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Here it is… Our conversation with Kevin Ryan on the state of the culture and philosophy that this election takes place in.
With that, my final thoughts.
Did you ever hear the tragedy of Darth Plagueis The Wise? I thought not. It’s not a story the Jedi would tell you.
That’s a quote from a Star Wars prequel and it’s the final decider on who I believe will win the President, the Senate and the House.
We will get back to that.
First, let’s empty the file on my 2024 election thoughts in order.
First, the landscape…
Donald Trump is a flawed candidate damaged by January 6th and hard capped at 48%
It’s the reason his party tried to overthrow him during the primaries. However, his resilience and ease in overcoming those challenges is telling.
Donald Trump began to gain and beat Joe Biden in head to head polling after he was indicted and his New York trial had a positive effect on his polling
This was the first moment I believed Trump could have a redemptive arc. If the public did not understand the charges against him and saw the prosecutions as political, he would be a martyr beyond core MAGA.
The Dobbs decision has been rocket fuel for Democrats
In off-year elections and special elections the present threat to reproductive rights have gotten Democratic voters to the polls. My criticism that they might be punished for not taking the threat seriously enough has not panned out as of yet.
Joe Biden’s presidency has been broadly unpopular and specifically unpopular with anyone who makes under $100,000 a year
Biden was elected in the panic of COVID to be a steady hand at the wheel. He lost that with Afghanistan and never regained it. The border went from a purely GOP partisan issue to a mainstream winner for Republicans almost entirely because of executive orders Biden made at the beginning of his presidency.
Issue after issue, the same playbook unfolded… deny, deny, deny until you blame it on Trump.
But nothing was more personal than inflation. A class warfare issue like no other.
Personal story, my wife and I were driving to dinner with friends. The husband was at the wheel of their new Tesla. The issue of politics comes up. I mentioned Trump was doing well because of the economy. “But the economy is good?” Is the response. And it is a sentiment I’ve heard from many people in my orbit and online. The stock market is booming? We avoided a recession? Inflation is lower here than anywhere else the world? How is this a weakness?
And behind the wheel of a new Tesla, I agree.
Which is where we get to that $100,000 a year figure. Because anywhere below that, inflation gets infinitely worse. It’s persistent and embarrassing. A ritual humiliation and reminder you are not good enough. That kind of stuff sticks with people.
So that’s the landscape… how about the candidates
TRUMP
To say that Donald Trump has run his best campaign out of his three tries is an understatement.
I’ll be honest, I stopped trying to fully understand the logic of Trump sometime in 2016. His combativeness, the issues he centered and erratic behavior is impossible to grade. Why did he just send that tweet? Has he discovered a hidden undercurrent in American society? Or did the KFC bucket he had last night make him farty?
In his two previous attempts he often didn’t seem to understand which way was up either. He fired two different campaign directors in 2016. He fired one of them in 2020.
Both times, election day came with him trailing mightily in the polls. The refrain for his chances became religious. He will pull through… because…
But that’s not the case this cycle. Susie Wiles, a Florida GOP veteran who watched her party take a purple state and drench it blood red and Chris LaCivita a bare-knuckle student of the last era of a Republican dominance under George W. Bush have run the ship from initial announcement to election day.
Tactically, the boat has pointed in the right direction.
Trump decapitated well-funded rivals in his own party in Desantis and Haley. He ended the political career of the man who beat him in 2020.
Trump has stayed off Twitter and has largely been able to avoid his habit of turning a bad 24 hours into a bad 3 days because of his inability to concede a point. He has mitigated his worst issue, abortion, as well as anyone who appointed the justices that flipped Roe vs. Wade can and accentuated his strengths with the economy and the border.
Of course, he is still Trump. He’s an asshole that viserally annoys 40% of the country.
He is the loser pissbaby who couldn’t wrap his head around losing in 2020 and did a January 6th. And with that I will now leave space on the page so you can add the pet issue or event that you believe best encapsulates why Donald J. Trump should never be president again.
If you need more space, please open a new window and hit return until you have enough.
He also got shot in the face and survived. Not really sure how that factors into an election.
Which brings us to…
KAMALA
Well… Let’s start with…
BIDEN
Joe Biden is unpopular. This is in part because two of his failures played into both sides of the coin that helped him beat Trump.
His strength, foreign policy, where he sat on the powerful Senate committee for years was telegenically shattered with the Afghanistan pullout. It is impossible to say you did a good job when people are falling off the landing gear.
His weakness, the border, which he gleefully signed executive orders for on day one of his presidency created another telegenic disaster and supercharged an abusive of America’s asylum system. It’s impossible to say you did a good job when hundreds of Haitians, Chinese and Congolese have found themselves in Texas border towns.
