Trump’s act has worn thin
Simon Rosenberg is right:
Trump Is A Far Weaker Candidate Than in 2016 and 2020 – As I wake this morning I keep returning to this:
- In 2022 we were told a red wave was coming – it didn’t.
- In 2023 we were told a recession was coming – it didn’t
- In 2024 we are being told Trump is a strong candidate – he won’t be
In my view Trump is far more degraded, extreme and dangerous than he was in 2020. His performance on the stump is far more erratic, wild, even comically so. He is making huge unforced political errors (coming out against the ACA, WTF?). And there are at least six things voters will come to learn about him that they didn’t know in 2020 that will push him further and further away from an electorate that has already rejected him and his politics in 2018, 2020, 2022 and 2023:
- He is a rapist
- He committed massive, decades long financial fraud
- He led an insurrection against the US, tried to end American democracy
- He stole America’s secrets, lied to the FBI, shared them w/others and betrayed the country
- He and his family have taken billions from foreign governments
- He ended Roe
All that is sinking in with the voting public, and will as the year progresses. Trump has a political history he did not have in 2016 or 2020.
Greg Sargent considers it a sign how crazed Rep. Elise Stefanik’s (R-N.Y.) deflection is over a jury of Trump’s peers finding that he sexually assaulted E. Jean Carroll. The truth may not set MAGA cultists free, but it is injecting doubt (New Republic):
What’s changed now is that Trump’s legal challenges are unfolding in courtrooms—in public-facing venues—before juries of the ex-president’s peers. It’s becoming impossible to fabricate conspiracy theories around the ordinary Americans whose judgment Trump faces, and the gravity of the proceedings is suddenly getting a lot more real.
Like a battered boxer, Trump is cut over the eye. So work the eye, Democrats, Sargent insists.
But with Trump now being prosecuted for numerous crimes, both the details of these charges and the role of ordinary Americans in serving up grand jury indictments constitute new fact sets of a much more serious nature. These involves concrete, vividly detailed efforts to seize power illegally and steal national security secrets, as well as a jury’s conclusion that Trump committed sexual assault, which is more compelling than his bragging ever was.
[…]
The struggle of Stefanik and other Republicans to address Trump’s legal problems illustrates another rationale for Democrats pressing the issue: It could put GOP downballot candidates on defense too. “Democrats would benefit from having Republicans on record in regards to Trump’s deep ethical and legal troubles,” said one senior Democratic strategist involved in congressional races. Confirming the point, when Stefanik recently described the people who attacked the Capitol as “hostages,” vulnerable House Republicans rapidly distanced themselves from the remark.
Here in North Carolina, Republicans must be made to own or distance themselves from gubernatorial frontrunner Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson’s (R) remarks:
“Tell our enemies on the other side of the aisle that would drag this nation down into a socialist hellhole that you will only do it as you run past me laying on the ground choking on my own blood — Christian patriots of this nation will own this nation and rule this nation.”
The key to Democrats winning this year in battleground states is to deliver a one-two punch. Shave Trump’s margins in red, rural counties where Republicans eat their lunch; expand vote margins in blue cities by turning out young, left-leaning independents Democrats too often leave on the table.
Easier said than done.