Hello, my friends!
I wanted to put out a post today — primarily because I haven’t put a post out in more than a week, and because thankfully a fair number of you all are paying me to put posts out. (Thanks for that, by the way! It really means a lot to me!)
So, what does the political landscape of 2024 look like at the moment with this titanic collision between Biden and Trump?
Well, if you pay attention to the news, it’s not that good.
The poll numbers for Biden are terrible. (See below.)
The above image is of the national polls, but we know state polls matter much more. And those look pretty bleak, too.
The HuffPost had this brutal, sobering assessment of the situation:
The New York Times’ release on May 13 of its latest presidential poll prompted another round of Democratic hand-wringing about President Joe Biden’s reelection prospects.
The polls, conducted with Siena College and the Philadelphia Inquirer, found that among registered voters, Biden trailed former President Donald Trump in five battleground states — Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, and Pennsylvania — and led him in just one, Wisconsin.
More alarming still, Trump had a double-digit edge over Biden in two of those states, and is polling worse than Democratic Senate incumbents in four of those states — suggesting it’s the nominee himself, not his party, that’s the issue.
The story goes on to say that this polling is not an anomaly.
While other state-level polls have shown Biden trailing Trump by smaller margins, the polling average still has Biden behind in all six battleground states. But the Biden campaign has maintained that polling six months before an election is not very predictive, and is confident that its superior campaign infrastructure has equipped it to close the gap.
Hmmm… So, what to do?
I could attack the polls, tell you why they’re wrong, argue about sample size, etc, but I don’t think that’s what sane, responsible adults do.
And I don’t think that’s what my readers pay me for.
I will always keep it real for my readers. And keeping it real with you right now, it looks ugly.
Does that change my position that I’ve been saying for a year? That I think Biden will win handily, and might even win in a big way?
Nope, all of this doesn’t change my opinion at all.
To me, this is like the early years of the Civil War, when the North was in the complete doldrums. The news was horrible. Victories were rare. And the South was loud and triumphant.
Everyone seemed worried about this, from governors to members of Congress to even generals in the Union Army, who were building up the threat of the South and refusing to advance, and Lincoln was having to fire and replace these folks as fast as he could.
But a few people weren’t worried. Men like Grant, Lincoln, and a few astute observers who didn’t read the press too closely every day.
If we’re completely honest, with the benefit of the hindsight of history, we’d say this: The hard numbers NEVER favored the South.
Not in population, not in production, not in world support. In fact, you’d be hard pressed to find a single way in which they stacked up even nominally close to the North.
But for three years, all you heard about was doom and gloom, minus the occasional victory.
And yet the entire time, the North was growing stronger, circling the South, and constricting it. The South was being choked out and the soldiers on the front line didn’t even know it.
That’s what will happen with this election.
Biden is incredibly unpopular. Even I admit that I can barely watch a speech by him. And the reality is that in 2024, communication in our visual world (dominated by cell phones) matters.
Biden will be the last President who doesn’t carry charisma by the bucket load, the same way Obama, Clinton, the second Bush, and Trump carried it (when he was in his prime in ’16).
And communication isn’t Biden’s only problem, unfortunately.
Biden also waffles on Israel and Gaza like a drunk who attends church.
One day, he’s saying one thing, fully supporting Israel. The next day, he’s saying the opposite, Israel must stop. Rinse. Repeat. It’s getting old…
He did the same thing on the Afghan withdrawal, which was infuriating — especially for veterans.
First, Biden said this date is firm and no way we’ll stay a day longer. We had no choice, he said.
Then, it was, we can wait one more week.
First, it was, “ There aren’t many Americans left. And it’s not our fault they’re inside Afghanistan.”
Then, it was, “We did the best we could and I have no regrets.”
Sometimes, Biden does this “old man. angry thing” that he does and it’s maddening, quite frankly.
But his record is the complete opposite. You can’t knock his ability to get things done. So much bi-partisan legislation has passed and he’s run the country with far less drama than his predecessor.
Even with all of this, almost anyone in the world could beat Biden in this election year. He’s that disliked.
But there’s one person who can’t beat him. And that’s Trump.
