An alternative to our two-party system may be developing.
If the GOP ouroboros process continues, we could end up with a three-party system. Left: Democratic Socialists. Center: Democratic Party. Right: GOP.
If the Democratic Socialists start by running for local offices, they can quickly build up durable political mass in urban areas, and avoid the current third party ‘spoiler’ dynamic that you have previously discussed.
The problem (as you know) is the electoral structure. The system really is all engineered for (only) two parties. From Electoral College to structure of House and Senate and all the rest. Maybe the hydraulic pressure of groups aligning the way you suggest might lead to some structural change. (But, as with everything in our antiquated and fraught Constitution, and group that thought it would "lose out" has effective veto power.)
Jim I am somewhat exasperated at all the comments that the Electoral College is outmoded and must be changed,Personally, I would be delighted to see it changed. But that has as much chance of occurring as me becoming a cardinal (I am 90 and not a Catholic).
A constitutional change in the composition of the Electoral College would require 2/3 vote in the House and Senate and then 3/4 of the states. The current situation was called the ‘Great Compromise,’ without which we wouldn’t have gotten a Constitution.
This story is marvelously told in Catherine Drinker Bowen’s THE MIRACLE AT PHILADELPHIA.
The smaller states strongly resisted the influence of the larger states. They insisted on two senators from each state which was partially offset by proportional representation for the House. The combination of the two (100 plus 435) provides the Electoral College vote. Additional, in case of no presidential candidate receiving a majority of Electoral College votes, the choice will be made by states, which favors the small states.
The possibility of small states volunteering to give up their political influence is zilch!
I think it is fair to say that Stuart Stevens is the only prominent Republican who has owned up to the intentional maliciousness of the GOP project post Eisenhower. Which is itself scary and sad that there is really only one. A few have come close (Kristol, Frum), but haven't really taken the final step of admitting to the mendacity from the start. From my perspective, many in the Lincoln Project will flip back to pushing fear and fake economics as soon as they feel the fascist risk abate, as did Andrew Sullivan, for example.
I didn't realize your personal connection to Mr. Stevens. That says a lot to me. But I am still finding it very hard to forgive.
(That Tim Scott clip was super cringey. Weird to see how Trump warmed up to that, um, effort. )
I keep on coming back to this analogy. Imagine if we are back in late 1983 or early 1984 and Jimmy Carter emerges from retirement in Georgia to offer the following potential platform for a 1984 campaign: "(1) I had a great term as President. (2) The economy stinks and to the extent it's good, it's because people think Ronald Reagan won't get re-elected, and (3) Ronald Reagan is too old to serve." I'd argue such a platform would have been as true (and untrue) then as it is today.
An insane idea. Jimmy Carter would have not been able to raise money or get any meaningful traction in Iowa or anyplace else. The process Stevens says will take 8 more years probably was instantaneous - and not just because the former President was entirely too dignified to entertain such a folly. It wasn't that the Carter "movement" was toxic per se, the party nominated his Vice President after all. But the former President was. And maybe it's because he wasn't "of the party" in the same way a Humphrey, Stevenson, or LBJ were. But neither was the 45th President. Sure, he was invited to subsequent conventions, etc... but no one seriously entertained him taking on any role as kingmaker or candidate in Democratic politics after 1980. (I seem to remember a brief pre-convention brouhaha where Jesse Jackson wanted him involved to mediate some internecine dispute. But that was it.). We really have gone through the looking glass with the current GOP.
Yes, good analogy. And you're right that Carter was not really involved in Democratic politics for a long time after that, maybe ever. Partly that was because of the "loser" stigma — all the more so after his trusted VP, Fritz Mondale, had such a disastrous defeat in 1984. Partly that Carter had other ideas of what he would do with the rest of his life (Carter Center etc). Partly because of personality differences between him and the next wave of Democrats (True bitterness against the Teddy Kennedy faction, resentment from Bill Clinton on many points.) But, yes, the effect you mention.
Jim The conundrum is whether the media is dictating what its audience gets or whether the media is responding to what most interests them.
The media frenzy on Iowa, New Hampshire, DeSantis, Haley, and, of course, Trump in court or campaigning overwhelms any possible ongoing coverage of our recurring budget crisis, Ukraine, and other seminal issues.
