Trumpism can be more than Trump

The Courage to be Free: The Case for a Post-Trump Era in the House of Representatives (after DeSantis and Martin)

This book is called “The Courage to be Free” and it’s ironic. It’s important to restrict freedoms wherever possible. He wants to cancel librarians who allow kids to read certain Black or LGBTQ writers and to fire tenured professors in the state university system who teach “woke” ideas. He wants to limit the rights of women who wish to have abortions and those who wish to live their lives. He hopes to punish corporations, such as the Walt Disney Company, for criticizing his policies.

The conservatives applauded when he sent two planeloads of people from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, a vacation spot for celebrities and former Democratic presidents. The idea that Stephen Miller pursued while working in the White House was rejected.

JC Martin, the chairman of the Polk County Republican Party, said it would be a waste for DeSantis to go up against Trump because he “still has plenty of work to do in Florida and he’s a shoo-in for 2028.”

Youngkin presents what some strategists think is the most politically viable national model for Republicans in a post-Trump era. He does not share Trump’s fiery style, packaging himself as a fleece-vest-wearing suburbanite who can keep Trump’s coalition intact while picking up a significant share of the suburban voters that determine elections in his home state. While he was campaigning, Youngkin liked to say he could bring together “forever Trumpers and never Trumpers.”

He has accepted many of the issues that rally the base. He has called for a ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, prohibited the teaching of critical race theory, restricted transgender students’ rights and expressed anger over pandemic lockdowns. He admits that Biden won the 2020 election, but he has been campaigning for election deniers.

Youngkin has insisted that he is not yet thinking about a presidential run in 2024. His carefully crafted national profile and his meetings with megadonors in the New York City area hint at that.

Donald Trump and the GOP: Bringing the Party to a Resolved Disappointing Stable Presidency After the 2016 Midterms

Editor’s Note: Julian Zelizer, a CNN political analyst, is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. His forthcoming co-edited work,Myth America: Historians Take on the Biggest lies and legends about our past, is one of the author’s 24 books. Follow him on social media. His own views are stated in this commentary. View more opinion on CNN.

Trump, who in the immediate aftermath of the midterms conceded that his party had suffered a “somewhat disappointing” outcome, has already moved on, settings his sights on winning a second term in Washington and attacking two GOP governors who could challenge his status as the party’s anchor in the months to come, Ron DeSantis of Florida and Glenn Youngkin of Virginia.

The news that Trump would be running for president would have a huge impact on the political world. Trump is arguably one of the most controversial and destabilizing political leader in contemporary US history. His presidency was consequential because of the toxic rhetoric and support for conspiracy theories within the GOP, as well as the recent Supreme Court decisions.

Trump will need to convince Republicans that he’s worth at least part of the votes in order to get on the ballot in the next election. While that task is being performed, there is a contentious debate within the GOP over the outcome of the election and whether Trump helped or hurt the party. Others have blamed party leaders for failing to articulate clear policy priorities, pointed to the party’s money gap against Democrats in key races, or lamented the bickering that unfolded all cycle between two of the party’s biggest campaign committees led by Florida Sen. Rick Scott and allies of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Just two years ago, the party failed to pass a policy platform, instead issuing a statement of loyalty to Trump. When party elites inched away from Trump after his election loss and the insurrection that followed, they did not manage to bring the party with them. Instead, the majority of Republicans in the House voted to overturn the election and the vast majority of Republican voters clung to the belief that the 2020 election was stolen.

Even with flawed candidates like Herschel Walker and Dr. Mehmet Oz, the GOP is in a good position going into the election. Meanwhile, Democrats are scrambling to defend several seats and even candidates in reliably blue states such as New York are at risk.

There is every sign that the dominance of this Republican base still reigns supreme as a new GOP presidential campaign dawns. Trump is still the biggest name in the race, but his top potential rival is expected to be DeSantis, who bills himself as a hardline leader who can implement Trumpism better than its author but without the chaos that enveloped his presidency. In interviews with roughly two dozen members of the House’s “MAGA” wing, many told CNN’s Melanie Zanona and Manu Raju that they were not yet ready to commit to Trump – although there was excitement on the far right about DeSantis.

A GOP midterm victory would also embolden Trump himself. At this point, he has largely escaped accountability. Despite ongoing criminal investigations and the House select committee investigating January 6, Trump is still a viable political figure.

