On October 8^th, the panel on MSNBC’s Morning Joe went on at length about the fact that former President Donald Trump is seemingly veering out of control on the stump, reporting that Trump insiders indicate that the former President isn’t listening to the advice from his campaign counselors, and chortling that contrary to the advice from such advisors – who believe that effectively exploiting economic issues will bring the former President victory in November — Mr. Trump is instead doubling down on his lies and rhetoric of hate and racism against migrants.

While I’m just an old retired blogger and these are an array of seasoned political analysts, I think that as loathsome as his tactics are, Mr. Trump’s instincts are strategically right and his advisors and the pundits are wrong.  Not long ago, a close friend texted me about an observation that James Carville, formerly President Bill Clinton’s key political strategist, had made about Pennsylvania (seemingly likely to be the pivotal 2024 Electoral College state):  That between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, it’s Alabama.  In what both sides clearly consider a turnout election rather than a persuasion election, Mr. Trump – either cognitively or viscerally – seems to recognize that to win the state he needs to motivate the low-propensity Trump supporters in the small, picturesque but mostly destitute communities in the expanses between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.  For Mr. Trump to instead try to convince moderately conservative suburban Philadelphia and Pittsburgh women – who are probably personally repulsed by him, who probably aren’t feeling inflationary pressure, and who have watched their stock portfolios soar during the four years of the Biden Administration – that they should vote for him because of a bad economy, seems a longer stretch.  Better to play on impoverished Trump supporters’ natural fears and biases.  As Adolf Hitler noted in Mein Kampf:  “Faith is harder to shake than knowledge … Hate is more enduring than aversion.”        

That said, if Mr. Trump is defeated – although right now, I fear that the Vice President’s campaign is flagging a bit — my instinct is that it won’t be because of his stands on most substantive issues; I would submit that aside from his clearly unpopular positioning on abortion (which he knows is hurting him, and he keeps trying to run away from), if the former President loses it will be because of his gargantuan and – crucially – blatantly obvious personal moral defects:  the narcissism, the self-aggrandizement, the transparent lying, the sexual predation, the adultery, the pettiness, the instability, the greed, the conniving, the overt racism (as contrasted with subtle racism, which much of America unfortunately seems to accept); in a word, his amorality.  To anyone who retains common sensibilities – even among some who may end up voting for him despite his evident failings — he’s … distasteful.

I think most scholars agree – with all due respect to many others across many forms of endeavor – that English playwright and poet William Shakespeare has been the most effective wielder of the English language in human history.  Mr. Shakespeare built his tragedies around seemingly formidable figures, such as Hamlet, Richard III, Macbeth, Othello, and King Lear, who were subject to a “tragic flaw” – a trait that ultimately led to the protagonist’s downfall.  (The fictional Hamlet is highly insightful, but his ability to see all sides causes him to be indecisive, to hesitate when he should act.)  I would submit that Mr. Trump’s ability to draw from inside himself to release Americans’ basest instincts – openly declaring and giving license to what millions of others were clearly feeling, but realized that they should repress, and did not theretofore give voice to – fueled his rise and has maintained his prominence; but at the same time I would suggest that if he loses in November, it will have been his own obvious amorality, rather than any substantive policy position (possibly save abortion), to be the “tragic flaw” that will have caused his ruin.  (Note:  in the Shakespearean lexicon, a flaw was considered “tragic” because it led to the downfall of the character.  If Mr. Trump’s amorality does repel a sufficient number of voters that he loses, such will be tragic for him, but constitute salvation – or at least a reprieve — for our republic.)

But what if the next MAGA messiah – and there will be one – isn’t so obviously personally flawed?  While those who wish to protect our democracy need to focus today on beating Mr. Trump and MAGA Vice Presidential Nominee U.S. OH Sen. J.D. Vance, the very fact that Mr. Trump, despite all of his personal baggage, currently retains at least an even chance to win the presidency means we cannot delude ourselves that even an unassailable Harris victory next month – although it may mean the end of Mr. Trump’s political career – will be the end of the MAGA movement or quench the dark passions within our citizenry which Mr. Trump has unleashed. 

I fear that even if Mr. Trump loses, what comes next may be every bit as toxic but harder to contest.  By all accounts, Mr. Vance won the recent Vice Presidential Candidate Debate.  He didn’t do so because of sterling reasoning or better policy positions [he certainly continued his lies about the Springfield, OH Haitian immigrants being illegal (they’re legal) and claimed that during his presidency, Mr. Trump tried to save the Obama Administration’s Affordable Care Act (a whopper that anyone with the sense of a goose could see through)], but because the television camera loves style.  Mr. Vance, notwithstanding his lies, appeared smooth and of pleasant demeanor throughout.  He didn’t look crazy; he didn’t look “weird”; he didn’t look threatening; he came across as normal and sane while espousing the same positions and spewing the same lies that Mr. Trump does.  This is terribly dangerous.

I read Hillbilly Elegy in 2016.  Mr. Vance is without doubt an intelligent and insightful man who sometime over the last eight years decided that he was willing to sacrifice principle in return for power and prominence.  (Recall Mr. Trump himself noted in September, 2022, “J.D. is kissing my ass he wants my support so bad.”)  If Ms. Harris defeats Mr. Trump, the day after the inauguration Mr. Vance will be the leading candidate for the 2028 MAGA Presidential nomination.

