A reader asks: Former president Donald Trump’s success comes from a strategy of uniting haters and feeding their hatred with lies and conspiracy theories. He rallies people who hate one or many groups or issues such as abortion, immigrants, Democrats, African Americans, Jews, Muslims, Chinese, governments, taxes etc. In what ways can this strategy be countered?
Answer: This is a great question, underscoring a key to defending democracy against an authoritarian threat with racist tendencies. Leaders, including President Biden, must return to the meaning and essence of America: “All men are created equal.” We are not defined by race or religion or ethnic background. Someone who tries to divide us, elevating one group over another, is a threat to all of us, an abrogation of our constitutional principles and downright un-American.
A reader asks: Remember Trump’s four years in office: the instability of his staff, people constantly being replaced, the daily tweets insulting and name-calling leaders of other countries and government officials. Shouldn’t Biden’s team remind folks of what this was like and the stability he has had in his administration?
Answer: Absolutely! People’s memories are short. Biden and his ad makers need to bring voters back to 2020. The pandemic was unchecked with no plan to distribute the lifesaving coronavirus vaccine. The economy had crashed. Trump was attacking NATO at every turn and encouraging Russia and other aggressive regimes. He had pulled out of the Iran deal with no plan to deter either its nuclear weapons program or its terrorist activities. Some “then/now” ads and speeches seem to be in order, especially with the economy roaring along.
A reader asks: What happens when the GOP cult leader dies? When he’s dead, no one has to appease him or gain his praise to survive their political career. What will they do with themselves? Will they suddenly “snap out of it”?
Answer: I wish they would snap out of it. Unfortunately, once a movement gives up on democracy, buys into conspiracy theories, renounces reality and operates on sheer emotion, it does not necessarily return to normality once its leader dies. Rather, repeated defeat at the polls, showing that their approach to politics is a losing one, must occur before alternative voices arise and urge a different approach. The more defeats for MAGA politicians, the quicker we will return to a system with two functional, pro-democracy parties.
A reader asks: What are the chances that Team Trump actually accepts defeat in the 2024 election, beats its sword into a plowshare and goes home, finally? (Asking on behalf of George Washington and others.)
Answer: That is precisely why it is so important (albeit unlikely) that Republicans defeat Trump before he gets to the general election. Once he is on the general election ballot, he likely won’t accept defeat (again). Given that, it will be critical for law enforcement, responsible Republicans (however few) and civic leaders to rebut claims of fraud. They must insist both before and after the election that both sides must accept the result. It is absolutely essential for media outlets not to entertain bogus claims. Responsible outlets must repeatedly explain the mechanisms to ensure an accurate result and remind Americans that violence is unacceptable in a democracy. There can be no false equivalence between upholding election results and airing coup-plotters’ propaganda.
A reader asks: It is a complete mystery why Hunter Biden is being so intensively investigated and not the Trump children, who actually held official government positions and apparently profited greatly from them. Can you please explain why the Democrats are not pushing to investigate them?
Answer: Boy, do I share your frustration. House Democrats are in the minority, and yet they managed to put out a report on Trump’s financial corruption. But Senate Democrats with committee gavels have not investigated Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump’s moneymaking in office nor the Saudi investment in Kushner’s fund shortly after he left his position in the White House. It’s frankly unconscionable, more evidence that too many Senate Democrats lack the drive, sense of mission and aggressiveness needed to combat a family of grifters.
A reader asks: Seems as if MAGA followers don’t read any news media but Fox or the like. So anything you or others put forward never gets to that audience. It would make sense to me to get more anti-Trump people in front of Fox’s audience.
Answer: Your observation is well taken. Many Democrats rightly fear they’ll be cut off, interrupted, attacked, mocked or otherwise treated unfairly. However, some skilled politicians, such as Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, routinely go on — and generally make their points quite effectively. A few Democratic members of Congress, such as Rep. Jamie Raskin (Md.), also venture on to the network. California Gov. Gavin Newsom actually went on Fox to debate Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and he certainly came out looking stronger than his opponent. Not every Democrat has the verbal chops to take on hostile hosts. However, those who do might want to mentor their colleagues. The less isolated from the real world Fox viewers are, the better for them and our democracy. (Disclosure: I am an MSNBC contributor.)
A reader asks: House Republicans are blocking the bipartisan border bill because Trump wants to use immigration as a campaign issue. Congress knows this, we know it, everyone can see it. Have they thought this through? Don’t they understand that Biden and the Democrats are going to beat this like a drum throughout the campaign, showing Americans that they put party over country and stood in the way of reforms that both parties wanted, for the sake of Trump and the MAGAs?