There’s also special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into Trump over the January 6, 2021, attack and the trove of classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago that might yield charges. While Trump can still legally run for president while under indictment — or even if convicted of a crime — as a practical matter it would likely be devastating to his election prospects.

The President might be struggling with a shaky economy and divisions within his own party if he were to avoid prosecution. And if election deniers enter positions of power after the midterms, and Trump escapes any punishment for January 6, it’s likely he will take advantage of the loyalists who have infiltrated state and local election offices to make sure that victory is his. Since he’s been to the rodeo before, Trump will perfect the technique and rhetoric that propelled him into office in the first place. And now that Elon Musk has purchased Twitter, Trump could be reinstated – giving him a way to direct and shape the media conversation once again. Trump was banned from the social network, but he has not said if he will come back.

The Tipping of the Peculiar Road Towards the Democratic Candidates: How a Republican Sen is Prepping for 2020 Elections

There are also signs that the power of the Republican grassroots is leading the GOP down a dark and futile road. The party that defeated Soviet Communism has now become more focused on subverting US democracy. Conservative networks amplify Trumps lies about election fraud to scare off moderate and suburban voters who have contributed to GOP’s defeats in key swing states. Following Trump’s defeat in 2020, there’s a major question whether the no-compromise populism that the base demands can win national elections.

Due, in part, to the midterm results, Trump was no longer seen as the most electable Republican for 2024. 34% of the Republicans said that he gave them the best opportunity to take back the presidency, according to a poll. That was down from 50% in late 2021, which was then.

After the initial two state campaign swing by the former president last weekend, a flurry of activity followed, which saw the governor of Florida being accused of disloyalty by Trump. This led to a veiled counter-punch from a rising star of Republican politics who pointed out that he had won reelection.

He is also expected to continue political travel outside the state to raise money and grow his brand. After avoiding public events outside Florida for most of his first term, DeSantis in August took the calculated gamble to hold rallies in support of Republican candidates in some of the country’s most contested races for governor and US Senate. He continued to travel up until 10 days before the election.

“We have two very stubborn, very type-A politicians in Florida that are at the tip of the spear for the GOP,” said one Republican official who asked not to be named. “They both command attention but they both have their own political operations and that’s what you’re seeing. It is already exhausting to talk about.

O’Dea vowed in October to “actively campaign against Trump”, and now he has received the endorsement of DeSantis.

Of course, Trump has not been in a hotly contested primary since 2016, when he unleashed broadsides against more than a dozen-plus opponents with fury and vitriol that shocked some Republican observers but delighted a segment of the Republican primary electorate that would later evolve into his loyal base. Few Trump allies expect him to behave any differently in the months to come. Even if he remains the only declared candidate until others enter the fray next year, he will continue his preemptive blitz against perceived challengers.

During a time when Trump has been relatively absent from the national scene the bubble has inflated. The ability of Trump to create noise and spectacle and to stay in front of the lens of the media has not yet been encountered by DeSantis. He has never been on the other side of a sustained Trump attack. Sure, DeSantis may find a way to win in a head-to-head fight with Trump – but it is just as easy to imagine him instantly wilting in Trump’s presence, as all the other Republican presidential candidates did in the 2016 primaries.

DeSantis described himself as a fighter who stood up against medical experts and criticism during the pandemic to reopen the state and ban coronavirus vaccine mandates, echoing a sentiment in a campaign ad in which DeSantis suggests he was created by God to fight for Florida.

DeSantis looks, for all the world, like he is gearing up to use the momentum garnered from his expected win on Tuesday to launch a White House bid. He released a video last week that could easily have doubled as a presidential announcement and Politico noted that DeSantis raised $200 million for his reelection bid and had more than $90 million in the bank.

CNN reported that Trump wanted to launch a third campaign for the White House in order to motivate his pre- election travel. During a Thursday visit to Iowa, Trump told voters to get ready for his return as a presidential candidate. Trump stopped in Pennsylvania on Saturday – home to the tight Senate race between his endorsee, Republican Mehmet Oz, and Democrat John Fetterman – and he’ll spend election eve in Ohio, where the former president endorsed Republican J.D. Vance in the Senate race against Democrat Tim Ryan.

The decision to hold the rally in Miami-Dade County comes as Republicans are optimistic they will carry the one-time Democratic stronghold for the first time in two decades. The GOP has made gains in the area’s Hispanic neighborhoods thanks to investments and the wave of enthusiasm is helping the party gain ground. For the first time in modern Florida political history, the Republicans will have an edge in voter registration on Election Day.