So what happens perhaps four years from now, when the hypothetically incumbent President Harris seeks reelection while being lambasted daily by alt-right propaganda, facing latent and overt sexism and racism, and carrying the weight of eight years of Democratic incumbency?  When she faces a MAGA – we can now picture him – perhaps a white Christian married family man who appears stable, intelligent, reasonable, not self-aggrandizing and seemingly committed to positions larger than himself, a slyer liar than Mr. Trump and not greedy, not an adjudged sexual assaulter, not an adulterer, not a convicted felon, who will if elected set out to enact (more efficiently than Mr. Trump ever could) the policies set forth in Mandate for Leadership:  The Conservative Promise (Project 2025)?

If that time comes – although right now, those who believe in democracy need to be focused on winning this election – let’s refer again to The Bard to sum up the challenge we will then face: 

“[M]eet it is I set it down, That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain …”

• William Shakespeare:  Hamlet; Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

We’ve just returned from a trip to the United Kingdom; amid the many wonderful experiences we had during our stay, by far the most arresting for me – no surprise to anyone who reads these pages – was a visit to the Churchill War Rooms and the Churchill Museum in London.  (TLOML had to finally drag me out, noting that we were in danger of missing a tour we had paid for 🙂 ).  Certain aspects of our trip are well worthy of a post at some point in the future, but reviewing the War Rooms and Museum exhibits setting forth the details of the fascist danger that British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and the British people confronted alone from mid-1940 until the end of 1941 – the period after the Nazis overran Europe until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor finally brought isolationist members of Congress to support America’s entry into the war – is causing me to straightforwardly repeat here what I have indicated in the past:  I perceive former President Donald Trump and his MAGA cohort to be a fascist threat to our way of life.  I thought that if the former president was defeated in 2020, the spell he had cast over so many of our citizens would dissipate.  Given the support he maintains despite his manifest unfitness for office, it would seem that that spell is even more intensely entrenched now than it was four years ago.

You who honor me by reviewing these posts are acutely aware of the many (and frequently wordy 😉 ) notes I have entered here.  That said, if I was to list five entries set forth in these pages for which I have the most regard, “The Fourth Election,” which I posted in two parts in June, 2020, would certainly be among them.  Its thrust was that the need to defeat Mr. Trump in the then-upcoming 2020 election was as critical to preserving the American life as the elections of 1788 (George Washington), 1860 (Abraham Lincoln) and 1932 (Franklin Roosevelt).  I generally feel that I am “cheating” a bit if I quote a previous post to make a substantive point in a subsequent post, but in this instance, I can’t say it better the second time than I did the first.  What follows are excerpts from “The Fourth Election,” edited only to clarify references.  All emphasized text was emphasized in the original.  (I hadn’t initially recalled that it included the longest litany of Mr. Trump’s personality failings that I have ever put together 😉 ).  While, given its publication date, there is obviously no reference to Mr. Trump’s subsequent lying denial of his 2020 election defeat, nor to his subsequent seditious instigation of an attack on our Capitol, nor to the Project 2025 document (which, despite his denials, his actions in his last months in office make manifestly clear that he will implement if he is reelected), this 2020 post’s observations now seem prescient, given the glaring demonstrations we have seen since its posting of the authoritarian dangers a second Trump presidency will present.

The Fourth Election

…

On February 5, 2020, President Donald Trump was acquitted by the United States Senate at the conclusion of his [first] impeachment trial.  Two days after the acquittal, President Trump removed from their respective positions European Union Ambassador Gordon Sondlund and Director for European Affairs for the United States National Security Council Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, two witnesses whose undisputedly truthful testimony implicated the President in a scheme to pressure a vital but vulnerable ally for his own domestic political purposes.  Four days after the acquittal, the United States Department of Justice, led by U.S. Attorney General William Barr, said that it was reducing the sentence it was recommending for convicted Trump confidante Roger Stone – described by former Trump Administration Chief Strategist Stephen Bannon during Mr. Stone’s trial as an “access point” to Russia conduit Wikileaks for the Trump Campaign — after the President tweeted that the 7-9 year term initially recommended by DOJ was “disgraceful” and a “miscarriage of justice.”

I tend to buy books in clusters.  Largely driven by these Trump Administration actions … I went to my local bookstore to acquire specific titles that I considered appropriate supplements to my copy of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, by William Shirer:  Mr. Putin, by Fiona Hill and Clifford Gaddy; The New Sultan, the story of Turkey’s President (and now autocratically inclined) Recip Tayyip Erdogan, by Soner Cagaptay; Fascism:  A Warning, by former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright; and … a final selection — a volume generally available, but a title that causes you to lower your voice when requesting:  Mein Kampf (in English, “My Struggle”), by Adolf Hitler.

At my last request, the young woman with whom I’d been working glanced up at me a bit sharply, then relaxed; apparently – thankfully — I look like a researcher, not a believer.  She located Hitler’s opus, glanced at the price, added it to my pile, and observed sympathetically, “That’s a lot for such trash.”  Then she added:  “My Dad says I shouldn’t wear this necklace out like this.”  I hadn’t previously noticed, but saw then:  at the base of her neck was a small Star of David. 