Answer: They live in their own right-wing media bubble in which no rational person confronts them with the absurdity of their own position. They are fixated on performative politics, not solving any real-world problems. For those in heavily gerrymandered seats, this might work; for the rest, we can only hope voters are paying attention to their grotesque cynicism.
A reader asks: With the GOP now indicating it won’t approve any border bill because Trump wants to campaign on the border issue, should the Democrats not be able to figure out how to make a campaign issue of the GOP’s highly cynical strategy?
Answer: I would certainly hope so. This is the strongest border security measure in a decade. It contains no poison pills that should be objectionable to Republicans. And remember, it also contains essential funding for Ukraine. If Republicans reject it, Biden and every Democratic House and Senate candidate should run against their sniveling subservience to Trump. Trump and his toadies would rather put their own interests above keeping the border secure and saving a democratic ally from Russian invasion. It’s beyond cynical. They are incapable of putting America first.
A reader asks: If Trump is a convicted rapist, why isn’t he called out as so? Why isn’t he in jail?
E. Jean Carroll brought a civil suit — two, actually — in which a jury found Trump liable, collectively, for nearly $90 million in damages for defamation and what in “common modern parlance” (as Judge Lewis Kaplan explained) people call rape. The statute of limitations to bring a criminal case has long since run. However, it is perfectly accurate to say he is an “adjudicated rapist.” It is outrageous, frankly, that the political and media worlds have shrugged their shoulders, declining to even suggest this alone should be disqualifying for a presidential candidate.
Readers in the reality-based political world have been somewhat flummoxed by the MAGA freakout over Taylor Swift, one of the most accomplished and successful entertainers on the planet. James Carville cracked, “I don’t think there’s anything strategic about this. I think most of these people are sexually inadequate and they go for all this crazy stuff.” He added, “It’s just real stupidity to believe something like that. … What’s there not to like about Miss Swift? I have no idea. I didn’t get the memo.”
If nothing else convinced you that the MAGA movement is based largely on male toxic masculinity, resentment and irrational anger, this might do it. Really, we should stop pretending this crowd favors Trump because of his positions on issues or that they are open to rational persuasion.
Regular readers know what I think about obsessive coverage of early, irrelevant polling. Here’s a perfect (perfectly, awful) example from the popular outlet Mediaite: “New Poll: Biden Opens Lead On Trump Thanks To HUGE Lead With Women.” (In fairness, many outlets ran similar headlines.) This is nonsense.
It assumes a single poll (Quinnipiac) is definitive and that Biden was not doing well with women before. The entire premise — that something dramatic has happened — is built on an exaggerated sense of polling accuracy. And if Biden really has “opened a lead,” was all the coverage about Biden’s rotten polling, terrible chances and Democratic angst that dominated coverage for months just much ado about nothing?
By the way, on the same day, CNN put out a poll showing Trump up 49-45 percent, which was about the same as a December poll. Over the weekend, NBC also had a poll in which Biden trailed. So which is right? Actually, they are all within the margin of error, underscoring how silly it is to analyze the race based on early polling.
We need less coverage, especially frantic coverage, of irrelevant, inconclusive polling and more coverage of the stakes of the election: What happens if we elect a narcissistic authoritarian?
The D.C Circuit in a critical ruling unanimously rejected Trump’s claim of absolute immunity. The three-judge panel held:
“Former President Trump’s alleged efforts to remain in power despite losing the 2020 election were, if proven, an unprecedented assault on the structure of our government. He allegedly injected himself into a process in which the President has no role — the counting and certifying of the Electoral College votes — thereby undermining constitutionally established procedures and the will of the Congress. To immunize former President Trump’s actions would ‘further . . . aggrandize the presidential office, already so potent and so relatively immune from judicial review, at the expense of Congress.’”
In a rousing defense of the rule of law, the panel explained, “We cannot accept former President Trump’s claim that a President has unbounded authority to commit crimes that would neutralize the most fundamental check on executive power — the recognition and implementation of election results. Nor can we sanction his apparent contention that the Executive has carte blanche to violate the rights of individual citizens to vote and to have their votes count.” In short, the court rejected the outlandish claim that “the office of the Presidency places its former occupants above the law for all time thereafter.”
The scholarly and carefully drafted opinion will no doubt be appealed. The Supreme Court can and should dismiss the appeal forthwith. Nothing less than the protection of the rule of law is at issue.
Next week, I’ll have my online weekly chat, so please submit your questions. Questions submitted after Feb. 7 will go to my next mailbag newsletter on Feb. 14.
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