Marco Rubio knows success in Florida doesn’t mean success in theory will bring a national victory. It’s because of the particulars of Florida. The electorate there has been trending more conservative in recent years, even as the country as a whole has coalesced around center-left policies (note how even many red states now vote for Medicaid expansion, abortion protections and higher minimum wage laws).

It turns into something much worse than gold when Biden touches it. “It’s frustrating and a lot of people, the vast majority of Americans, they think that the country has seen its best days. They think that we’re clearly on the wrong track. I think Florida gives the blueprints for other states to follow.

It would seem, then, that Trump would rehash the playbook he used against Cruz in his potential fight against DeSantis. The idea is to undermine the notion of DeSantis as a principled conservative by portraying him instead as someone who talks down to average people and thinks he’s better than them.

Well, the “DeSanctimonious” nickname actually hearkens back to how Trump sought to bring down Ted Cruz, his main rival for the 2016 Republican nomination.

In February 2016 Trump predicted that Cruz would go down. Ted holds up the bible, and I don’t think a guy can be like that. and then he lies about so many things.”

Trump, in this formulation, is the real man of the people, who would never dare think he is better than anyone. (That Trump has a super-sized ego and routinely casts himself as special seems to go unnoticed in this equation.)

What Will the Midterm Election Tell Us About the Democratic Party? A Comment on CNN’s Robustness of the 2016 Midterm Congressional Primary

Editor’s Note: Frida Ghitis, (@fridaghitis) a former CNN producer and correspondent, is a world affairs columnist. She writes for The Washington Post, CNN, and World Politics Review. She has her own views in this commentary. View more opinion on CNN.

Who will control Congress has not been answered as of right now, because results of the midterm election haven’t been fully counted. On this day, we’ll be able to draw some conclusions.

The bright red “tsunami” dissipated in the election of 2022. Yet DeSantis scored an unprecedented victory for a Republican in Florida, beating his Democratic opponent by more than 19 percentage points and 1.5 million votes.

That’s because the movement spearheaded by Trump and his election deniers performed much worse than expected. Some of the Republican victories looked like rebukes of Trump’s anti-democratic group.

According to the exit polls, over a quarter of voters said they voted to oppose Donald Trump. 42% of the people said they had a positive view of the former president before the election. That should alarm the party…”

When Republicans win the election, Trump told an interviewer, “I should get all the credit.” If they fail, I should not be blamed. But the evidence strongly suggests he deserves much of the blame.

“Consider the benchmarks for success in a typical midterm election: the opposition party gains an average of 46 seats in the House when the president is below 50% approval rating, as Biden is. While the final number is still being determined, GOP House gains will be far less than that,” Avlon noted.

They may be able to do it. Rep. Kevin McCarthy may replace Nancy Pelosi as House speaker, but even if Republicans take the House, the Democrats’ performance is little short of amazing. The best performance by the party since 2002 was presided over by Biden.

He said that he chose to run for president in order to save US democracy. Given Tuesday’s results – even if his party loses control of Congress – he can take comfort in having made significant progress in achieving that goal. These elections were a victory for democracy.

In Pennsylvania, Attorney General Josh Shapiro trounced Doug Mastriano, who played an active role in trying to overturn the 2020 election and ran a campaign rife with antisemitic innuendo against his Jewish opponent. In many contests, Trump’s election-denying allies lost.

And in Tuesday’s Senate runoff election in Georgia, Trump’s handpicked candidate, former football star Herschel Walker, lost to Sen. Raphael Warnock, giving Democrats a 51-seat majority in the Senate. That was also the day Trump posed for photos with a prominent QAnon conspiracy theorist at Mar-a-Lago.

Four years ago, Ron DeSantis narrowly won the Governor’s race. The message that was sent by his 20-point win over Charlie Crist was that he can win over the independent voters who decide elections.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp won reelection despite being in a close race withAbrams. Trump despises Kemp because, like other Georgia officials, he refused to overturn the 2020 vote, despite enormous pressure from the then-president.