That is where we are today.  Throughout President Trump’s term, we have seen countless instances of his deliberately sowing seeds of division among us, his lying, racism, religious bigotry, sexism, xenophobia, bullying, instability, narcissism, erraticism, avarice, pettiness, and flouting of norms, rules, and laws, his virulent attacks on the principled who disagree with him, a free press, and free speech, and his collaboration with foreign enemies for his own ends.  Even so, never seriously did I contemplate the potential for his dictatorial inclinations until – after he was acquitted in the Senate — he dismissed Messrs. Vindman and Sondlund and meddled in Mr. Stone’s sentencing.  Since that time, the Justice Department has sought to drop its prosecution of Mr. Trump’s former National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn (after Mr. Flynn twice pled guilty), Mr. Trump has dismissed four Inspectors General (dismissals U.S. UT Sen. Mitt Romney called “a threat to accountable democracy”), he has issued an Executive Order on Preventing Online Censorship after Twitter added corrective links to his completely unsubstantiated tweeted claims of fraud related to mail-in voting, he has called upon the nation’s Governors to “dominate” protestors in the wake of George Floyd’s killing, and on June 1 had peaceful protestors cleared from Lafayette Square, in part through the use of chemical agents, in order to provide himself with a photo opportunity. 

The above list isn’t exhaustive, but it is indicative.  Clearly Mr. Trump has considered himself unfettered since his acquittal, and has felt free to exact revenge and pursue vendettas against those he considers to have wronged him or his entourage.  Does anyone think that Mr. Trump will be more restrained if he is re-elected?

…

Former President Barack Obama is reportedly fond of a statement by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.:  “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”  With all due respect to Messrs. King and Obama, I consider the sentiment poppycock.  What is right and just is not inevitable; it must be defended.  Messrs. Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses Grant, and Messrs. Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, and Douglas MacArthur didn’t prevail in their struggles because they were right; they won because they had more troops and better weapons than the enemy.  I would submit that this is the Fourth Election in which the American way of life is at stake.  We citizens have only votes to defend the freedom this nation provides.  The existential threats [existing as of the 1788, 1860, and 1932 elections] were brought about by outside circumstances beyond the control of the Presidents called upon to address them; in this election, [Mr. Trump] is the existential threat.  His presidency has revealed both the strength and fault lines within our system of government. 

…

Although perhaps those that read these posts are already aware of this, it is nonetheless worth noting that Messrs. Hitler, Putin, and Erdogan all first assumed their leadership positions by Constitutional means in what were then actual democracies; none had to overthrow an established order before beginning their accumulation of control over their respective nations.  While I draw a measure of solace from the manner in which [former Secretary of Defense Mark] Esper and [former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark] Milley have recently distanced themselves and the military from Mr. Trump’s Lafayette Park stunt – one can’t be an autocrat without an army – there are plenty of other Defense Secretary candidates and Generals from whom Mr. Trump can choose from if he is re-elected.  I have seen a number of pundits suggest that Mr. Trump’s presidency is “over.”  I suggest that we need be watchful, lest his dictatorship start.

In normal times, I consider politics to be the “sports page” of world affairs:  Who’s winning, who’s losing, who might employ what strategy.  Today, in the United States of America, politics is where the substantive battle to protect our way of life will be fought.  Although the ammunition in this contest must remain ballots, the struggle to protect the ideals upon which this nation was founded is every bit as much at issue in the current campaign as it is on Ukrainian lands.  The political exchanges we will see over the next two months – and given our experience with the 2020 Election, perhaps all the way to Inauguration Day – will determine whether the American experiment in democracy survives.

First, an aside regarding Vice President and Presumptive Democratic Presidential Nominee Kamala Harris’ selection of a running mate.  Reports are that Ms. Harris intends to make her selection in the near future, and of course the Noise, probably foolishly, wishes to get in its two cents before she does.

She should name PA Gov. Josh Shapiro, 51, as her running mate.  I have never seen Mr. Shapiro speak, but it’s seemingly by far the wisest choice based upon reputation and Electoral College math.  Mr. Shapiro is reportedly very popular in Pennsylvania, and the Keystone State, with its 19 Electoral College votes, is the one upper Midwestern “Blue Wall” state for which Democrats have no effective counter if they lose [i.e., Ms. Harris could lose Michigan (15) if she wins Georgia or North Carolina (each 16, although both are obviously more difficult electoral challenges for her than Michigan) and could lose Wisconsin (10) if she wins Arizona (11; again, admittedly a longer political stretch.)]  An additional plus is that Mr. Shapiro, who is Jewish, has been a vocal supporter of Israel’s war against Hamas.  Without getting into the substance of what our Israel-Hamas policy should be, I would suggest that a Harris-Shapiro ticket would allow the Democrats to have it both ways:  Ms. Harris, who looks (although she is not) a bit Middle Eastern, can declare that Israel has the right to defend itself while expressing concern about Palestinian civilians while Mr. Shapiro loudly proclaims Israel’s right to defend itself.

[The swing state theory outlined above could also suggest Ms. Harris’ selection of NC Gov. Roy Cooper as a running mate; I’m not as keen on Gov. Cooper since his age (67) would blunt Democrats’ sudden youth advantage against former President and MAGA Nominee Donald Trump and I think Mr. Cooper’s presence on the Democratic ticket would be significantly less likely to secure North Carolina against Mr. Trump than Mr. Shapiro’s will to win Pennsylvania.]

