but it does.
Calculating it might be difficult, but chances are that Harris' loses votes for Biden. There's already a budding third "we can't stand any of them" movement going on, and a real opportunity for Biden to co-opt that movement would be for Harris to announce that she's not going to run again, and for Biden to pick a more middle of the road Democrat.
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