Trump has proven enormously resilient in the past at handling periods of adversity and his ability to command attention, by making outlandish remarks such as threatening to terminate the Constitution, perpetually draws attention in the media. His supporters remain fervent, but it is unclear how many Republicans will break with him in a serious fashion. Every Republican alternative who looks good on paper might look more like former Texas Gov. Rick Perry in 2012 and 2016, or former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush in 2016. Both GOP presidential candidates went from seemingly inevitable superstars to minor sideshows in primaries.

Donald Trump versus DeSantis in Florida and the Unquestionable Clump of Personality around Trump’s Presidential Candidate

Americans will soon have to endure another campaign season by the most disruptive candidate in history because of his disdain for democracy. It is good to know that the country took a step toward sanity this week, and that democracy did well.

A majority of Republicans are looking for someone else and the very people that think they don’t have a shot at Trump seem to have him in their sights.

As far as he can tell, the next few weeks will be the most important time for him as a presidential candidate. The spotlight can quickly turn into the hot seat, and is both untested as a national candidate and as a Trump adversary. The particulars of DeSantis’ victory and the power of Trump are likely going to hurt those who believe in an easy pivot from Trump to his age.

During his speech before the business-friendly conservative audience, the Florida governor defended his aggressive stance against corporations and Wall Street. He said that CEOs are weak for giving in to the “woke mob” that pushes environmental, social, and corporate governance policies.

Republicans are divided at home but seem to prefer the other side. While 33% of Florida voters want to see Trump run again in 2024, 45% said DeSantis should take the plunge, according to the preliminary results of the Florida exit poll conducted for CNN and other news networks by Edison Research.

In Florida, the Democratic Party is in tatters because they are unable to field and support candidates and organize and mobilize voters. And Florida has a specific mix of Latino voters that is unlike most other states, weighted heavily toward immigrants from Cuba and Venezuela who respond favorably to DeSantis’s attack on Democrats as socialists.

Then there is the issue of fellow Florida resident Donald Trump. The Dump Trump crowd, though bigger at the moment than at perhaps any time since 2016, does not seem to fully understand how deep and unquestioning the cult of personality around Trump still is within parts of the party.

Pat Toomey’s Truth Social Reality: Why Tuesday’s election wasn’t the end of Trump’s term for the Republican Party

Republican Pat Toomey is retiring from his Pennsylvania Senate seat at the end of the term. But before he goes, he is speaking some hard truths to his party.

Toomey wasn’t done. There is a high correlation between candidates from the right and big losses in all areas of the country.

Trump, for his part, is entirely unwilling to consider that he was – and is – anything but an unalloyed good for his party, declaring a “Big Victory” on his Truth Social website Friday.

There is, without question, a portion of the Republican Party that believes that – and will follow Trump wherever he leads them (even if it’s to electoral destruction).

He has one foot in the door, so he can’t be applauded for his bravery in speaking out against Trump. But his voice is part of a growing chorus of Republicans suggesting that Tuesday’s election was the final straw for Trump. Will base voters listen?

Commentary on Ron DeSantis: The Best Opinion Takes of the Week (with an Emphasis on the Democratic Presidential Candidate)

Georgia Lieutenant Gov. Duncan said there’s no way to deny that Donald Trump was fired. “The search committee has brought a few names to the top of the list and Ron DeSantis is one of them. I think Ron DeSantis is being rewarded for a new thought process with Republicans and that solid leadership.”

“Build anticipation,” one longtime Republican fundraiser with knowledge of DeSantis’ operation said. I think he controls the time frame. As much as everyone anticipates things and you want to move quickly, he calls the shots now.”

A GOP consultant said the legislative session would be “as red meat” as possible. “Whatever he proposes, they will pass it, and it will become law.”

The Republican fundraiser said that “anything ‘woke’ they can find to kill within their path, they’re going to do that” and predicted that financial institutions, in particular, would be a DeSantis target this spring.

New Hampshire Republican Gov. Chris Sununu told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union” on Sunday that right now DeSantis would probably win the Granite State’s GOP primary. Sununu, who told Bash he’s considering his own White House bid in 2024, also took a swipe at Trump’s demeanor and the size of his event, which was an address to party activists rather than one of his seething rallies in a state where he won the 2016 GOP primary.

“When people bring up DeSantis today, I bring up Scott Walker,” Bob Vander Plaats, an influential conservative leader in the early nominating state of Iowa, told CNN earlier this year, drawing comparisons to the former Wisconsin governor who was an early favorite in 2016 before his campaign stalled.