Trump couldn’t beat Biden when he had the power of the incumbency behind him in 2020. (And if you want to believe Trump’s lies, then just remember that in a “rigged election” while Trump was President, the Dems managed to somehow win the Republican states of Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, etc. REMINDER: even Republican Attorney General Bill Barr, many Republican governors, 60 court cases, dozens of recounts, etc, all found this to be false. More facts at this footnote.1)
Let’s be very clear. There are no new Trump voters. The man is a known quantity (one of the best-known Americans since his days on the Apprentice, and he turns off most people with his narcissism and cruelty — once they start paying attention.)
It’s also quite clear that he’s not as fun to watch, and his base is no longer quite so enamored. (See below.)
But the Right would say: Biden couldn’t draw a crowd like that, and you’re correct. Most people have lives and don’t care nearly enough about politics to waste half a day waiting in line to hear Biden speak. (Would they for Obama? Yes, they would.)
In the end, however…
This is an election between two old men, neither of whom should be running. And worse, it’s a rematch — the seventh presidential rematch in U.S. history, and the first since the 1950s.
But the consequences are so great that in the end, people will pay attention and vote for the curmudgeon who’s stable and not under indictment for stealing nuclear secrets and trying to hide them.
They will — in the end — vote for the man who’s not taking away rights and banning abortion (and maybe birth control, depending on which day it is for Trump: Facing criticism, Trump says he now won't ban birth control).
Never forget: Americans on both sides of the aisle have a libertarian streak in them a mile wide.
We don’t want government in our business.
That’s why I’m not worried at all.
And it’s also why the Biden campaign isn’t freaking out.
From that same story above: “The reality is that many voters are not paying close attention to the election and have not started making up their minds — a dynamic also reflected in today’s poll,” Geoff Garin, a Democratic pollster, said in a May 13 statement circulated by the campaign. “These voters will decide this election and only the Biden campaign is doing the work to win them over.”
The Biden campaign has the money edge, they have offices set up in battleground states that the Trump campaign aren’t even in, and I feel like they have a more-professional organization.
The Biden campaign is also on the plus side of the issue when it comes to polling on abortion, gun control, Ukraine, and taxing billionaires. And Biden has a bi-partisan track record that stretches from infrastructure to chip production to drilling for oil.
You can choose to worry.
Or you can take a deep breath and remember that the media thrives at scaring you and driving traffic. And you can remember the history of the Civil War and the fact that Dems have been winning nearly every election since 2018, from places as red as Kansas, Georgia, and even Kentucky.
All posts are free, so feel free to share.
Love and peace,
Stan R. Mitchell
P.S. Don’t forget that I also put out a weekly podcast about defense news and looming hotspots, which includes some motivation, wisdom, and history.
I've also written twelve fast, exciting books.
Finally, I also write a faith blog about God and the Bible. (As a child, I was wounded badly by the church and left it to study other religions, before returning to the faith of my roots.)
Good fact-checking article here: From that story: State and federal courts have dismissed more than 50 lawsuits across six states from Trump and his allies aiming to overturn the results of the 2020 election. In many of the cases, Trump pushed thinly supported allegations of election misconduct and fraud. An Associated Press investigation found fewer than 475 cases of voter fraud in six battleground states during the 2020 presidential election -- a number far too little to have make any different in the outcome of that election. Arizona had the highest number of potential fraud cases of the states AP examined with 198 of the 3.4 million votes cast -- and that amount of potential fraud cases comprised less than 2% of the margin by which Biden won, according to the AP. In Nevada, the AP found that local officials identified between 93 and 98 potential fraud cases out of 1.4 million ballots cast, representing less than one-third of 1% of Biden’s margin of victory. Trump has continued to falsely claim he won the 2020 election in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, but he lost all three of those states in the last presidential election. In Pennsylvania, Biden won by 81,660; in Michigan, Biden won by about 21,000 votes; in Wisconsin, Biden won by more than 20,000.
Good to read your calm voice. But, no; I am on more alert then before. Just this week the cult 45 leader claimed Biden authorized lethal force in the raid at Mar a Lago. This blatant lie was echoed by MGT saying Biden approved DOJ & FBI plans to assassinate Trump. Dog whistle and dog whistle. Cult 45 will have this civil war before the election. I hope I am wrong.
For this holiday, my thoughts are with all military families for whom Memorial Day is every day. May their memories bring them comfort.