Moreover, the coverage is so superficial that there is scant chance that the recipients will understand what actually is significant, much less the historical context. I recall when Cancun Cruz ‘won’ the 2016 Iowa caucus. So what?
The 2024 presidential election will be a media marathon with more irrelevant distractions than Carter has liver pills. As The Guardian and The Economist discuss, key issues include autocracy vs. democracy, serving the people rather than the most wealthy, the Constitution and justice vs. neither, and a coherent foreign policy vs. ill-considered bromances and hissy fits.
Remember all the outrageous comments about the three female university presidents who were sandbagged during a House inquisition? The most cogent commentary on this incident is David Cole’s WHO’S CANCELLING WHOM? In the latest NY Review of books.
Cole provides a historical context for this brouhaha, states that these ladies did nothing ‘wrong,’ and highlights the difference between First Amendment and, as Justice Holmes phrased it, ‘shouting fire in a crowded room.’
I fear, in the coming months, that there will not be a factual forum in which a great majority of Americans choose to participate. There is Fox, CNN, and other single voice cable networks. Also TikTok, where, apparently, young Americans often get much of their news.
I have recently re-read George Orwell’s 1984 and ANIMAL FARM. The first, with its NEWSPEAK was more discouraging than the latter, where the other animals eventually ousted the [MAGA] pigs.
I fear that 2024 will be a long and dissonant year.
Keith, thank you. And, yes, I agree about that David Cole piece, which is very clear and useful. And the other outlets you mention.
I am trying to guard what is left of my sanity and emotion by spending more time on essays like these, and less in the frenzy of (especially) TV news and chat.
In a "reading club" with one of our grandchildren, I had occasion to read both of those Orwell books in the past year. Yes, 1984 is cautionary uplifting. And one of the few books from which I can remember both the first and last sentence. (Everyone knows the first sentence of Moby Dick, but I have no idea how it winds up. Same with Tale of Two Cities.)
As always, an informative and interesting post. And I think Stevens sums up the state of today's Republican Party very well. His points about things continuing to play out in ways that surprise us, and pain being the only teacher in politics, seem especially spot on.
Thank you. Stuart has a way of putting things very punchily and pithily. I hadn't heard the "pain is the only teacher" line, though perhaps it's a staple in sports training etc. But it does sum up his message.
Bruce, thank you. Stuart S has been wrong in some of his big calls about elections — I was in touch with him on the eve of the 2012 election, and he really thought that things were going to break Romney's way. But he's been right in the calls he has made (so far) about the post-2016 reaction to Trump, to the Dobbs decision, to MAGA-world outside its coven of believers. I hope he is right again.
Haley and DeSantis have both said that they'll vote for Trump if he's the nominee. Trump hasn't said he'll vote for one of them, and it's a virtual certainty that he won't. Not only that, but he'll snipe at the nominee endlessly and do whatever he can to deny them the presidency. Who knows how many people in Trump's personality cult would be lost to the Republican candidate. Ten percent seems low, 30% could be high, but in a close election - and it will be close! - even 10% could doom the candidate.
That's Trump's superpower. The GOP needs him, he doesn't need the GOP. Nikki and Ron want a future in the party. Trump doesn't care. They want a Republican president, Trump wants a Repub president too, but only if it's him. Otherwise, "Screw 'em." He'd probably get more of a kick out of denying Haley or DeSantis the presidency than he would if he won and actually had to pretend to do the job.
This is the same calculation that all the elected officials and pooh-bahs who've endorsed him have made. They may not be able to win with him, but they can't win without him. When you've got them by the you-know-whats, their hearts and minds will follow. And be thoroughly debased and corrupted in the process.
You make a convincing case. Which I hadn't thought of it exactly that way.
Ever since "respectable" Republicans rolled over for Trump eight years ago, I have thought this was spinelessness, moral failing, etc etc. (See: "Vichy Republicans.") But if the paramount need of a politician is to hold office, and if standing up to Trump can make that impossible — well, the logic is as you say.
I could tolerate barely 15 seconds of Tim Scott's suck-up before I hit the exit button. I enjoyed Mr. Storobinsky's comments, but once again, I could only listen to the first half before I had to stop because my brain kept screaming, "Please, for God's sake - someone tell me something that is not so overwhelmingly obvious!" No criticism of Mr. Storobinsky; it's just that every single politician and commentator in the country should be saying the same thing he's saying. Instead, they're busy singing the exaggerated praises of this depraved criminal. It's nauseating.