“If in fact you go into a presidential primary with Donald Trump and think you’re going to kick his ass, you got another thing coming,” one Republican consultant in Florida told CNN.

The weekly column can be sign up for as a newsletter. We are looking at the best opinion takes of the week from CNN and other outlets.

“Silver Blaze” Revisited: The Case for an Existential Issue: The Voting of a Generation of Gen Z Students

There are two related incidents in the story, called “Silver Blaze.” The disappearance of a famous horse and the tragic murder of its trainer. A police inspector asks the detective, “Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?”

It was only a little more than a week ago that Republicans thought they’d be savoring a crushing victory – and some Democrats were starting to blame each other for what they feared would be a disaster.

Republican senate candidates in Georgia and Pennsylvania are leading for a clean sweep according to The New Yorker’s Benjamin Wallace-Wells. Wallace-Wells wrote, “The word that kept coming up in these conversations was ‘bloodbath.’”

The University of Missouri-Kansas City student wrote that some people wonder what it will take to get young people to vote. They don’t have to guess until after the mid-terms in 2022.

“Place in front of us an existential issue that could determine our future. We will turn out in droves, if we know that we can have a say in the issues that affect us with our votes. Hernandez and her fellow Gen Z friends saw abortion as that kind of existential issue.

The University of Michigan had a line of students waiting for more than four hours to register to vote on Election Day. There was a palpable sense of excitement and urgency around the election on campus. For many young people, especially young women, there was one motivating issue that drove their participation: abortion rights.”

Nationally, exit polls showed that voters between the ages of 18 and 29 supported Democrats over Republicans by a 63% to 35% margin; no other age group was nearly as pro-Democratic, with voters over 45 strongly favoring Republicans.

Before the election, some pundits argued that the anger of many voters at the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade had faded after five months, and that inflation would blot out most other concerns. They also argued that President Joe Biden was out of touch for focusing a major pre-election speech on the threat election deniers running for office posed to democracy. But both of those issues resonated.

According to the law professor, the abortion-rights side got a five-for-five in recognizing a state right to abortion. Kentucky turned down an attempt to say that the state constitution did not protect a right to abortion. Voters in Montana rejected the abortion measure which wanted to impose criminal penalties on health care providers.

The mid-terms were called a repudiation of the election lies of Donald Trump and many of the top-ticket candidates who parroted them.

Roxanne Jones said she was a relief. It seems like a majority of voters want to change the direction of American politics away from the toxic rhetoric and conspiracy theories that have been used in the past.

Voters are more concerned about the wrong wing of society than they are about progressivism on the left.

Delegitimizing our elections system, endorsing the January 6 assault on Capitol, cracking jokes, and spreading lies about the assault on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband are just some of the forms of extremism that it takes. And all of this extremism, which so many swing voters spurned on Tuesday, is embodied by one person: Donald Trump.”

“Had Abrams succeeded, she would have been the first Black woman to become the governor of a US state. America is still waiting for that breakthrough after her second straight electoral loss.

The defeat of Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp by his opponent, the woman they fought for four years ago, was the most upsetting for Sophia A. Nelson.

In Texas, Democrat Beto O’Rourke lost to incumbent Republican Greg Abbott for governor. In the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Nicole Russell wrote that after “his third huge loss, it’s time for him to stop running for offices in Texas. We’ve had enough Beto for one lifetime. … His liberal policies are not welcome in Texas.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/13/opinions/five-lessons-midterms-opinion-columns-galant/index.html

Five Lessons on the Sexiest Man Alive: Why We Are Not the Most Sexy Person Alive (Not Just The Most Famous)

His reputation is in tatters because of his country’s economy being so scarred that it will take years to recover. Putin-the-man may still cling to power for years, but Putin-the-legend is dead.”

Chris Evans was given an accolade that was first bestowed on Mel Gibson in 1985 and is a candidate who has not aged well.

The year’s Sexiest Man Alive was recently announced by People magazine and it makes it a good time to ask: can we get rid of this tradition?

“Think about the inherent ridiculousness of declaring anyone the sexiest person alive. Sexiness is something that is subjective. The joke was that people would offer up their own tastes as if they were everybody’s. And by making their subject male, they’re tacitly saying: See, we’re not objectifying women, we’re so evolved. Men can be objects of lust too! Maybe that was (arguably) a subversive statement in the 1980s, when Playboy, Penthouse and other magazines imposed a misogynist ideal of sexiness at the newsstands. But now? Not a lot.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/13/opinions/five-lessons-midterms-opinion-columns-galant/index.html

Five Lessons in a Queen: The Princess and the Prince: Do You Need Twitter? Does Elon Musk Need Twitter to Fix It?

