Is that straight-talk enough?
Joe Biden is running for president of the United States. Donald Trump is running for dictator of the former United States. That is the 2024 presidential contest in a nutshell (until someone comes up with something blunter). There is not enough bronzer in the world to conceal the pasty, combed-over remnant of a democratic republic this country will be in 2025 should enough Americans not come to their senses and dump Trump and his Christian-nationalist authoritarian cult.
One thing Trump and his imitators know: repetition works. Say anything enough times and people will begin to believe it. Social proof. The left thinks facts speak for themselves and need no marketing. They’re wrong. Ask the people peddling Medicare advantage plans or Skyrizi.
The press sells more soap (drugs that may be “right for you,” these days) promoting a close horse race than on covering a democracy’s slow, public descent into authoritarianism. It’s a ratings downer. Martin Niemöller is a downer. Until Trump’s goons come for your favorite news anchor.
There are a few voices shouting warnings on the fringes. Margaret Sullivan warned on Thursday (The Guardian):
It’s now clearer than ever that Trump, if elected, will use the federal government to go after his political rivals and critics, even deploying the military toward that end. His allies are hatching plans to invoke the Insurrection Act on day one.
But the press is too timid to say so loud enough and often enough and soon enough.
Instead, journalists have emphasized Joe Biden’s age and Trump’s “freewheeling” style. They blame the public’s attitudes on “polarization”, as if they themselves have no role. And, of course, they make the election about the horse race – rather than what would happen a few lengths after the finish line.
Here’s what must be hammered home: Trump cannot be re-elected if you want the United States to be a place where elections decide outcomes, where voting rights matter, and where politicians don’t baselessly prosecute their adversaries.
This is not alarmism. It is literally what Trump says he will do if elected again.
Susan Glasser (The New Yorker) is baffled that Trump is still viable after inciting an insurrection, 91 felony charges, and being out of office for nearly three years:
On Thursday, in an interview with Univision, Trump again made explicit what is often implicit in his vengeance-fuelled campaign: his willingness to use the justice system to go after his opponents if he is returned to the White House. Any other prospective President would have denied with all possible force a recent Washington Post report that Trump has already demanded that his aides make plans to target some former advisers who have become public critics, including his former chief of staff John Kelly, former Attorney General Bill Barr, and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley. Instead, Trump all but confirmed the story when he told the Spanish-language network that he would use the courts against his political rivals. “If I happen to be President and I see somebody who’s doing well and beating me very badly, I say, ‘Go down and indict them,’ ” Trump told Univision. “They’d be out of business. They’d be out of the election.”
The Washington Post reported the story this morning, but you won’t find it on page 1. (I couldn’t find where it appears in the print edition.) The New York Times hasn’t found space yet.
The woman Trump’s rally mobs chanted he should lock up was right about him all along. Hillary Clinton still is, writes Glasser:
In an appearance this week on “The View,” Clinton compared Trump to Adolf Hitler, who was, she noted, “duly elected” before he dismantled Germany’s democracy and turned himself into a dictator. Her main point—and it bears endless repetition between now and whatever awaits us next November—is that Trump has clearly spelled out exactly how he plans to go after core tenets of American democracy. There is no mystery here. “Trump is telling us what he intends to do,” Clinton said. “Take him at his word. The man means to throw people in jail who disagree with him, shut down legitimate press outlets, do what he can to literally undermine the rule of law and our country’s values.”
It’s worth noting that Clinton made those comments before Trump’s incendiary interview. He’s said it all before; he’ll say it all again. The question, with one year left on the clock, is: Who’s listening? ♦
Too few. They’re too busy staring at the polls to see who’s ahead this week by a nose. (I accidentally typed noise. That works too.)