Reporters typically don’t write headlines, but…
Is Trump fit to serve? Is Trump fit to serve?
Okay, the question is posed up front in this Politico article:
Donald Trump’s announcement on Tuesday that he expects to soon be a thrice-indicted candidate is forcing GOP candidates to fully contend with the fundamental question of the 2024 presidential primary.
Is the former president fit to reoccupy the office?
Who the hell with a handful of functioning brain cells thinks Trump’s fitness is an open question?
The rest is pointless horse-race coverage about how good GOP contenders are at tiptoeing around referencing Trump’s legal problems on the campaign trail. How do they even mention them without ginning up the Trump base, as one consultant put it.
“This is the kabuki dance they’re going to be doing for months — it ain’t going to be the first time and it ain’t going to be the last time,” said Mike Madrid, the Republican strategist and co-founder of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project. “The kabuki dance is trying to have it both ways while they try to wait for dust to settle on his legal problems.”
But it’s Politico’s headline that set me off, Dan Froomkin-style.
President Joe Biden is focusing on his administration’s significant accomplishments. He’s even received unintentional assistance from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia on that. He clearly appreciates her shout-out.
But Trump’s unfitness for office was a winner for Democrats in 2018 and 2020. Biden does not want to comment on pending independent investigations. But that does not mean Democrats cannot remind their voters at every turn of the stench of corruption Trump brought to the Oval Office, the international embarrassment he was for the country, the aid and comfort he represents to our enemies, and the GOP’s plans for burning the U.S. Constitution like incriminating documents in Mark Meadows’ fireplace.