Trump

The US economy is faltering, crime is through the roof, the border is a disaster, everyone hates the vice president and Democrats are not backing off one inch on transgenderism. Only one Republican could lose to President Joe Biden next year. But Democrats’ trump card is, well, Trump. Infallible two-step Biden re-election plan. Step one: trick Republicans into nominating Trump. Step two: that’s about it. I still don’t think Trump will be the nominee, but never underestimate Republicans’ ability to embrace the worst possible thing, especially with conservative media wildly cheerleading the worst possible thing.

Maybe Niccolò Machiavelli was not the first political consultant, but he remains one of the best. Ron DeSantis might solicit his advice before deciding whether a 2024 campaign for the White House is wise. DeSantis could start with the penultimate chapter of The Prince, “What Fortune can do in human affairs, and how it can be resisted,” which is famous for its imagery. Machiavelli first likens fortune to a raging river, whose flood cannot be met head on but whose fury can be dissipated by dams and dykes built in advance. Later he says Fortune is a woman who yields to a young man who comes on strong, even roughly. The lesson for a forty-four-year-old DeSantis is obvious: seize the moment. She’s yours for the taking — if you’re bold.

Some moderately clever people, reflecting on the confusing morass of current events, knowingly quote George Santayana’s most famous observation: that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Since the past is largely an almanac of unfortunate (not to say horrific) events, the idea that we are “condemned to repeat it” concentrates the mind in approximately the way Dr. Johnson said the prospect of hanging in a fortnight tends to do. But of course the past never really repeats itself. When it comes to history, Heraclitus rules: you cannot step into the same river twice, mon brave. Moreover, as that sage of Ionia said, “the true nature of things loves to conceal itself.

The woman with a starring role in perhaps the most talked about campaign ads of both the 2018 and 2022 election cycles wasn’t on the ballot. In both, a politician whose stock has risen as much as anyone’s in the last half decade was happy to let his wife do the talking. Five years ago, Casey DeSantis narrated a thirty-second clip in which she testified to her husband Ron’s admiration for Donald Trump. You’ve probably seen it. “Everyone knows my husband is endorsed by President Trump, but he’s also an amazing dad. Ron loves playing with the kids,” says Casey. The ad cuts to footage of the Republican gubernatorial candidate building a toy wall with one child, reading The Art of the Deal to another, and so on. “People say he’s all Trump,” says Casey.

Last September, when 60 Minutes asked Joe Biden what he thought of the August raid at Mar-a-Lago where the FBI found folders of classified documents mixed in with Donald Trump’s personal effects and papers, the president said he was shocked. Biden wanted to know how “anyone could be that irresponsible.” He worried about what sources and methods might have been compromised by his predecessor’s carelessness. Were there agent lists among those purloined records? That bit of political point-scoring has become a petard with which the president has hoist himself. Two months later, Biden’s lawyers found classified documents in his Wilmington home and garage and in his personal office at the Penn Biden Center in Washington.

I write with the clangorous strains of Joe Biden’s speech at Philadelphia’s Independence Hall still ringing in my ears. By the time you read this, the attendant tinnitus will doubtless have abated. The effects of the speech, however, will be echoing throughout the land for many months if not longer. The commentator Ben Shapiro was, I believe, correct in judging Biden’s brief speech “the most demagogic, outrageous and divisive speech... ever seen from an American president.” In sum, “Joe Biden essentially declared all those who oppose him and his agenda enemies of the republic. Truly shameful.” But what has been true of Joe Biden from before his administration began continues to be true.

In February 2021 the FBI indicted L. Brent Bozell IV for crimes committed during the Capitol riot. The significance of Bozell’s presence in the rabble that broke into the Senate chamber was not lost on the media. “Mr. Bozell’s father is a high-profile right-wing activist known for infusing his politics with Christian values,” the New York Times mentioned in its write-up of the arrest. And Bozell’s grandfather, L. Brent Bozell Jr., had been William F. Buckley Jr.’s debate partner, Joseph McCarthy’s and Barry Goldwater’s ghostwriter, the founder of Triumph and organizer of the first anti-abortion protest in the United States. Liberal critics traced the arc of the American right from Bozell Jr.