Add inflation, add Gaza.
But it was his age that ended his career. The one thing he couldn’t ultimately shift the blame for.
The depression about his horrific debate created a panic for him to drop out, an unthinkable move as late in the campaign.
Which brings me to Darth Plagueis the Wise…
It was at the RNC when I sat in stadium seating talking with a man I would later be told knows everyone in Washington. We were watching something in a stadium in recessed seating which is what reminds me of the Darth Plagueis scene.
I am steadfast and pig headed that Biden won’t drop out. He’s too stubborn, I said stubbornly. Very calmly… he explains to me that Joe Biden will drop out this Sunday. He would have done it during the RNC but he didn’t want to give the most important speech of his career while he had COVID.
Within and hour Mark Halperin reported something similar.
Sunday morning, I wrote a newsletter about how Biden would never say die. Sunday afternoon, Biden announced he would not seek the presidency.
I looked like quite the asshole.
It was Joe-ver.
My assumption was that taking over a campaign mid-stream was like trying to fix an F1 car while driving it and trying to win a race. Impossible.
And yet…
KAMALA
The Democrats hot swapped Biden for Kamala and for a shining glimmer of a moment… it looked like something was brewing.
Brat Summer. Coconut Trees. Unburdned by what has been.
Sure there were some weird moments… why do so many big named Dems not want to be VP? But the vibes! THE JOY!
When Kamala selected Tim Walz over Josh Shapiro, the leftist base of the party rejoiced! She picked a man who is at his best explaining liberal solutions to normies! Not the polished Obama clone just because he is the very popular governor of a swing state. This was bold! This was new! This was interesting!
And then… she tacked right…
Wait. Why pick the guy that can explain single payer health care with a Cabelas metaphor if you are going to talk about how Israel has a right to a lethal defense force that can eradicate any enemy it identifies? Why not pick the Jew who is +20 in Pennsylvania?
At least she found a wedge issue to distance herself from Biden… wait… didn’t do that either.
Did she parlay the buzz of the summer into a series of interviews with friendly media to reintroduce herself? Nope. Didn’t do that either.
I took a lot of crap from folks when I said she lost the debate. Not because she didn’t rhetorically hold her own, but because she had the most to gain by telling America about herself and she mostly spent her time running down Trump.
Cathartic after Biden’s disaster? Sure. But not the mission.
And she hasn’t really done much since then.
To her credit, her campaign has not been a flaming disaster like her 2019 run was.
But… one thing seems to be the same as that failure… the more America sees of Kamala Harris, the less they like her.
Which brings us to…
THE RACE
Do any of my opinions about the Harris campaign matter?
Donald Trump is a one-man Get Out The Vote drive for the Democrats. The specter of him returning to power raised OVER A BILLION dollars since Kamala took over.
And so we get to the final decision and it is determined by what you believe…
Do you believe polls that say Donald Trump is more popular than he has ever been?
Do you believe polls that say Democrats are at Obama-level excitement for Kamala?
Do you believe (as our friend Ettingermentum has spelled out) that polls are herding to a stalemate because they are terrified to overestimate Democratic support again and are therefore overestimating Trump support?
Do you believe that an administration with a 30/60 right track/wrong track environment can win re-election?
That’s a lot to think about… much like the Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise…
Because in that RNC conversation with the Guy Who Knows Everyone… where he told me the exact day Biden would drop out and I didn’t believe him... He told me something else. He told me Kamala would be the candidate.
And he went further…
He told me that Democratic power brokers know she can’t win. But they know she’s a bad candidate and don’t want her around in 2028 when the party can really rebuild. So this a suicide mission. Raise a lot of money. Give her the old college try. Pat her on the head when it’s over and never have to be in the Kamala Harris business again.
So, do I believe him now?
I believe that Donald Trump is inarguably the defining figure for a decade of politics, love him or hate him.
I believe he has run a better campaign than both of his opponents.
I believe enough independent voters did not have a good time the last four years.
I believe Donald Trump, the 45th president will become the 47th president.
Donald Trump will be the 4,547th president.
I believe the map is too favorable to Republicans to not hand them the Senate.
But I don’t believe that a shoddy Get Out The Vote operation and reliance on low propensity voters in blue states is enough to win them the house.
Republican White House, Republican Senate. Democratic House.
Of our four scenarios…
PAX MAGA - Republican Sweep
Democratic Civil War - GOP White House and Senate, Democratic House
Unburdened By What Has Been - Democratic White House and House, GOP Senate
Roe Sends Her Regards - Democratic Sweep
I believe Democratic Civil War… is the most likely.
Who I Believe Will Win - Part II (with Kevin Ryan)