Two Harsh Reality Checks
Plus: In praise of Will Hurd
As Donald Trump braces for more indictments (maybe today?), the rest of us have to brace ourselves for some brutal reality checks.
Yesterday’s NYT/Siena poll — which found Trump leading his nearest rival 54-17— highlighted Trump’s iron grip on the GOP. Nick Catoggio calls it “The Doom Poll.”
The frontrunner has tripled the vote share of the only opponent who seemed to have a chance of defeating him. No candidate in the history of modern presidential polling has lost a lead of as much as 20 points at this stage of a campaign, let alone 37.
There’s no good news for Ron DeSantis; and little hope for the rest of the field, which is putting up a series of feeble single-digits. “The primary isn’t over,” Catoggio writes. “It never began.”
In today’s Bulwark, Tim Miller writes that the numbers also blow up the Tim Scott/Glenn Youngkin fantasy that there could be a lane for non-MAGA normies in this deeply Trumpified party.
In order to attract a majority of GOP primary voters, a Tim Scott- or Glenn Youngkin-type candidate would have to appeal to a significant portion of voters who:
do not think Trump has done anything wrong;
think Trump should be supported in his legal battles;
oppose aid to Ukraine;
oppose Social Security and Medicare reform;
oppose free trade;
do not think transgender people should be acknowledged as the gender they identify with; and
like Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
I am struggling to see a voter with that worldview waking up one morning and thinking that instead of Donald Trump they’re gonna turn to someone being pushed by the globalist Wall Street Journal Republicans.
**
We scarcely had time to absorb all of the implications of that poll when the Gray Lady hit us with today’s numbers: Joe Biden’s approval rating is a dismal 39 percent and (deep breath) he is in a statistical tie with Trump — 43 percent to 43 percent.
Let’s put this into context: The twice-impeached former president, who faces multiple felony charges and imminent indictments for more; the man who was recently found liable for sexual assault; who dines with neo-Nazis, fawns on genocidal dictators, threatens a regime of “retribution”; and who incited an insurrection to overturn the last election is tied with the incumbent president.
This is the Mother of All Reality Checks: Donald Trump could actually win this thing, even if he’s wearing an orange jump suit. And no, you are not the crazy ones.
Happy August!
The Hollow Men… and Will Hurd
In the interest of full disclosure, my colleagues here at the Bulwark have been hard on Will Hurd. You can read Tim here: “Will Hurd’s Dangerous Wishcasting,” and JVL here: “Good Will Hurd Running.” (“Will Hurd is running for president and this is a bad thing. Let me explain.”) JVL returned to Hurd yesterday: “There Is a Hidden Danger in Trying to Convince Republicans to Vote Against Trump in the Primaries.” You should read them all, because they make valuable and thoughtful points.
But, because the Bulwark contains multitudes, I respectfully disagree. So, I come today not to bury Good Will Hurd, but to praise him.
**
The one-two punch of the NYT polls exposes (once again) the hollowness of the GOP’s Hollow Men who have based their critique of Trump solely on his inability to beat Joe Biden. I wrote about them last November:
Look, I get the political dynamic here. The best hope for convincing GOP voters to finally take the off-ramp from Trump is by emphasizing that the former president is a stone cold loser.
That may be necessary, but without any real substance, it’s not sufficient, is it?
Unless these Republican critics also make the moral and constitutional case that Donald Trump is unfit for office — that he is a disgrace and a danger who should never be entrusted with power again— we’re likely to see a replay of 2016, when the Hollow Men of the GOP fell into line after a series of Trump wins. “Perhaps,” my colleague Bill Kristol tweeted yesterday, “Paul Ryan should be a Never Again Trumper not because ‘I want to win’ but because Donald Trump should never again be president of the United States.”
**
But Will Hurd is not a hollow man. And neither is Chris Christie or Asa Hutchinson.
None of them will win the GOP nomination; and none of them may ever get out of the single digits in the GOP primary.
But what they are doing is still of immense value. They are actually taking the fight to Trump and talking to that small sliver of voters who may make the difference in a close presidential election.
And they are making the case — over and over and over — that Trump is manifestly unfit for office. Isn’t this exactly what Trump critics have been asking Republicans to do? For years?
**
Over the weekend, Hurd ventured into the belly of the beast in Iowa to make the case:
"Donald Trump is not running for president to represent people that voted for him in 2016 and 2020," Hurd said. "Donald Trump is running to stay out of prison.
The boos were loud enough to be heard clearly on the live stream of the event. Inside the room, they were even more palpable.
Hurd continued: “Listen, I know the truth—the truth is hard. But if we elect Donald Trump, we are willingly giving Joe Biden four more years in the White House, and America can't handle that.” {Emphasis added.]
In yesterday’s Triad, JVL worried that “The trouble with framing the anti-Trump argument as Hurd does is that once Trump is the nominee, it becomes a pro-Trump argument for that same pool of Trump-skeptical Republican voters.”
Maybe?
But Hurd has made it clear that he thinks Trump should never be allowed again near the Oval Office and that he has no intention of voting for Trump even if he wins the nomination.
The former lawmaker took it a step further, saying Trump “100 percent” betrayed the nation if the allegations of Trump mishandling sensitive U.S. intelligence are true — stressing that he is innocent until proven guilty.
**
Hurd did vote against the first Trump impeachment (as did Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger), but he is not holding back now in his critiques of the former guy’s character or crimes: “GOP Candidate Skins Trump Alive On CNN Over New Charges.”
REP. WILL HURD: I mean, I have never been indicted. I am not a lawyer. But if you are deleting evidence, it’s because you know you’re committing a crime!
