Merciless, the magistrate turns 'round, frowning
And who's the fool who wears the crown?
- “Fearless” Pink Floyd
It’s not a horse race.
I know it seems like it. But trust me, I spent my formative years at Churchill Downs and relaxed on many a Spring and Summer day watching horses swat flies with their tails while they ran and released their bowels (sometimes simultaneously). Sure, American politics often resembles what comes out of the end of even the most modest members of the genus Equus, but the presidential race still is not a horse race.
Unfortunately, we in the press often treat it that way. And right now, we’re doing it yet again. Donald Trump has exploded through the Republican gate and leveled his opponents as if he’s a Triple Crown thoroughbred, according to the corporate media coverage. In reality, however, he’s really nothing more than a horse on the way to the glue factory. The Republican Party is now the MAGA party, a point that is increasingly clear after the New Hampshire primary, yet that isn’t the entire story.
Reporters often have a hard time understanding the nuances of this particular presidential race. “Many reporters are whitewashing the reality of American politics,” said Norm Ornstein, an American political scientist and emeritus scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. “You’re doing the same analysis we’ve watched in the NFL playoffs. Very little different. It’s pernicious and dangerous at this point for two main reasons; you are once again normalizing Donald Trump and the more you cover it like a horse race the less focus there is on what really matters.”
It’s hard to argue otherwise. It is not just Trump’s supporters who are cooing and crowing that Trump “is inevitable” while ignoring facts.
Trump’s latest public appearances have renewed the concern about his mental capability – he recently bragged that he passed a dementia test, which is an odd way of telling us he had to take a dementia test - while his statements of policy paint a dangerous picture of what a second Trump term would include.
Most astute observers, the few left in America who can comprehend what they read, say these issues, in no particular order, are key to voters: the economy, abortion, Ukraine, NATO, immigrants, dissenters, Social Security, Medicare, federal judicial appointments, and the operations of the executive branch, like the status of federal employees. Could civil service be replaced by a spoils system that owes allegiance to the president in a second Trump term? What happens in the Defense Department? The Department of State?
On abortion, the division has never been clearer. President Biden supports a woman’s right to choose. His likely opponent? “After 50 years of failure, with nobody coming even close, I was able to kill Roe v. Wade, much to the ‘shock’ of everyone,” Trump boasted in 2023.
On Ukraine, President Biden has been a stalwart supporter of that embattled nation since Russia invaded. The president, White House press secretary Karine-Jean Pierre and National Security Council spokesman John Kirby have all spoken about the need of supplementary aid to keep Russia from taking over that country.
Trump, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to care. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky has expressed his belief that Trump would not only back away from supporting Ukraine, but could influence other European allies to do the same. He said the idea that Trump as president might “unilaterally make decisions that do not work for Ukraine or its people, and seek to drive them through regardless, makes me really quite stressed.”
The Middle East would look completely different under a second Trump administration. Biden has been the recipient of a lot of grief. On Tuesday, as he attempted to highlight the contrast on abortion, nearly a dozen people interrupted Biden’s speech to protest his policy on the war in Gaza. There are many who think Israel hoodwinked Biden. Many have now taken to calling himl “genocide Joe.”Not a good look for a candidate running for reelection.
But, Trump? He’s even more interesting. Trump suggested in a recent interview that the war between Israel and Hamas will just have to “play out” despite concerns about rising civilian casualties. “So you have a war that’s going on, and you’re probably going to have to let this play out. You’re probably going to have to let it play out because a lot of people are dying,” Trump told Univision in an interview that aired last week. Makes you wonder who took that dementia test that Trump claimed he aced.
Trump also doesn’t like NATO and weakened it in his first administration. Biden supports it and strengthened it. In addition, Turkey recently voted to let Sweden into NATO, leaving only Hungary to ratify Sweden’s admission. Imagine what Europe would look like with a weakened NATO under a new Trump regime, and think what Europe would look like if we didn’t support Ukraine, or our allies in Europe. Would international shipping be safe under Trump? He doesn’t want us involved in the Middle East. Biden sees Russia as an adversary. Trump and his minions see Putin and Russia as friends and perhaps potential allies against China.
As for taxes, while most Americans think that corporations don’t pay their fair share, Trump wants to reinstate his tax cuts for the wealthy. On Social Security and Medicare, a Fox News poll shows 59 percent of Republicans and 71 percent of the public want those safety nets over budget cuts. Trump has vowed to cut both.
But the truth is, the biggest threat Trump poses is that he doesn’t care about democracy, people or anyone but himself, an idea he expressed when he said he wanted to be dictator for a day.
He says he still wants to build a wall that is physically impossible to build and wants to “drill, drill, drill” for oil on his first day as dictator. What else does he want? He hates dissenters and has tried to limit coverage of his previous administration by throwing out reporters he didn’t like – and weaponized the DOJ to go after his former fixer Michael Cohen. His “day” of dictatorship could effectively end our democracy. That’s not an understatement, though that fact is often ignored.
The press has already provided the emperor who has no clothes with a new invisible cloak that millions of us pretend to see – to the detriment of the press and everyone else.