The new season of “The Crown” tells the story of the monarchy through the tumult of the 1990s, including Diana’s divorce and the fire that destroyed Windsor Castle.

But as Thomas noted, “The Crown” hasn’t “masqueraded as a documentary or claimed to perfectly replicate private moments between royal family members. It did what historical TV shows, films, plays and literary fiction always have: Use factual events as loose outlines, fill them in using artistic license and trust the audience’s intelligence to tell the difference. Its creator and writer, Peter Morgan, is a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for ‘services to drama,’ not history…”

Elon Musk is going to have to try to fix Twitter without the help of journalist Roxanne Jones. She’s had enough. “I deleted Twitter on the day Elon Musk became the platform’s new owner,” Jones wrote. It was time to say farewell and good riddance to one of my most complicated and frustrating relationships that I can think of.

“Data points about rising racism on Twitter can be illuminating, but they generally reinforce what we already know to be true. Like many Black women on the site, I can testify about what it feels like to be harassed and threatened with violence. I’ve experienced it all. I’m done. I will walk in the real world with my power and voice.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/13/opinions/five-lessons-midterms-opinion-columns-galant/index.html

Five Lessons Midterms: How Much Money Would You Lose if You Don’t Have a Problem? A View from Bill Carter and his wife

Bill Carter and his wife don’t normally buy lottery tickets, “having long concluded that it felt like burning a $10 bill (sometimes a $20 bill) on a barbecue grill.”

“What’s interesting is how many people, like us, ignore lotteries until they soar to staggering amounts. Even a $100 million prize now barely raises eyebrows. As though that isn’t worth caring about? $100 million wouldn’t change the lives of most people forever.

“Really: What would we do with all that money? After helping the kids, donating to charities, buying several homes, etc., what else? Is it wise to build a money bin and then swim around in it? Money can make you wealthier, but it doesn’t make you liquid.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/13/opinions/five-lessons-midterms-opinion-columns-galant/index.html

The Story of the Man of Steel: A Superman Who Beats Donald Cox in the November 2016 Republican Electoral Elections, and Why the Democratic Party voted No

The origin story of the Man of Steel is well known. At the age of 18, Joseph Shuster and classmates collaborated to come up with the idea of Superman. Siegel’s unpublished memoir details how he was the first superhero, a concept so unique it was rejected by every newspaper syndicate in the US for being too fantastic for children.

But as Schwartz wrote, Shuster had a relationship with Helen Louise Cohen, a fellow resident of Cleveland, who might have borne a resemblance to Superman’s eventual wife Lois Lane. Shuster sent her sketches of Superman along with at least one drawing of Cohen, and heartfelt letters in neat script.

Ultimately, she broke it off, choosing instead to marry “a dashing officer, later awarded the Legion of Merit and eventually becoming a colonel in the Army’s 88th Infantry Division.” Shuster was too nearsighted to enlist in the military during World War II.

Cohen would later tell her sons, as Schwartz noted, that “Shuster was simply too mild-mannered for her.” The family is sharing his sketches and letters with the world because he kept his letters and sketches.

Is Donald Trump a loser in the elections? Plenty of people declared that he did, from liberal pundits to the Murdoch newspapers — the latter delivering a double whammy from the front page of The New York Post (“TRUMPTY DUMPTY”) and the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal (“Trump Is the Republican Party’s Biggest Loser”).

It’s tempting to see the strength of the MAGA forces ebbing at last, the calendar leaf turning over on the Trump era. But how do you declare defeat for a movement that is built around refusing to accept defeat? It is impossible to separate his temperament and strategy from those of the Republican Party because they are both feeding off each other.

Dan Cox lost the Maryland governor’s race by more than 25 points. Mr. Cox said he had called Wes Moore to recognize him as the winner. The Trumpist version of concession was that the other side had won the game according to what someone else said. There was a huge shift of swing voters and a huge turnout of Republicans, according to internal data, but neither of which is reported to have occurred.

Donald Trump’s Anger on the Republican Party: A Turn in the Face of the Pseudo-Real Senate Race and What We Can Do about It

Marriage is not easy. Couples will sometimes argue and wear each other out, even if they are happy. So consider just how bumpy things could get if someone’s thin-skinned, emotionally erratic, accountability-averse husband started criticizing her for his high-profile screw-ups.