Now, on to the delicious irony that by withdrawing from the presidential campaign, President Joe Biden now holds perhaps a decisive opportunity to cap over half a century of service to America.  I have often suggested in these pages that the outcome of this election – i.e., the future of our democracy — will not be decided by the rabid bases of either party but by the mostly suburban moderate Republicans and conservative independents in the swing states who are disturbed by Mr. Trump’s undemocratic inclinations, erratic impulses and hateful passions but, according to apparently all polling, were even more concerned before the President stepped aside about his physical capability to lead us for another four years.  I would submit that these voters, despite the alt-right propaganda machine’s best efforts to demonize Mr. Biden, think of the President as a fine man, a good guy who means what he says, who is now simply too old to carry the burdens of the presidency for another four years.

Mr. Biden has steadfastly maintained until this past weekend that he was the best positioned Democrat to bring about Mr. Trump’s defeat in November.  He might not have been then.  He is now.

The accolades that have poured in for the President since he announced his withdrawal as a patriot who has placed the good of country over his personal ambition are indications that Mr. Biden has transformed himself overnight, among the decisive moderate segment of our electorate, from doddering power seeker into America’s Eminence Grise (“Gray Eminence”) – its wise advisor.  These moderates may or may not agree with all of Mr. Biden’s policies, but I doubt that they’re notably concerned about his mental acuity today and I would suggest that his credibility with these people as both the sitting President of the United States and one wishes what is best for our his people – who now has nothing personally to gain by what he says – has likely never been higher than it will be for the remainder of his term.

One of the great fears of the Kennedy Campaign in 1960 was that the Nixon Campaign would have then President Dwight Eisenhower – the leader of our victorious forces in Europe during World War II, then finishing eight years as president in which he presided over our nation’s 1950s economic boom, and significantly more popular with Americans than either man campaigning to replace him – stump for his Vice President, Richard Nixon.  Although Mr. Eisenhower was reportedly willing to campaign – he apparently deeply resented John Kennedy’s criticism of his record — he never went on the road, because the Nixon Campaign never asked.  In campaign post-mortems, accounts varied as to why Mr. Eisenhower wasn’t more effectively deployed.  Mr. Nixon maintained that he didn’t want to overly stress Mr. Eisenhower, who had suffered a heart attack during his presidency (and at 70, was considered pretty old 😉 ); others suggested that Mr. Nixon, chafing at having had little influence during his eight years as Vice President, wanted to win the presidency on his own.  Either way, Mr. Eisenhower’s absence from the campaign trail was arguably a pivotal factor in Mr. Nixon’s narrow defeat.

I am confident that Ms. Harris will want Mr. Biden on the road.  I am equally confident that Mr. Biden will want to be on the road.  This promises to be a quiet six months on the world stage.  Russian President Vladimir Putin (with the prospect that a Trump presidency that will ease if not ensure his takeover of Ukraine), Chinese President Xi Jinping (with the prospect that an isolationist Trump presidency will ease his takeover of Taiwan), Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (undoubtedly cognizant that Mr. Biden, free of political ramifications, might, if provoked, use American power to destroy Iran’s nuclear capability), and North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un (who is well aware that his nation will fare better with Mr. Trump, a gullible fool, as president and likely also fearful that Mr. Biden, free of political restraints, might act to destroy North Korea’s nuclear capacity) are all unlikely to do anything provocative.  Clearly, absent bipartisan measures that might be required to address a domestic disaster such as hurricane damage, no legislation will pass Congress.

Mr. Biden is more fluent, a more effective speaker, when he speaks from the heart, and now free of the responsibilities of leading a campaign, relieved of the awareness that any gaffes he makes on the stump will be the entire focus of a ravenous media, I expect him to pull out all stops.  He needs to hold nothing back; he has the rest of his life after January 20, 2025, to relax and enjoy his family.  Wrapped in the trappings of the presidency and the aura of a man who has been willing to put country ahead of personal gain, I would submit that his declarations about what another Trump presidency will mean for America will carry tremendous, possibly decisive, weight with moderates.  While only the Vice President can assure undecideds that she is qualified for the presidency, I predict that Mr. Biden will be the Vice President’s most effective surrogate, will be a more effective cajoler of swing state swing voters than Ms. Harris herself.

If Mr. Biden does enthusiastically engage in the campaign as I anticipate he will, and if Ms. Harris does win the presidency, Mr. Biden’s last contributions to our nation will have been to protect democracy and lay the path for our first woman president.  In my view, he will already go down as our most important president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  However, speaking as one old Irishman about another, perhaps none of these achievements will be as sweet for him as the knowledge that he did, indeed, have the last word; that he beat Donald Trump one more time.     

I have been somewhat taken aback by Democrats’ hemming and hawing about whether President Joe Biden should continue his candidacy against former President Donald Trump in the wake of what, by all accounts, was a disastrous debate performance on June 27.  For those who believe both that the President’s campaign has sprung a fatal leak and that the fate of our democracy depends upon defeating Mr. Trump, such dilly-dallying is inexplicable.  I’ve been considering a number of maxims I accept in reflecting whether I was too hasty when I declared in these pages after the debate that he should step aside.  Let’s review them.

