Hello from deep in the silliest of political silly seasons, the 2024 Election to Save Everything.
[Edit] Obviously I failed to anticipate what actually happened. Still, the meat of this is the same, but even moreso — by November 6, 2024, Trumpism will be even deader than it was going to be. [/edit]
Nobody but politics nerds are paying attention to anything right now. The real push will begin after Labor Day, and nothing that has happened before will matter much. But that’s not stopping people from getting their knickers in a twist over the astonishing news that Biden is four years older than he was during the last election.
I’m glad they’re getting it all out of their systems now, but I remain confident that, barring the kind of medical crisis that could afflict anyone*, Biden will be the candidate next November and that he will win handily.
Why? Some answers:
- Incumbency. It’s THAT powerful. It’s like a +5 sword in a D&D game. Everybody talking about replacing Biden needs to replace him with something more powerful than presidential incumbency. And not only does it need to be more powerful than incumbency, it needs to also overcome four months of “Democrats in Disarray” stories in the media.
- The Chaos Factor — if Biden were to step down voluntarily, there would be a lot of unprecedented questions about how to replace him. Where would delegates and funds directed to Biden go? How would he be replaced on the paper ballots, many of which have already been printed? What happens to votes for him already cast? I don’t know the answers to those questions, but what I do know is that the Trump campaign would appeal every single question all the way up to the Supreme Court, where the outcome would doubtless be more of their corrupt fuckery. The Democrats would never chance that.
- ITES — It’s The Economy, Stupid — the economy is doing as well as it has done for ages. There are problems, but the general trend is up. People won’t vote to change horses.
- Organization, or lack thereof. The GOP has no ground game to speak of. It’s historically impotent at the local level because…
- The GOP is broke. Democratic committees are outfundraising the GOP by 3:2. Lara Trump is funneling money that’s supposed to be coordinating local campaigns in cities and states to pay her father in in law’s legal bills.
- Trump is a convicted felon — that’s going to give formerly-pro-Trump voters the excuse they need (even if only in their own minds) to NOT vote for him.
- We’ve already held this election once and Donald lost it, and that’s when HE was the incumbent. He brings absolutely nothing to the table that’s new or different to change this.
- The GOP is trapped in its own bubble. We’ve seen this before, but the more doctrinaire and self-centered the GOP become, the more vulnerable they are to being blindsided by reality. They watch Fox News all day, they don’t see the real world. And I’m not talking about the person in the street, I’m talking about the pundit class and the political class. They’re intensely insular and they talk only to each other. They’re not going to see this coming.
- Voters. The GOP has pissed off more people than disco music. They can gerrymander all they want, they’re not going to escape their comeuppance. And the more they try to appeal to Christian Nationalists, Meal Team Six, and furious old codgers soaked in Fox News, the more the women’s vote, the youth vote, and the simply goddamned decent people vote is coming for them.
Nah, the GOP is going to lose the biggest loss they’ve ever lost, even with the MSM and gerrymandering and psyops support from Russia and China. And when they’re standing there with their pants around their ankles and their wallet empty they’re going to realize that they’ve doubled-down on Trump and he left them broke losers, and that’s going to be the end of Trumpism.
I’ll be ready with popcorn. And I don’t even LIKE popcorn.
*And honestly, of the two which one looks like an imminent medical crisis to you?