And anybody who supports this, anybody who defends this is complicit in endangering America, endangering the men and women who are putting themselves in harm’s way every single day and every single night in order for us to enjoy these freedoms.
And let me be clear about this. Donald Trump is not running for president to make America great again. Donald Trump is not running for president to defend our interests overseas. Donald Trump’s not even running to represent the people that voted for him in 2016 and in 2020.
Donald Trump is running for president in order for him to stay out of jail. These are serious crimes. These are serious accusations. Donald Trump is a national security risk, and he needs to be beaten in a primary, so we can be done with him once and for all.
And I hope I can be on that debate stage in order to have these conversations, but I need everybody’s help. I need folks to go to HurdforAmerica.com and help me do that.
PHILLIP: So many of your colleagues who are also running in the 2024 race are running against Trump and say they still support — they would support him if he were the nominee.
Do you think that, given the conduct that is in this indictment, that he should be in the Oval Office again if he is elected?
HURD: Of course, he shouldn’t be in the Oval Office.
This is just more example of how he doesn’t care about people. Look at these two aides that he’s just tossed away and made him do their dirty work. And the fact that anybody else thinks that this guy is fit for office is disappointing to me.
And this:
And this:
“Former GOP congressman: Trump put ‘lives at risk’ in not returning classified documents.”
Former Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas) said Sunday that former President Trump put “lives at risk” by not returning classified documents stored at Mar-a-Lago.
“He absolutely could have put people’s lives at risk for not returning these documents. And like when I first read the indictment, it’s shocking,” he told CNN’s Jim Acosta. “The fact that you have recorded audio of Donald Trump saying that he has documents he shouldn’t have, and it’s highly classified. And he’s showing it to people. Who else did he show this kind of information?”
**
And, unlike some of his rivals, Hurd has shown he can punch back:
Exit take: Hurd may be a no-hoper, but right now we need every voice we can get. In today’s GOP, he’s not the problem.
Quick Hits
1. ‘This belongs in the Smithsonian’: Inside the meme video operation that swallowed Ron DeSantis’ campaign
Must-read scoop from David Weigel and Shelby Talcott in Semafor:
Senior aides to Ron DeSantis oversaw the campaign’s high-risk strategy of laundering incendiary videos produced by their staff through allied anonymous Twitter accounts, a set of internal campaign communications obtained by Semafor reveals.
The videos include two that have created recurring distractions for his campaign in recent weeks: an anti-Trump video that featured a fascist symbol, and another that attacked Donald Trump for past comments supportive of LGBT rights.
The meme-filled videos emerged from a Signal channel called “War Room Creative Ideas,” screenshots of which were shared with Semafor and whose authenticity was confirmed by a second source familiar with the campaign.
2. Trump Rallies and Murder Fantasies
Thomas Lecaque in today’s Bulwark:
AT THE END OF TRUMP’S ERIE RALLY, one of the songs in the playlist reminded QAnon adherents of their song, “#WWG1WGA,” or “Where We Go One, We Go All” (a similarity first noticed last year). And although we pay less attention to QAnon nowadays, it’s worth remembering that its adherents haven’t disappeared, and that the heart of QAnon’s fictional eschatology is a murder fantasy too, the fantasy that all of their opponents will be rounded up and killed by the government.
This is the grotesque vision that unites these things—a Jason Aldean song, a Trump rally, and QAnon: What they want is a different world, a purified world in which all of the people unlike them are gone. And gone with violence. Each of them invites or at least imagines violence done to their opponents to drive them out of their utopian future.
3. In Search of the ‘Impeachable Whatever’
[Ted] Cruz said “Democrats weaponized impeachment” by twice voting “for partisan purposes to go after Trump because they disagreed with him.” Now they must face the fact that “what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.” In other words, the best reason Republicans have for impeaching Biden comes down to this: They started it. Following McCarthy’s remarks last week, the Hill quoted Sen. John Cornyn of Texas explaining why Biden’s impeachment may be forthcoming: “When you impeach a president twice, then what goes around comes around, unfortunately.”
With grounds like this, it’s a wonder Biden hasn’t already been impeached.
Cheap Shots
This is going well.
Biden's approval ratings are in the tank in large part due to the f%cking asinine approach the media takes in covering literally anything. I have read dozens of articles on Biden, the economy, the campaign, Ukraine, etc and nearly everyone is wishcasting for an outcome that is fraught with bad news, and little of it has come to fruition, maybe a little introspection is warranted. The MSM has adopted Trump's tactic, play to fear and hatred and your finances will improve, the Les Moonves approach this time around will be the end of our democracy.
The reality is this election should not be covered with the usual horse race political anaylsis. It should be covered as American Democracy vs Authoritarian Insurgency, fuck the polls, they've been wrong nearly every election since Cheeto Benito entered the arena. The MSM should be calling Trump out for exactly what he is, a future dictator in waiting, not political candidate. Images of 1930s-40s Germany should be a mainstay of this coverage. Analogies to Hitler should be a regular topic, for that is exactly where this country is headed if this stark raving lunatic is re-elected. Maybe remind Americans, or more accurately inform them for ths first time, of the Beer Hall Putsch, the manner in which the Weimar Republic appeased the Nazi Party and with ample amounts of hubris assumed they could control Hitler. No one will be able to control Trump, no one.
Look, I get that there are tens of millions of people who do not want to vote Democrat: libertarian types, free marketeers, climate change deniers, people who just feel a strong tribal attachment to the elephant, etc. What I still can't wrap my head around, after eight years of his BS, is tens of millions of people who still believe the Big Cheeto is America's Best Hope.
It is just too depressing, even on a beautiful August morning.