I just listened to a few minutes of an NPR program about the huge increase in credible threats of violence toward Republicans who refuse to kowtow to Trump - or worse, who criticize him in any manner at all. It's terrifying. One question was, with such a small percentage of his followers making these threats, and an even smaller percentage following through with actual violence, how does one know whether they are actually in danger? Of course the answer is they don't. And so the easiest - and sometimes, when fearing for one's family, the only - option is to fall in line and "kiss the ring." Trump has modeled bullying and mandatory sycophancy as the means to gain power, and it's working like a charm.
And what does it matter if he loses in November by an overwhelming margin? We already know he'll declare himself the winner and employ all manner of violence to get what he wants. He's done it before, why on earth would we believe he won't do it again, only with a higher probability of achieving his goal? We're dealing with a power hungry madman who will stop at nothing to get what he wants. As for "what he wants": I've dealt with narcissists before, and there is no end or direction to their wants. Their wants & needs change daily, even many times a day. We're racing headlong into chaos and destruction.
Yes, as you note below, it's Stuart Stevens — Storobinsky had the only link to the CNN segment that I could find. (Oddly not on CNN itself, at least not that I saw.)
On the threats of political violence: I assume that human nature has always been full of all the darkest ingredients and impulses. But there is a special place in hell for influential people who use their influence to rile up / empower what is worst in people, rather than trying to damp those passions down. (Which I guess is what Lincoln was getting at with "better angels of our nature" etc.)
Until now I had thought that Trump's worst offense on this score was riling up racial / tribal divisions. But overall his empowering of violence is even more dangerous.
To me, Trump's intellectual impairment seems stark and obvious. His personality is a coarser version of the way he has always come across in public. (I have never met the man.)
But when he first came into the limelight in the 1980s, 'Art of the Deal' and all, he could *sound* notably more coherent and expressive tha these days. (That book came out when Trump has just turned 40. He's nearly twice that old now.) Now his vocabulary seems radically reduced, and everything he expresses is primitive resentment-and-domination.
But will this "matter"? I don't know. His offhand remark about "shooting a man on Fifth Avenue" may stand as the most concise statement of his hold on his "base."
Keith, see reply above. I think there are measurable changes in what you could call Trump's cognitive power — putting sentences together, not getting mixed up and so on. But he retains genuine cunning about how to hold attention and hold a crowd.
About the people who are still devoted to him — that is more than any of us can explain right now.
Yes, I actually remember that Larry King interview, and agree.
Interestingly (to me), Biden "reads as" old, as everyone knows. But his actual discourse is not that different from what it has always been. (And always with the influence of his stutter.)
But Trump's basic coherence level has changed, through the decades in which I've seen him on the public stage.
Jay Olshansky, a big wheel in the study of aging (I interviewed him 30 years ago for a cover story on aging) has suggested that Biden may be a "super ager," the sort of person who just keeps functioning well as they age.
Trump is definitely not. He may live for another decade--his father made it to 95, and I think his mother made it to her late 80s--but people who are as devoid of good human qualities as he is tend not to do well. I think it will matter to the big funders, although I'm unsure of whether they would abandon him or prop him up. But I think propping him up would be a bad bet.
Stevens is on point, as he usually has been since 2015. But it's also worth remembering that the Union defeated the Confederacy in 1865, and we're STILL fighting that one! Indeed, one of my favorite comments to make is that today's republicans would have handed John Wilkes Booth the gun and then shielded him afterward.
Thanks, and ... alas, I agree about the battle that never ends. (A friend in Mississippi just sent me a note about a movement from mayors there to get the state to refer to the late January national holiday as "Martin Luther King Jr Day," as opposed to its current name in Mississippi: "King Lee Day." The Lee being Robert E. Lee. One other state also uses this name: it's Mississippi's immediate neighbor to the east.
Not sure if you saw the Crist-DeSantis debate in 2022 but I found it telling. Crist was losing that election but nevertheless showed up DeSantis as a weak public performer.
For additional schadenfreude there is this Jeb Bush interview with Brian Kilmeade where he, more or less endorses, DeSantis. Very sad.
