Gretchen Whitmer

Democrats have an Israel problem that isn’t going away any time soon. Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer illustrated why this weekend in a CNN appearance that had her dodging the actions of her fellow partisans. At issue is the actions of Michigan’s attorney general, Dana Nessel, who is Jewish — and who has targeted eleven campus protesters from the University of Michigan, several of whom allegedly engaged in acts of violent obstruction against police officers charged with clearing their illegal encampment. The blowback against Nessel’s decision to charge the protesters, seven of them with felonies, led to Representative Rashida Tlaib of Michigan to accuse her and her office of anti-Palestine bias: We’ve had the right to dissent, the right to protest.

See the wheels come off the Democratic machine as the party leader (who is also the current US president) displays to all the world his verbal and cognitive breakdown. See the party barons’ absurd race to circle the wagons with rationalizations as implausible as their praise for their boss’s historic “accomplishments.” See the media scramble to hide its complicity in the long-term cover-up of the president’s faltering tenure.

The speed at which politics moves in 2024 is enough to give the American citizenry a massive case of whiplash. It was just over three weeks ago that Joe Biden took the stage in a CNN debate that left the nation and the world shocked at his incapacity — leading to a massive freakout in the media, the donors and the Democratic base. But in the time since, it appeared the president, his inner circle and his family had dug in, insisting against all efforts to dislodge him that the president intended to continue to run and win in November.  The mood among Democratic circles was dejected, the attitude among the Donald Trump campaign ebullient — and that was before a failed assassination attempt just a week ago, a successful convention and the naming of J.D.

The mood among Washington Democrats is grim. Understanding that Joe Biden is headed toward defeat, they’ve also come to the conclusion that there’s nothing they can do about it — that unless Biden willingly steps aside, their side is doomed to failure. Three senators — including Jon Tester and Sherrod Brown, fighting to hold on in competitive elections this fall — said this out loud to their colleagues behind closed doors. The third, Michael Bennet of Colorado, was willing to say it publicly on CNN, even invoking the prospect of a “landslide” that results in Republicans winning the Senate and the House. Even Nancy Pelosi seemed skeptical of Biden’s prospects on Morning Joe, where she said, “It’s up to the president to decide if he is going to run.

Gretchen Whitmer’s memoir, True Gretch, couldn’t have been released at a more suspect time. As the Michigan governor disavows calls for Joe Biden to step down as the Democratic nominee, the book and its subsequent national tour seem to indicate that a self-interested plot is in the works. And without any disastrous revelations about shooting her dog, it could very well work.  True Gretch hides Whitmer’s national ambitions behind the facade of a relatable working mom. The memoir is divided into self-help entitled chapters, like “Be a Happy Warrior” and “Seek to Understand,” with examples of Whitmer overflowing with the eponymous virtue in each. She's real Midwestern nice, for example, and once even sent a birthday cake to a state senator who called her “batshit crazy.

After Thursday’s disastrous excuse for a presidential debate, New York Times opinion columnist Thomas Friedman wrote that Joe Biden “has no business running for reelection.” Columnist Nicolas Kristof also said he hopes Biden “reviews his debate performance” and “withdraws from the race.” Johanna Maska, a Democratic consultant and former Barack Obama aide, wrote on X: “We cannot do this, Democrats. Joe Biden can’t put a sentence together.” Meanwhile, numerous other Democratic insiders and donors are in a state of panic. So if President Biden won’t make it to November, then who could step up?

President Biden has declared he’s running for a second term, but it’s far from certain he actually will. His infirmity and low poll numbers raise serious doubts. His physical decline shows when he walks or climbs the stairs of Air Force One. His cognitive decline shows when he refuses to hold press conferences or answer even the simplest questions, like how he feels about the devastating fires in Maui. His decline in the public’s estimation shows when pollsters ask Americans how they’re doing. Four out of five answer, “Not good. Not good at all.” Voters also say they don’t want another general election choice like the last one. So many votes in 2020 were negative ones “against the worse candidate,” not in favor of the better one.

Donald Trump is having a better year than Joe Biden, notwithstanding an indictment or two. Both men hold commanding leads in the race for their parties’ presidential nominations. But the comparison works to Trump’s benefit: he isn’t quite an incumbent, while President Biden most definitely is. Not since George H.W. Bush in 1992 has an incumbent president faced a challenge within his own party as serious as the one Biden faces from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. After weeks of unceasingly hostile press coverage, RFK Jr. still holds onto 15 percent of the Democratic primary vote. Meanwhile, polling averages show Biden barely beating Trump in a prospective rematch next year.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is not an intimidating political opponent. Or at least not on the surface. Yes, he is a scion of Camelot named for his father, a patron saint of American liberalism. But beyond the Kennedy factor, everything about him screams amusing sideshow rather than serious contender. His main contribution to public life over the last few decades has been as the country’s most prominent antivaxxer — a fringe role almost by definition. Many of his policy positions are a long way from mainstream opinion in his party. And his speaking engagements in recent years are as likely to have been at MAGA-friendly conservative organizations as at the sorts of places a Democrat with presidential aspirations tends to want to be seen.

Live analysis as the results come in from your favorite Spectator editors, staffers, columnists and contributors (and some you don’t like, for good measure).

The gubernatorial showdown in Michigan has quickly become one of the most exciting races heading into the 2022 midterm elections. Just a few months ago, it seemed that incumbent Governor Gretchen Whitmer would easily secure re-election. Now, she is neck-and-neck with Republican Tudor Dixon. Things looked good for Whitmer early on, at least partially because the Republican primary was a mess. More than a dozen candidates threw their hat into the ring for the scandal-spoiled race. One of those candidates was arrested for his role in the January 6 riot at the Capitol building, while multiple others were disqualified as part of a signature forgery scheme.

It is midterm election season, an important period on our political calendar as it marks that there's only two years to go until the next presidential election. And while something called the "blue wave" supposedly took hold last summer, the latest polling shows that Democrats are in trouble. How much trouble? You do hate to wish ill on a party running a campaign based on third-trimester abortion access and an imagined threat from brownshirts. But given the choice, here are eight Democrats we wouldn't mind seeing ousted this year. 8. Representative Jerry Nadler Nadler presided over both impeachments of Donald Trump and is a fairly reliable progressive. The New York rep is not the most inept Dem out there — but then he did almost dislocate his nose trying to remove a Covid mask.

Amid 40-year-high inflation, dwindling investment portfolios, and 20-year high mortgage rates, the Democratic Party appears most concerned with protecting the abortion rights of rape and incest victims. I live in Florida, and almost every day in recent weeks, I've gotten at least one flyer warning me that one Republican candidate or another wants to “imprison victims of rape.” Last week, I got three different flyers about “extremist Audrey Henson,” a young Republican candidate for the Florida House of Representatives, all concerning her alleged support for criminalizing abortion, even in cases of rape and incest. One featured an image of a book supposedly written by Ms. Henson with the title, “Why I am Pro-Life as a Millennial Woman.