Donald Trump flipped out over his key role in the Republicans face plant during the Pennsylvania Senate race at Mar-a-Lago. Mr. Trump backed his old buddy Mehmet Oz, and the celebrity doctor turned out to be a loser. The former president shifted the blame for his pick onto other people, including the first lady, according to The Times. (Mr. Trump, of course, hopped on Truth Social to denounce the “Fake Story” and insist he “was not at all ANGRY.”)

By now Mrs. Trump must be somewhat accustomed to her hubby’s tantrums. This round of finger-pointing must be particularly angering, considering that Mr. Trump had an effect on the Republicans in the Senate race. The Democrats in Pennsylvania had one of their best Election days in years as he helped knees the party up and down the ballot.

GOP leaders are trying to figure out what message the voters sent them, and how they can adjust to what the country wants from them.

There are still several uncalled House races that will determine control. And while it won’t decide the Senate majority, the still-important runoff election between Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker in Georgia won’t take place until December 6.

The Point: Donald Trump Is Not About Trump – A New York Businessman Who Does Not Want to Disturb the Repubcracy of 2024

Trump is eager to launch his 2024 campaign for a variety of reasons, including, but not limited to, his desire to close off momentum for other contenders (most notably Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis) and, perhaps, to try to insulate himself from his own mounting legal problems. He is facing significant criticism for his role in the election and he wants to change the story from the Republicans’ point of view.

There are signs that some of the ex-presidents potential rivals for the Republican nomination will make clear moves to the race in the near future.

The Point: Trump is about Trump. He is the leader of the Republican Party, yes, but he simply does not prioritize the good of the party over his own good.

Should Donald Trump announce his third presidential bid on Tuesday, as is widely expected, he will begin the next phase of his political career under siege.

Seven years ago, the New York businessman entered the political fray on defense, working vigorously to cast himself as a serious contender for the Republican presidential nomination to the incredulity of veteran political operatives and his primary opponents. Trump takes the plunge as the party’s presumptive nominee but still finds himself in a defensive crouch.

On Saturday, CNN projected that Democrats will retain control of the Senate in the 118th Congress, an outcome that has fractured Republicans and left the party on tenterhooks as Trump readies his “big announcement.”

Trump endorsed Youngkin and held a big rally for him, or he wouldn’t have won the election.

Hutchinson argued that “this is not 2016” and 2024 will be “different” because Trump is a “known quantity.” He claimed that evangelical Christian voters feel that we need to have a different type of leadership.

One of his aides said Sears did not tell the Washington Post if Youngkin knew about the split from Trump before the interview.

He doesn’t feel that there’s no point in waiting, even though there’s a lot of criticism and people saying to focus on Georgia. If Herschel loses, he will be blamed for disrupting the race but if he wins, he doesn’t believe he will get any credit for energizing the base.

“Nobody should be surprised. Michael Caputo is a former Trump administration official who still likes the former president. The question is whether this format can work for him again.

There will be some challenges to raising money for Trump, but he has proved that he does not need deep-pocketed funders, said a person close to Trump.

Some Trump allies said the donor challenges, midterm outcome and questions about his stature has left a dearth of seasoned campaign operatives willing to join his next campaign. Though the president has told allies he wants to keep his operation lean, much like his 2016 presidential campaign, some have privately questioned whether it’s out of preference or due to recruitment troubles. CNN has previously reported that Trump’s likely campaign is expected to be helmed by three current advisers, with support from a group of additional advisers with whom the former president is familiar. It’s believed that his apparatus will dwarf that of his reelection campaign two years ago.

Either way, as Trump works to find his footing on the verge of a presidential campaign that could coast to the party’s nominating convention or encounter any number of unforeseen troubles, allies who have stuck by his side said they are ready for battle one last time.

Despite being the only declared Republican candidate, Donald Trump has already been shadow boxing for a year before the election. The Republican race’s first stirrings are crucial because they will help shape what is already certain to be a turbulent campaign that could be another election that tests US democracy, given the GOP’s dominance of election denialism in the grassroots.

The price of supporting Donald Trump to the Republican Party keeps getting higher. The former president went through one of the most tumultuous weeks in history and new evidence now shows why the party might be damaged by him in the future.