If they’re talking about Biden, Trump is winning.  If they’re talking about Trump, Biden is winning.  Right now, they’re talking about Mr. Biden’s age, frailty, and acuity.  They’re not talking about Mr. Trump.  Progressive pundits keep declaring that attention should not be centered on Mr. Biden but instead upon Mr. Trump’s evident authoritarian and aberrant inclinations.  Such assertions ignore reality.  Mr. Trump has said and done so many outrageous things over the last nine years that the public is inured to them.  To think that the former president will say something between now and Election Day that will materially affect the trajectory of the race is simply Woke naiveté.  

The first party to break out of the “Double Hater” (a media description for the majority of Americans who polls indicate don’t want either man for the next four years) Paradigm will win the White House.  By rejecting former SC Gov. and U.N. U.S. Amb. Nikki Haley, the Republicans have already blundered away (or were bullied out of) their opportunity to present voters a fresh face.  Now, it’s the Democrats’ turn – one way or the other.  We’re conditioned by our commercial culture to be attracted to the new.  The public interest and excitement that would be generated by a different Democratic nominee cannot be overstated.  The day before he went to prison 🙂 , the Washington Post quoted Trump advisor Steve Bannon:  “Trump’s [presidential debate victory] was a Pyrrhic victory. … [If Mr. Biden withdraws] [y]ou’re going to take out a guy [we] know [we] can beat … and we’re going to have a wild card.”

 A vote for anyone except Biden is a vote for Trump.  The election will not be decided by the bases of either party.  It will be determined by the votes of swing state undecideds.  If those who detest Mr. Trump but consider Mr. Biden physically unable to serve another four years decide to either vote for a third party candidate or stay home, Mr. Trump wins.

Democrats have the more popular side in most of the substantive issues now facing the country.  Apparently true; in the abortion issue, Mr. Trump’s offhand comments about revising Social Security and Medicare, his obvious past kowtowing to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and his obvious incitement of the January 6^th insurrection seem to provide Democrats an extremely strong hand to persuade decisive swing state swing voters that the former president is morally, substantively, and intellectually unfit to serve another term.  (Democrats arguably even have the means to blunt Republicans’ potent immigration thrusts by noting that Mr. Trump publicly took credit for scuttling a bipartisan immigration bill.)  But this only underscores the President’s weakness as a standard bearer because polls uniformly indicate that he is losing.

The most important last:  former President Bill Clinton’s oft-stated observation:  Elections are about the future.  Mr. Biden keeps talking about what a good job he has done.  Even so, those who appreciate what he’s done are understandably focused on where we go from here.  (Recall that less than three months after the Allies defeated the Nazis, the British people voted out Prime Minister Winston Churchill and his Conservative Party, believing the Labor Party could better lead the United Kingdom in the postwar era.)  Even before the debate, virtually all Biden supporters whom I spoke to expressed severe reservations about his age.  (“He’s so old,” with a shrug or shudder.)  They truly doubt his ability to effectively conduct the presidency until he’s 86.  This is unlike the misgivings spawned by former President Ronald Reagan’s feeble first debate performance in 1984; in that contest, the majority of public didn’t tune in with the preconceived notion that Mr. Reagan was too old to serve another term.  Mr. Biden’s performance merely confirmed and reinforced doubts that were already there; his ability to reassure the public through subsequent appearances is accordingly significantly less than Mr. Reagan had.  I’m personally appalled by Mr. Biden’s excuses that on the most important night of the 2024 presidential campaign, he maybe had a cold, or was exhausted, or had jet lag (a week after his last trip), or didn’t follow his instincts, or whatever.  I don’t think his performance can be dismissed as one bad night – as one might a poorly-delivered stump speech among dozens of others.  The Debate was the night.  And he bombed.  It is not unreasonable for voters to want a leader who’s able to respond best when most challenged.  While Mr. Trump is also obviously slipping physically and mentally, his animated manner makes his decline less apparent to the casual observer.

Sports presents trite (in this context) yet perhaps apt allegories.  Jackie Smith is enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame for his performance as a tight end over the 1960s and 1970s; yet all the casual football fan remembers of Mr. Smith is that he dropped an easy pass that cost the Dallas Cowboys Super Bowl XIII.  Bill Buckner had an outstanding career, with over 2,700 career hits and records for most assists by a first baseman in a season; yet all the casual fan recalls is that he let a ball roll through his legs that cost the Boston Red Sox the 1986 World Series.  Sometimes, one big event outweighs all else.  Cruel?  Certainly.  Reality?  Without doubt.

The upcoming presidential election will be decided not by diehards but by casual fans.      

Now, to the realities.

Mr. Biden has a hammerlock on the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination.  While I put little credence in the President’s claims to Congressional Democrats that during the primaries, Democratic voters spoke “clearly and decisively” on his behalf – in the wake of his debate performance, I’d like to see how the President would now fare against a credible Democratic opponent – it cannot be denied, as the President also noted in his communication, that he is the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee.  He will be the nominee unless he voluntarily chooses to withdraw. 