... and is there *anyone* else who has offered such an informed and sincere mea culpa as both an individual directly involved and as a synthesis of the political unraveling of the Republican Party as an institution? ... maybe Charlie Crist?
For what it's worth, this is from Bill Kristol earlier today:
"Do the rich put up with Trump’s authoritarianism because they get tax cuts, evangelicals put up with his bullying because of judges, conservatives put up with his demagoguery because of fear of the Left?
Or do they in fact like the authoritarianism and bullying and demagoguery?"
Now we get to the real question. Where are the GOP's dark money bags going to put their money? Since it will never be for a (tax raising) Democrat; for Trump? For some third party? Hold back?
Yes, I agree — If Trump wraps this up, I think kind of money Rick S is asking abougt would go (a) partly to No Labels and similar operations, and (b) to Senate and House races. The *real* fear of these donors is not so much that Biden will be re-elected. It's that they'd lose control both of the House, which they seem to expect, and also the Senate, where so far they've expected to score some wins.
Whatever prejudice anyone can entertain towards politicians - the Republican Party is out to prove it.
An alternative to our two-party system may be developing.
If the GOP ouroboros process continues, we could end up with a three-party system. Left: Democratic Socialists. Center: Democratic Party. Right: GOP.
If the Democratic Socialists start by running for local offices, they can quickly build up durable political mass in urban areas, and avoid the current third party ‘spoiler’ dynamic that you have previously discussed.
Agree on the merits.
The problem (as you know) is the electoral structure. The system really is all engineered for (only) two parties. From Electoral College to structure of House and Senate and all the rest. Maybe the hydraulic pressure of groups aligning the way you suggest might lead to some structural change. (But, as with everything in our antiquated and fraught Constitution, and group that thought it would "lose out" has effective veto power.)
Jim I am somewhat exasperated at all the comments that the Electoral College is outmoded and must be changed,Personally, I would be delighted to see it changed. But that has as much chance of occurring as me becoming a cardinal (I am 90 and not a Catholic).
A constitutional change in the composition of the Electoral College would require 2/3 vote in the House and Senate and then 3/4 of the states. The current situation was called the ‘Great Compromise,’ without which we wouldn’t have gotten a Constitution.
This story is marvelously told in Catherine Drinker Bowen’s THE MIRACLE AT PHILADELPHIA.
The smaller states strongly resisted the influence of the larger states. They insisted on two senators from each state which was partially offset by proportional representation for the House. The combination of the two (100 plus 435) provides the Electoral College vote. Additional, in case of no presidential candidate receiving a majority of Electoral College votes, the choice will be made by states, which favors the small states.
The possibility of small states volunteering to give up their political influence is zilch!
I think it is fair to say that Stuart Stevens is the only prominent Republican who has owned up to the intentional maliciousness of the GOP project post Eisenhower. Which is itself scary and sad that there is really only one. A few have come close (Kristol, Frum), but haven't really taken the final step of admitting to the mendacity from the start. From my perspective, many in the Lincoln Project will flip back to pushing fear and fake economics as soon as they feel the fascist risk abate, as did Andrew Sullivan, for example.
I didn't realize your personal connection to Mr. Stevens. That says a lot to me. But I am still finding it very hard to forgive.
(That Tim Scott clip was super cringey. Weird to see how Trump warmed up to that, um, effort. )
Thanks — and, yes, super cringey by Scott.
I think this is funny! But on the risk of anyone mis-reading it, I have "removed." Thanks for reading and weighing in!
Thanks!
I keep on coming back to this analogy. Imagine if we are back in late 1983 or early 1984 and Jimmy Carter emerges from retirement in Georgia to offer the following potential platform for a 1984 campaign: "(1) I had a great term as President. (2) The economy stinks and to the extent it's good, it's because people think Ronald Reagan won't get re-elected, and (3) Ronald Reagan is too old to serve." I'd argue such a platform would have been as true (and untrue) then as it is today.