Trump would like us to think that by the time Republicans meet for their presidential convention in Milwaukee, he’ll get a Republican coronation on par with the extravagant coronation of King George IV in 1821 that led to the cancellation of the grand banquet in Westminster Great Hall.
It won’t be the Union Jack they’ll be hoisting in Milwaukee during the convention, but it will be interesting to see how many Stars and Bars are on belts, shirts, mittens, flags, hats and other clothing – along with the obligatory “MAGA” paraphernalia on sale. Maybe the Republicans will make it official and rename their party “MAGA” in Milwaukee…certainly makes for some interesting alliteration.
There is something else fundamental to our democracy at stake. Trump’s minions, who continue to rail at the media have Trump supporters saying reporters are “rude” to him and clearly don’t know how to talk to someone “above them.” No one is above anyone in a democracy. And I’m less worried about rude reporters than I am about politicians who try to bully us into submission. Ask hard questions. That’s our job. And don’t stop pushing.
Trump is an aging man of questionable if not fading mental capacity facing multiple court appearances, the stress of fighting criminal and civil cases – including 91 felonies in four different jurisdictions — and the potential loss of hundreds of millions of dollars while running for president from a position that requires him to whip his minions into a frenzy at a regular basis in order to keep their limited interest and to raise enough funds to cover both a campaign and criminal and civil court proceedings. I was present at the White House when his doctor told us after a physical that Trump could live to be 200 - while cardiologists I know who the results of Trump’s physical laughed. He’s not in better shape than he was seven years ago.
He's likely facing off against a president who recently got booed on a college campus, is increasingly known as “Genocide Joe” and, while he has so far successfully dodged any spitball thrown at him by the Republicans, is also battling age. Biden has demonstrated an inability to connect with voters and despite his optimism is often ravaged by his opponents.
The Democrats will have their convention in Chicago - the tenth time in our history it has served in such a capacity. Chicago has been a mixed bag for the Democrats. George McClellan was nominated there in 1864 and lost. They also lost with William Jennings Bryan in 1896. Interestingly, he was a political ancestor of the MAGA movement and Donald Trump. H.L. Mencken described Bryan as “a charlatan, a mountebank, a zany without sense or dignity.”
The Democrats won with Franklin Roosevelt in 1932 and used Chicago to nominate him again in 1940 and 1944. Adlai Stevenson was nominated there in both 1952 and ‘56 and lost both times. Hubert Humphrey was nominated there in 1968 – which brought the term “Daley Cop” into the daily lexicon as well as “The Chicago Seven.” That kept Chicago free of the DNC until 1996 – during which time Bill Clinton was nominated and all the Democrats danced to the Macarena on the convention floor. That was enough to scare people away until this year, when it is anticipated no one will dance the Macarena and President Joe Biden will be renominated.
Seven states; Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, Nevada, Arizona and Minnesota are where most analysts believe the election will be decided – and by a mere handful of votes. A large Arab community in Detroit could hurt Biden’s chances there, while the Trump train – though off the track and careening into a canyon at full speed still has a chance because he owns (in a literal sense) what used to be the Republican Party.
Biden seems to be coming around to the understanding that he has problems reaching the electorate as he is shaking up the leadership of his reelection campaign.
White House deputy chief of staff Jen O’Malley Dillon is set to be the functional head of the campaign and Mike Donilon, a senior Biden adviser, will focus on the campaign’s messaging and paid media strategy.
The Democrats still have some hope they’ll reach a majority of voters. The MAGA party? Not so much. Here lies the Republican Party: born 1854, filled with progressive hope. Died 2024 filled with demented gibberish whose last candidate was incapable of anything but incoherent, inchoate insults. Still, with a minority number of voters, a third party candidate and angry Democrats who will either not vote or not vote for Biden, Trump could win – even though most people in the country won’t vote for him.
Reporters have been slow to talk about these issues, slower to understand them, and have operated out of both fear and greed to cover the 2024 presidential race. The rank and file are fearful of Trump coming back into power – after all those who have covered him know well what he’s capable of. However, media owners are greedy and enjoy the ratings and readers, and ultimately money, that Trump and the horse race bring.
Yeah, I’ve been to horse races.
This ain’t one of them.
Donald Trump is demented, his numerous recent gaffes indicate he could be suffering from dementia and he cannot be treated as a “regular” politician. Luckily, there still is a lot of time between now and the November election. Donald Trump may want to clear the playing field early, but be careful of what you wish.
The leader on the first turn of the Kentucky Derby is rarely the winner. Trump’s just out of the gate, and I’ve seen horses stumble there too.
We are headed for the most contentious election of my life and the result of which will fundamentally change not only this country, but this planet.
Wednesday night it was Vice President Kamala Harris appearing at a fundraiser, who made one of the best speeches I’ve heard from her. She put it bluntly enough. “Everything is at stake this election. It is about the foundation of democracy and our democratic principles. It is a fight for our nation and what we stand for.”
The rest of us had better learn what it is about real quick because the stakes have never been higher.