You can’t replace somebody with nobody.  The best argument I have heard for the President continuing in the race is that Democrats are most likely to turn to Vice President Harris if he withdraws.  While I’m ready to be convinced otherwise, I’ve heard of no polls indicating that Ms. Harris would fare better against Mr. Trump than Mr. Biden in the swing states (her ability to run up bigger totals than Mr. Biden in deep blue states – which will show up in national polling numbers – is irrelevant.)  While I understand that any attempt to bypass Ms. Harris might trigger a revolt by the Democratic Party’s powerful constituency of color, if former President Barack Obama shares my concerns about Ms. Harris’ electability, Mr. Obama is going to have to take a hand here.  (This note is long enough without my spouting about the pros and cons of other potential Democratic nominees.  I can name at least two that I think could beat Mr. Trump in Wisconsin; for each of them, MD Gov. Wes Moore would be an excellent running mate.)

Mr. Biden is apparently choosing to pass the buck to the Lord Almighty.  During an interview with George Stephanopoulos following the debate, Mr. Biden declared, “I mean, if the Lord Almighty came down and said, ‘Joe, get out of the race,’ I’d get out of the race. The Lord Almighty’s not coming down.”  While the President is by all accounts a man of deep faith, the rather flip nature of his comment invites a response which I – and I suspect he – heard in our youth:  “The Lord helps those who help themselves” – which I would suggest that in this context, means He expects the President to use his power of discernment to determine and take the steps which will best enable America to preserve its democracy.  In retrospect, the Biden Team’s decision to hold a debate before the Democratic Convention has unwittingly provided Democrats the opportunity to change course that would not have been evident or available otherwise.

I prefer to post on either Friday or Monday, and targeted this note for today for much of the week; I concede that I now feel a bit caddish about its timing, like I’m piling on when it is reported that quite a number of Democrats are going to call for the Mr. Biden to step aside in the near future.  That’s as may be.  I continue to believe that the President should end his candidacy.    

If Mr. Biden persists, the fate of our democracy will rest on his ability to fulfill his now-shaky pledge to defeat Donald Trump this November.  In the end, he might be right; recall that the specter of Donald Trump stilled what all forecast to be a “Red Wave” in the 2022 federal election cycle.  Although I believe that the President is a genuinely good man who means well, if he loses, the consequences of his decision to stay in the race – a decision that a close friend described to me as “pure hubris” last weekend – will fall upon all of us; but among those opposing the authoritarian impulses of Mr. Trump and his MAGA cultists, the responsibility for the destruction of our democracy will ultimately rest with Joseph R. Biden, Jr., and with him alone.

We’ll see what happens.

We didn’t watch the debate.  We had an important conflict, so we recorded it, and I could have watched it by now; but the unanimous assessments of pundits across the political spectrum has made it unnecessary.  I see no need to watch a guy for whom I have genuine respect, who I think has done a really good job as president, embarrass himself.  Over the last several days, these pages joined hundred of pundits in suggesting what strategies President Joe Biden might use to debate former President Donald Trump.  He apparently didn’t effectively execute in any manner.  It doesn’t matter why it happened – I understand that the President’s apologists are claiming he had a cold – it happened. 

Describing the first – and ultimately, pivotal – 1960 debate between John Kennedy and Richard Nixon, Theodore White wrote over sixty years ago in The Making of the President 1960: 

“There was, first and above all, the crude, overwhelming impression that side by side the two seemed evenly matched – and this even matching in the popular imagination was for Kennedy a major victory. [Emphasis Added]”

By all accounts, the “crude, overwhelming impression” left with voters last night was that the 81-year-old President is not up to another four years.  It doesn’t matter if, as a number of commentators have indicated, that former President Donald Trump repeatedly lied (since I didn’t see the debate, I need to take that one on faith, but it doesn’t take a lot of faith  😉 ).  Mr. Trump will undoubtedly gain some percentage of the heretofore undecided voters dismayed by Mr. Biden’s seeming infirmity, but I am going to guess that Mr. Biden’s greater political wound will be the irretrievable loss of those swing voters who can’t stomach Mr. Trump and were as of last night’s debate willing to be convinced that Mr. Biden could serve another four years – but will now stay home or vote for a third-party candidate.  Mr. Biden needed those voters to overcome Mr. Trump’s rock-solid cultish support.  I don’t think even a bravura performance by Mr. Biden in the men’s second debate can overcome the disastrous impression left by his first performance (most commentators at the time considered the last three Kennedy-Nixon debates a draw); even if Mr. Biden does well, there will undoubtedly be the lingering suspicion in the minds of some moderate voters that maybe the President is on uppers, as the Trump Camp claims.

Democrats now face two obvious challenges: 

First, to convince a sitting President who has already secured sufficient committed delegates to secure the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination to release his delegates, and withdraw from the race. 

I am confident that it would be hard for anyone who has experienced the power of the presidency of the United States to accept the notion that s/he needs to voluntarily step aside (particularly if one believes, as I understand the President does, that his beloved son would never have been prosecuted had he chosen to forego a second presidential campaign).  However, given the vehement and unanimous view among his supporters about the probable impact of his debate performance, the President needs to do what he’s always done – put the country first.

Second:  Whom to nominate in the President’s place:  a candidate who can hit the ground running – i.e., who already has some national presence — and defeat Mr. Trump. 