An insane idea. Jimmy Carter would have not been able to raise money or get any meaningful traction in Iowa or anyplace else. The process Stevens says will take 8 more years probably was instantaneous - and not just because the former President was entirely too dignified to entertain such a folly. It wasn't that the Carter "movement" was toxic per se, the party nominated his Vice President after all. But the former President was. And maybe it's because he wasn't "of the party" in the same way a Humphrey, Stevenson, or LBJ were. But neither was the 45th President. Sure, he was invited to subsequent conventions, etc... but no one seriously entertained him taking on any role as kingmaker or candidate in Democratic politics after 1980. (I seem to remember a brief pre-convention brouhaha where Jesse Jackson wanted him involved to mediate some internecine dispute. But that was it.). We really have gone through the looking glass with the current GOP.
Yes, good analogy. And you're right that Carter was not really involved in Democratic politics for a long time after that, maybe ever. Partly that was because of the "loser" stigma — all the more so after his trusted VP, Fritz Mondale, had such a disastrous defeat in 1984. Partly that Carter had other ideas of what he would do with the rest of his life (Carter Center etc). Partly because of personality differences between him and the next wave of Democrats (True bitterness against the Teddy Kennedy faction, resentment from Bill Clinton on many points.) But, yes, the effect you mention.
Jim The conundrum is whether the media is dictating what its audience gets or whether the media is responding to what most interests them.
The media frenzy on Iowa, New Hampshire, DeSantis, Haley, and, of course, Trump in court or campaigning overwhelms any possible ongoing coverage of our recurring budget crisis, Ukraine, and other seminal issues.
Moreover, the coverage is so superficial that there is scant chance that the recipients will understand what actually is significant, much less the historical context. I recall when Cancun Cruz ‘won’ the 2016 Iowa caucus. So what?
The 2024 presidential election will be a media marathon with more irrelevant distractions than Carter has liver pills. As The Guardian and The Economist discuss, key issues include autocracy vs. democracy, serving the people rather than the most wealthy, the Constitution and justice vs. neither, and a coherent foreign policy vs. ill-considered bromances and hissy fits.
Remember all the outrageous comments about the three female university presidents who were sandbagged during a House inquisition? The most cogent commentary on this incident is David Cole’s WHO’S CANCELLING WHOM? In the latest NY Review of books.
Cole provides a historical context for this brouhaha, states that these ladies did nothing ‘wrong,’ and highlights the difference between First Amendment and, as Justice Holmes phrased it, ‘shouting fire in a crowded room.’
I fear, in the coming months, that there will not be a factual forum in which a great majority of Americans choose to participate. There is Fox, CNN, and other single voice cable networks. Also TikTok, where, apparently, young Americans often get much of their news.
I have recently re-read George Orwell’s 1984 and ANIMAL FARM. The first, with its NEWSPEAK was more discouraging than the latter, where the other animals eventually ousted the [MAGA] pigs.
I fear that 2024 will be a long and dissonant year.
Keith, thank you. And, yes, I agree about that David Cole piece, which is very clear and useful. And the other outlets you mention.
I am trying to guard what is left of my sanity and emotion by spending more time on essays like these, and less in the frenzy of (especially) TV news and chat.
In a "reading club" with one of our grandchildren, I had occasion to read both of those Orwell books in the past year. Yes, 1984 is cautionary uplifting. And one of the few books from which I can remember both the first and last sentence. (Everyone knows the first sentence of Moby Dick, but I have no idea how it winds up. Same with Tale of Two Cities.)
Jim I recall when an Orange Orangutan walked down an elevator in 2015, but I don’t know how the story ends.
As always, an informative and interesting post. And I think Stevens sums up the state of today's Republican Party very well. His points about things continuing to play out in ways that surprise us, and pain being the only teacher in politics, seem especially spot on.
Thank you. Stuart has a way of putting things very punchily and pithily. I hadn't heard the "pain is the only teacher" line, though perhaps it's a staple in sports training etc. But it does sum up his message.
A great survey of the sad state of the Republican Party. The last clip was compelling. I hope he’s right.
Bruce, thank you. Stuart S has been wrong in some of his big calls about elections — I was in touch with him on the eve of the 2012 election, and he really thought that things were going to break Romney's way. But he's been right in the calls he has made (so far) about the post-2016 reaction to Trump, to the Dobbs decision, to MAGA-world outside its coven of believers. I hope he is right again.
Haley and DeSantis have both said that they'll vote for Trump if he's the nominee. Trump hasn't said he'll vote for one of them, and it's a virtual certainty that he won't. Not only that, but he'll snipe at the nominee endlessly and do whatever he can to deny them the presidency. Who knows how many people in Trump's personality cult would be lost to the Republican candidate. Ten percent seems low, 30% could be high, but in a close election - and it will be close! - even 10% could doom the candidate.