Record-high inflation and soaring gas prices are boons for the Republican Party. Nothing sours the electorate on the party in power faster than pain at the pump. “People are becoming poorer,” Tucker Carlson said during a recent segment. “The standard of living of Americans, who for almost 100 years have enjoyed the world's highest standard of living in any big country, is plummeting. So, what's the administration doing to fix this? What are they doing to help? Well, of course, that depends upon whether or not you're Ukrainian.” It’s a note Tucker has struck before. The Democrats in power only care about virtue signaling. It’s Ukrainian flag pins and transgender admirals all the way down. You can go broke for all they care. Just make sure you go woke first.

There’s a “Draft Ron DeSantis” campaign afoot within the Republican Party as some conservatives attempt to find a standard bearer not named Donald Trump. The Florida governor has attained popularity among vocal right-wing activists due to his resistance to drawn-out coronavirus mitigation measures beyond his initial “stay at home” and bar and restaurant closure orders and the banning of alcohol sales at bars. His public squabble with Rebekah Jones, the creator of his state health department’s Covid-19 dashboard, led to more praise from conservatives when her whistleblower story started showing cracks. DeSantis’s likability rose further after a “pay-to-play” implication by CBS last year turned out to be false.

I see that my National Review friends are writing their letters to Santa a bit early. Some, like Rich Lowry's recent paean to Ron DeSantis, are asking for that shiny new firetruck all the cool kids want. Others, like Charles Cooke’s febrile King Lear-like anti-Trump expostulation (“never, never, never, never, never”) hearken back to NR’s infamous "Against Trump" issue and are mostly negative: “No coal, please, Santa, and especially No More Trump!” I remember when I first heard the expression that Donald Trump “lived rent-free in the heads of his opponents.” “Vivid,” I thought, “and quite right.” Jennifer Rubin, Bill Kristol, Max Boot — the list of people obsessed with the forty-fifth president of the United States is long.

CNN’s new president Chris Licht, who replaced Jeff Zucker, is reportedly shifting the network's direction away from partisan sniping at its competitor Fox News. According to the Daily Beast, Licht “has already begun backchanneling with key figures, including agents and reporters, and, according to two insiders familiar with the matter, making it known to Fox News that he is working towards a cease-fire on his network’s aggressive coverage of them.” The Daily Beast also notes that lead CNN hall monitor Brian Stelter did not mention Fox News at all on his most recent episode of "Reliable Sources.

I hate going back, again, to Orwell, but since the world is intent on using Nineteen Eighty-Four as an instructional guide, I have no choice. So proles, take note: this week's Two Minutes Hate will be split between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump. They apparently share the goal of destroying American democracy via the invasion of Ukraine. Something very sinister has happened in the American mind-space over the last few days. Ukraine, a country of little importance to the United States, suddenly became the sole focus of most media-consuming Americans. This was constructed to appear organic, but it is impossible not to imagine guiding hands behind the shift of every single media outlet to a single story told in a single way.

The Democrats face so many problems that it’s hard to remember the Republicans face a big one of their own. Donald Trump is not just a problem for Republicans. He’s a problem for the Republic. The problem is not Trump’s policies, whether you agree with them or not. Their populist/nationalist thrust differs from traditional conservativism, but his policies are coloring within the traditional lines of American politics. Many of them — tax cuts, immigration enforcement, increased military spending, credible threats against foreign adversaries — worked well and received enthusiastic popular support. Trump’s emphasis on state and local solutions over centralized ones was a welcome return to standard Republican practice.

The smart money says that Donald Trump will not run in 2024. The smarter money says that he might, but that he shouldn’t because he’s too old and too divisive. I have no accounts at either of those depositories, so am not going to participate in that panel discussion. Instead, I propose to make a few obvious points. If they’re obvious, why make them? Because the obvious is not always so obvious. René Descartes is widely detested by all the clever people, for whom ‘Cartesian’ is term of snobbish contempt. I think Descartes was a great genius but one who was wrong about a couple of important things. No, I do not mean what he says about ‘extended substance’, the ‘Cogito’ or any of his other epistemological and metaphysical flights.

When Donald Trump descended on a golden escalator from the heights of Trump Tower in June 2015 to announce his run for president, the press, political pundits, the consultant class and pretty much everyone else viewed it as a high-profile publicity stunt. It was a means for Trump to do what he does best: draw attention to himself. The consensus was that he’d make a splash before fading, making way for Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio. Despite losing reelection and likely taking down the Senate GOP with him, Trump still remains very popular in the Republican party — particularly among a small but hardcore percentage of the base that chooses presidential nominees during the primary season.