It’s clearly way too early to speculate widely on potential replacement Democratic presidential nominees.  That said, if one believes, as I do, that in the current environment no Democrat can win the White House unless s/he wins Wisconsin, it cannot be Vice President Kamala Harris.  I suspect that in the coming days, Democratic WI Gov. Tony Evers will be telling major national Democratic politicos a version of what I consider the most vital fact about Ms. Harris:  not even one of our most progressive friends living in Madison, Wisconsin – perhaps the most progressive enclave between the coasts — thinks that Ms. Harris can beat Mr. Trump in Wisconsin. 

At the same time, to win 270 Electoral College votes, Democrats must find a candidate who will secure the enthusiastic support of the African-American voters and other voters of color, whom they cannot afford to alienate through any seeming slight to Ms. Harris.

While this note seems an extremely abrupt, heartless about-face about the President, a cold-blooded dismissal of a good man who has served the American people well for over half a century, what has persuaded me without even watching the debate of Democrats’ need to seek a different nominee was the reaction this morning of MSNBC’s Morning Joe’s decidedly-liberal panel.  It was apparent that they had genuine sorrow for a fine gentleman whom they know personally and have real affection for – but now no longer believe can defeat Mr. Trump. 

Mr. Trump is still Mr. Trump.  He must be defeated.    

The only good news for Democrats – a point that I’ve seen made elsewhere – is that because this debate was so early, it’s not too late to make a course correction.  Mr. Trump remains beatable in at least the northern swing states – if the Democrats are able to unite – quickly — behind the right candidate.  They’d best get to it.

We’ll see what happens.  

According to a well-known account of a conversation occurring at the end of the last day of the 1787 Philadelphia Constitutional Convention, when the members of the Convention had just finished hammering out the Constitution under which we live today (as amended), one of the grand ladies of Philadelphia society, Elizabeth Willing Powel, asked Benjamin Franklin, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?”

According to the legend, Mr. Franklin replied: 

“A republic, if you can keep it.”

By all indications, a Senate deal which would provide both stringent border protections favored by Republicans – controls, indeed, that I have seen reported as being much more rigorous than Republicans will ever secure in the future if in 2024 Democrats retain the White House and regain complete control of Congress — and aid needed by Ukraine to effectively continue its defense against Russia that enjoys bipartisan support, is about to be scuttled because former President Donald Trump has instructed his Republican minions in Congress to kill it.  It appears undisputed – this is the crux — that Mr. Trump doesn’t want our border challenges to be addressed because he wants to be able to blame President Joe Biden for the chaos during the upcoming campaign.  Republican U.S. UT Sen. Mitt Romney has called Mr. Trump’s action “appalling”; Republican U.S. NC Sen. Thom Tillis has called it “immoral” to reject a border deal to help Mr. Trump politically.  Bowing to Mr. Trump’s bidding, MAGA Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Mike Johnson has declared that the bipartisan Senate arrangement will be “Dead on Arrival” in the House.  After Mr. Biden expressed support for the Senate agreement late last week, Mr. Johnson sharply criticized the President, claiming that Mr. Biden should instead secure the border by executive order.  (The irony here is particularly thick.  Republicans have done nothing but accuse Mr. Biden of executive overreach ever since he took office; at the same time, Mr. Trump’s instructions could well politically backfire on him if Democrats have the savvy to run continuous reels, particularly in our southern border states, of Messrs. Romney, Tillis and their Republican Senate colleagues blaming Mr. Trump for the deal’s failure.)

I admit that I haven’t educated myself on immigration policy and issues over the last several years in the way I have intended; that said, it is clear even from liberal media outlets that — no matter whose fault it is, or what factors contribute to it — we face a human, security and logistical crisis on our southern border.  A large segment of our people are highly exercised about it.  Senate Republicans clearly think that the deal they have struck with their Democratic colleagues will markedly improve our current challenge. (I note that Mr. Romney said that the bipartisan bill would “solve” our border dilemma; I doubt any piece of legislation could do that.)

At the same time, I have for months been painfully aware that Ukrainians are fighting and dying daily to defend their homeland, that they’ve been running out of munitions, and that their ability to withstand any future major Russian onslaught will be extremely compromised without the aid that this bill would provide.  It takes no prescience for anyone who has spent any time over the last 80 years considering U.S. foreign policy to understand that not only Western Europe but America will be less secure if Ukraine falls to Russia.

There is reportedly a solid majority in both Houses of Congress that would approve the Senate deal if it was allowed to come to a vote.  If so, the fate of the suffering people at the border, relief for our fellow citizens whose lives are being disrupted by the onslaught of migrants, and the destiny of a Ukrainian people struggling to defend themselves (and the world’s democracies) against despotism is being hamstrung by the spasms of one old, evil, demented megalomanic.

According to accounts of Congressional Republicans such as Mr. Romney and former U.S. WY Rep. Liz Cheney, the vast majority of Republicans in the Senate and most Republicans in the House have nothing but contempt for Mr. Trump.  They nonetheless kowtow to him because they fear losing their hallowed offices.  In addition to rank ambition, a rationale sometimes offered for these Republicans’ shameless obeisance to Mr. Trump is their fear of MAGA physical retribution against themselves and their families.  These are frankly pitiful attempts to rationalize a monstrous dereliction of duty by those who have intentionally sought and won membership in the branch of our federal government that has the Constitutional power to declare war – the power to send our men and women of the armed forces to fight and to die on behalf of America’s interests.  Those in the military and their families don’t get the luxury of ducking their responsibility in order to preserve their positions and their physical safety.  They have to follow whatever these craven blowhards decide is in their own political self interests.