That's Trump's superpower. The GOP needs him, he doesn't need the GOP. Nikki and Ron want a future in the party. Trump doesn't care. They want a Republican president, Trump wants a Repub president too, but only if it's him. Otherwise, "Screw 'em." He'd probably get more of a kick out of denying Haley or DeSantis the presidency than he would if he won and actually had to pretend to do the job.
This is the same calculation that all the elected officials and pooh-bahs who've endorsed him have made. They may not be able to win with him, but they can't win without him. When you've got them by the you-know-whats, their hearts and minds will follow. And be thoroughly debased and corrupted in the process.
You make a convincing case. Which I hadn't thought of it exactly that way.
Ever since "respectable" Republicans rolled over for Trump eight years ago, I have thought this was spinelessness, moral failing, etc etc. (See: "Vichy Republicans.") But if the paramount need of a politician is to hold office, and if standing up to Trump can make that impossible — well, the logic is as you say.
I could tolerate barely 15 seconds of Tim Scott's suck-up before I hit the exit button. I enjoyed Mr. Storobinsky's comments, but once again, I could only listen to the first half before I had to stop because my brain kept screaming, "Please, for God's sake - someone tell me something that is not so overwhelmingly obvious!" No criticism of Mr. Storobinsky; it's just that every single politician and commentator in the country should be saying the same thing he's saying. Instead, they're busy singing the exaggerated praises of this depraved criminal. It's nauseating.
I just listened to a few minutes of an NPR program about the huge increase in credible threats of violence toward Republicans who refuse to kowtow to Trump - or worse, who criticize him in any manner at all. It's terrifying. One question was, with such a small percentage of his followers making these threats, and an even smaller percentage following through with actual violence, how does one know whether they are actually in danger? Of course the answer is they don't. And so the easiest - and sometimes, when fearing for one's family, the only - option is to fall in line and "kiss the ring." Trump has modeled bullying and mandatory sycophancy as the means to gain power, and it's working like a charm.
And what does it matter if he loses in November by an overwhelming margin? We already know he'll declare himself the winner and employ all manner of violence to get what he wants. He's done it before, why on earth would we believe he won't do it again, only with a higher probability of achieving his goal? We're dealing with a power hungry madman who will stop at nothing to get what he wants. As for "what he wants": I've dealt with narcissists before, and there is no end or direction to their wants. Their wants & needs change daily, even many times a day. We're racing headlong into chaos and destruction.
God help us all.
Yes, as you note below, it's Stuart Stevens — Storobinsky had the only link to the CNN segment that I could find. (Oddly not on CNN itself, at least not that I saw.)
On the threats of political violence: I assume that human nature has always been full of all the darkest ingredients and impulses. But there is a special place in hell for influential people who use their influence to rile up / empower what is worst in people, rather than trying to damp those passions down. (Which I guess is what Lincoln was getting at with "better angels of our nature" etc.)
Until now I had thought that Trump's worst offense on this score was riling up racial / tribal divisions. But overall his empowering of violence is even more dangerous.
Apologies: I meant Mr. Stevens of course, not Mr. Storobinsky.
#4--yeah, Trump's dementia is showing badly. I don't think he's going to be in the running this fall, and if he is, he will lose.
To me, Trump's intellectual impairment seems stark and obvious. His personality is a coarser version of the way he has always come across in public. (I have never met the man.)
But when he first came into the limelight in the 1980s, 'Art of the Deal' and all, he could *sound* notably more coherent and expressive tha these days. (That book came out when Trump has just turned 40. He's nearly twice that old now.) Now his vocabulary seems radically reduced, and everything he expresses is primitive resentment-and-domination.
But will this "matter"? I don't know. His offhand remark about "shooting a man on Fifth Avenue" may stand as the most concise statement of his hold on his "base."
David How can one calibrate Trump’s ‘dementia?’Back in 2016 he seemed demented to me. Now he seems much worse, but maybe that’s simply who he is.
What does that signify about the many folks who are his cultists? Where can I send them gallons of Kool-Aid?
I don't think I was noticing it that early. He was certainly far less demented then than he is now.
