Trump may have won the Iowa caucuses last night in overwhelming fashion, but he shouldn’t take too much from the victory.
Sure, he may win the Republican Primary, but does he really think he’s going to win when it really matters in the general election?
Does he really think he can beat a man who he’s already lost to?
Past history says he can’t. It’s an emphatic “no.”
And the past week screams even louder: “NO.” No, he cannot.
Let’s just look at the last week. In case you missed it, Trump had a terrible prior seven days.
First, there was the Navy SEAL blunder.
A federal appeals judge asked his attorney in court, “Could a president who ordered SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival and is not impeached, would he be subject to criminal prosecution?”
According to Trump’s lawyer John Sauer, the answer is: only if he were impeached and convicted first.
Then Trump made a larger gaffe by saying he was proud of his role in the abortion decision, which has been a political nightmare for Republicans, costing them so many elections already. That didn’t seem to matter to Trump.
Though, to be fair, no one knows more about politics — and everything else — than Trump.
And while I hesitate to disagree with such a political genius, Trump said the following in a total soft-ball interview with Fox.
With one answer, Trump made his bad week even worse.
Trump didn’t just lean into the issue (of abortion). He gave it a bear hug. There is perhaps no greater gift that Trump can give to his political opponents than trumpeting his role in overturning Roe v. Wade. One can fully expect to see this quote appear in millions of dollars’ worth of campaign ads this fall.
All of this is a long way of pointing out that Trump is, for Democrats, the political gift that keeps on giving. He is a politician and man of such poor impulse control and so prone to self-aggrandizement that he simply can’t help but make dumb, politically inadvisable statements.
Of course, as if discussing Roe v. Wade wasn’t enough, Trump had to blunder the week prior into attacking the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare.
A quick reminder of how dangerous this quicksand is:
While attacking President Obama’s signature health care law had once been a popular political message among GOP voters, the law now has significant support across the country, with 60 percent of Americans holding a favorable view of the health law.
After several failed “repeal and replace” efforts in Congress and a number of losing battles in court, Republicans have largely given up on the issue, focusing instead of issues such as the economy and crime.
This is all just a good reminder that while polls are close now, Biden is at his ground floor. His absolute lowest level of support.
As more of the public — who haven’t been paying attention — start to see the stark choice they face in November, do you really think they’ll fall alongside Trump over Biden?
Do you have a single friend who misses the absolute chaos and upheaval of the Trump years? When a single tweet on a Friday night was enough to wreck everyone’s weekend?
Cynics will argue that Trump is immune from a traditional political backlash and that no matter what he does — whether it’s shooting someone on Fifth Avenue or giving himself carte blanche to kill his political rivals — his supporters will stick with him. All that is likely true. Trump has an unusually high political floor.
But there are also a great many Americans who would sooner cut off their arm than vote for Trump and plenty of others who find him appalling. All it takes is a small percentage of those who might consider a vote for Trump to cast their lot with Biden. Trump’s high floor is matched by a low ceiling — and that ceiling will keep falling as long as Trump keeps saying dumb things about abortion and his lawyers beclown themselves and their client in court. Yes, there are reasons for Biden supporters to be concerned about 2024, but there’s also one big reason to feel pretty good.
An even better reason to feel good? Voters over 65 favor Biden by 60 percent to 37 percent.
What is behind their shift in support? Stability and normalcy. A desire to not return to absolute chaos.
"There seems to be a trend with Biden's poll rating creeping up among older voters, and this could be significant. The majority of older voters are white and conservative and have tended to favor Republican candidates since George W. Bush. But the Biden administration has targeted areas that matter to seniors, especially around health, in a way they're simply not seeing from Trump. Biden's campaign to lower drug prices has resonated, and while seniors aren't seeing benefits yet, there's a real hope that if he's reelected, the cost of healthcare will fall significantly."
He added: "These voters, the Silent Generation and the Boomers have also seen it all and done it all. And many see Trump's campaign as either simply self-indulgent or downright dangerous. They are much more prepared to give Biden a pass on his age, are more likely to be seeing some benefit from his economic plans, and, most of all, have a bigger picture than most on the state of US democracy. Biden doesn't excite this group, but at least he doesn't frighten them."
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Love and peace,
Stan R. Mitchell
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I don’t know, Stan. Look what happened last time and Trump won. People sometimes are delusional.