I’m not sure whether I feel greater antagonism toward those MAGA officeholders who want to institute an American Apartheid or for those Republican officials who would support bipartisanship if they did not fear retribution.  Frankly, it doesn’t suffice to call the latter group, “cowards.”  People are fighting and dying for freedom in Ukraine, and they don’t have the guts to stand up.  They are — I know what crass epithet comes to my mind as an apt description; but I leave that one to you.

Meanwhile, last week a jury found the MAGA Messiah before whom these Republicans prostrate themselves liable to E. Jean Carroll for over $83 million dollars for continuing to defame Ms. Carroll after a jury of three women and six men had earlier found that he had sexually abused her.  (If you don’t know and still care to learn what Ms. Carroll testified that the former president did to her before the jury rendered its verdict, the substance of her account is readily available via internet search.)  The New York Times reported that as he left the courtroom last week on the day before the verdict was rendered, the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee loudly declared, “This is not America.”

I ironically agree with the former president’s aggrieved declaration – although obviously not with the lies he spews.  The despicable, toxic posturing and pandering now occurring in the United States House of Representatives is not America – my America – a country in which, to use Historian Jon Meacham’s analogy which I particularly like, Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan have been figuratively debating our best course over the last 90 years.  The two have certainly had vigorous disagreements, and each in life was a wily politician sensitive to the moods of his people, but each always urged in good faith what he felt was best for our nation, believed that it was in America’s strategic interest to use our power to constrain despotism across the globe, and understood that compromise between divergent views held in good faith was the core of our system.

At this most perilous time, when I see a compromise that could provide vital benefit on multiple fronts sacrificed to ambition and fear, I hearken back to Mr. Franklin’s exchange with Mrs. Powel.

I wonder if we can keep it.

“You must not weaken in any way in your alert and vigilant frame of mind.  Though holiday rejoicing is necessary to the human spirit, yet it must add to the strength and resilience with which every man and woman turns again to the work they have to do, and also to the outlook and watch they have to keep on public affairs. …

[W]e have yet to make sure … that the words, ‘freedom,’ [and] ‘democracy’ … are not distorted from their true meaning as we have understood them.  There would be little use in punishing the Hitlerites for their crimes if law and justice did not rule, and if totalitarian or police governments were to take [their] place ….”

• British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, May 13, 1945

Before our last 4^th of July holiday, I quoted these remarks by Mr. Churchill in these pages – which he delivered to the British people on a date after the fall of Nazi Germany but before the defeat of Imperial Japan, and as the indications of Soviet Russia’s designs for eastward European territorial domination were first appearing – and there’s at least an even chance I’ll cite them at least once more before another of our 2024 national holidays.  There has not been a time in over 75 years in which they have been as relevant as they are today, as former President Donald Trump, unabashedly using rhetoric that is often a direct lift from Adolf Hitler, seems poised to win the presidential nomination of a major American political party whose adherents now consist of the fascist, the poisonously tribal, the cowardly, or the blind.

For most of my lifetime, presidential elections have been won by the candidate that was most effective at obtaining the votes of those in the political middle of our electorate.  More recently, given a closely-divided, hyper-polarized polity in which virtually all of our citizens have hardened leanings either right or left, winning has involved turnout – i.e., which side is better able to squeeze more votes out of its supporters.

This year, if democracy is to be preserved – assuming that Mr. Trump does win the Republican nomination – the supporters of the Democrat opposing him – overwhelmingly likely to be President Joe Biden – will need to be good at both.  Democrats will need to persuade enough of the disaffected and disappointed – particularly among minorities and the young – that it does matter for their futures to go to the polls to vote against Mr. Trump.  At the same time, Democrats will need to convince enough older voters who would in normal times lean toward a traditional Republican candidate that what matters in 2024 is preserving democracy — that there will always be another election in 2028 if Mr. Biden is reelected, no matter what he does.

It must be faced:  Mr. Trump’s cultish supporters will not leave him, and will show up on Election Day.  Mr. Biden’s seemingly increasing physical infirmity and what certainly appears to be a mishandled situation at our southern border clearly hurt his prospects.  The animating issue of abortion, together with what increasingly appears will be a soft economic landing and Mr. Trump’s chilling fascist rhetoric, are obviously powerful political assets to help Democrats persuade the open-minded.  Foreign policy (our apparently waning willingness to continue to support Ukraine, and our clearly dwindling patience with Israel’s manifestly indiscriminate destruction of Gaza) and the outcomes of Mr. Trump’s criminal and civil court proceedings are political wildcards.

It’s going to be that close.       

So as we celebrate the dawn of another year that has been given us, and amid whatever other New Year’s resolutions you may be contemplating, let me offer this:  consider how you might, as Mr. Churchill suggested over 75 years ago, apply your strength and resilience in the coming year to the work we have to do to preserve our democratic way of life. Don’t let exhaustion win.

Thank you for the honor of allowing me to share these posts with you again in 2023.

May you, your family and friends have a Happy and Healthy New Year.