I think cultists by definition don't look at the objects of their cultishness with a critical eye.
Keith, see reply above. I think there are measurable changes in what you could call Trump's cognitive power — putting sentences together, not getting mixed up and so on. But he retains genuine cunning about how to hold attention and hold a crowd.
About the people who are still devoted to him — that is more than any of us can explain right now.
Keith,
There's an interview of Trump by Larry King from 1999 where Trump seems solid, with everything well connected. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEVzCtcT-Mo&t=498s
There are current videos, one of which Biden is using in a campaign video, showing Trump to be somewhat disconnected from reality.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGTJy1Ij4Qk&t=1s
He's losing it!
Yes, I actually remember that Larry King interview, and agree.
Interestingly (to me), Biden "reads as" old, as everyone knows. But his actual discourse is not that different from what it has always been. (And always with the influence of his stutter.)
But Trump's basic coherence level has changed, through the decades in which I've seen him on the public stage.
What I can't say is whether this will "matter."
I found that interview only within the last year.
Jay Olshansky, a big wheel in the study of aging (I interviewed him 30 years ago for a cover story on aging) has suggested that Biden may be a "super ager," the sort of person who just keeps functioning well as they age.
Trump is definitely not. He may live for another decade--his father made it to 95, and I think his mother made it to her late 80s--but people who are as devoid of good human qualities as he is tend not to do well. I think it will matter to the big funders, although I'm unsure of whether they would abandon him or prop him up. But I think propping him up would be a bad bet.
David Down down, a little bit lower
Not too far,
Trump is already in the sewer.
Doesn’t really rhyme, but you got the scent.
Close enough for me!
Excellent as always.
Stevens is on point, as he usually has been since 2015. But it's also worth remembering that the Union defeated the Confederacy in 1865, and we're STILL fighting that one! Indeed, one of my favorite comments to make is that today's republicans would have handed John Wilkes Booth the gun and then shielded him afterward.
Thanks, and ... alas, I agree about the battle that never ends. (A friend in Mississippi just sent me a note about a movement from mayors there to get the state to refer to the late January national holiday as "Martin Luther King Jr Day," as opposed to its current name in Mississippi: "King Lee Day." The Lee being Robert E. Lee. One other state also uses this name: it's Mississippi's immediate neighbor to the east.
Not sure if you saw the Crist-DeSantis debate in 2022 but I found it telling. Crist was losing that election but nevertheless showed up DeSantis as a weak public performer.
For additional schadenfreude there is this Jeb Bush interview with Brian Kilmeade where he, more or less endorses, DeSantis. Very sad.
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/256-the-brian-kilmeade-show-fr-30996067/episode/unedited-brians-full-interview-with-former-106453749/
I didn't see any of those, but you have piqued my interest!
You forgot to mention "It Was All A Lie," which is Stevens' mea culpa, from which he has been "walking the walk" ever since.
Yes, thanks — that was also of course an important book. And he has been an absolute mensch in making this argument ever since that book.
... and is there *anyone* else who has offered such an informed and sincere mea culpa as both an individual directly involved and as a synthesis of the political unraveling of the Republican Party as an institution? ... maybe Charlie Crist?
For what it's worth, this is from Bill Kristol earlier today:
"Do the rich put up with Trump’s authoritarianism because they get tax cuts, evangelicals put up with his bullying because of judges, conservatives put up with his demagoguery because of fear of the Left?
Or do they in fact like the authoritarianism and bullying and demagoguery?"
I just wonder when BK would say this all began...
With the creation. It's been 13.8 billion years of working things out, and over the long haul getting wiser all the time.
Now that is what I call the long view!
Now we get to the real question. Where are the GOP's dark money bags going to put their money? Since it will never be for a (tax raising) Democrat; for Trump? For some third party? Hold back?
probably into Congressional and Senate GOPers
Yes, I agree — If Trump wraps this up, I think kind of money Rick S is asking abougt would go (a) partly to No Labels and similar operations, and (b) to Senate and House races. The *real* fear of these donors is not so much that Biden will be re-elected. It's that they'd lose control both of the House, which they seem to expect, and also the Senate, where so far they've expected to score some wins.
But that is all guesswork on my part.
I was forgetting about No Labels. Oy.
I'll take your guesswork any day.