What Trump has learned about Democrat politics in the past, and what he wants to learn about his presidency and how to live with it: When Donald Trump and his family discovered tax fraud

A Manhattan jury found the two companies in the Trump Organization guilty of tax fraud on Tuesday, though Trump and his family weren’t charged in the case.

A group of investigators hired by the former president’s lawyers found two documents with classified markings in a Florida storage unit, according to the Washington Post.

This week was not a one-off. He made more antisemitic comments after he went for a meal with Kayne West. Also at the table that evening was Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes, who is a notorious promoter of racism of all kinds.

Commenting on everything that has happened, Republican strategist Scott Reed called this week, and the two that came before, “devastating for Trump’s future viability.” The writing on the wall, Reed told the New York Times, seems clear. “Abandonment,” he said, “has begun.”

Why might all of this matter now? Trump’s main currency is turmoil. As businessman, reality television celebrity and president, he has always counted on generating controversy as his central strategy for garnering media attention. He has used the investigations and attacks that come his way as a basis to position himself as a perpetually anti-establishment figure who can sympathize with the “common” person.

Trump doesn’t want to be loved but rather he wants to weaponize the anger that he creates. Trump won both the presidential nomination and the election despite his name-calling. The same dynamic held true throughout his one-term presidency.

Many people are wondering if Trump went too far, but it has never proven to be a concern to the Republican powerbrokers. This is not the issue that motivates them.

Nothing that has happened recently is new to Trump, unless someone has been paying attention. He has been involved in scandal from the moment he set foot in politics. He was able to defy the limits of power as president. He’s made remarks that invoke antisemitic tropes before.

Over the past six years, Republican officials, and the rank and file, have learned how to live with Trump because they believe that he can win, and that his loyal base can help them be victorious. Whether it was out of fear or hope, Republicans showed that they would tolerate almost anything – even trying to overturn an election – to protect him.

Nonetheless, the frustration is mounting. It is the recent elections that put Trump in genuine danger with the party because of legal peril. More than the documents and more than his companies’ tax fraud, Republicans are paying attention to the ways in which Trump and the candidates he supported cost the party majority power. McConnell might be forgiving of many things, but having to serve as the minority leader is not one of them.

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu makes one thing clear: His vision for the future of the Republican Party does not include former President Donald Trump.

Taking it a step further, Sununu – who just won a fourth two-year term in the Granite State by 15 percentage points – said it’s “un-American” to “be a country where the best opportunity for our future leadership is the leadership of yesterday.”

The survey – conducted last week, after the president’s State of the Union address – of more than 1,300 adults and about 1,200 registered voters comes as the 2024 Republican presidential primary is heating up. There are pictures emerging of potential Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis voters, as a majority of potential Republican voters continue to say they would be better off with someone other than the president.

The congresswoman was tired of spending her days in New York, and was fed up with being stuck in Washington. She had helped to persuade many women to run for Congress because the Republican primary voters refused to vote for them. She was annoyed that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the democratic socialist who had displaced her that fall as the youngest woman ever elected to the House, had not shown her the respect she felt was her due.

She undertook one of the most brazen political changes of the Trump era. Ms. Gaga became a fervent Trump apologist, embraced the conspiracy theories that were used to bolster his base, and introduced herself to the public with breathtaking speed and alacrity. Democrats aresailed as the party of socialists, illegals, criminals, and media stenographers in America’s future of hopeful and aspirational politics. In the process, she has rocketed from the backbench to the party’s No. 3 House leadership job, presiding over the conference’s overall messaging.

Few have settled on an answer yet, not surprisingly given that the first votes of the 2024 campaign are over a year away. But the talk of 2024 — of Mr. Trump, who spent years courting evangelicals, and of Mr. DeSantis, who has leaned into the cultural battles that appeal to many conservative Christians — showed both the heightened expectations among Hispanic evangelical leaders in Florida and their desire to demonstrate the potency of their now unabashedly politicized Christianity.

“It is about morals, and there is one party right now that reflects our morals,” said Dionny Báez, a Miami pastor who leads a network of churches. We must remind people that the Republicans are willing to fight for what’s right. I have to make sure that we know what we think. We don’t have the ability to make that taboo.

A law he signed banning abortions after 15 weeks was at the large evangelical church Nacin de Fe. He called it Victims of Communism Day to appeal to Cubans in the state as well as immigrants from Venezuela and Nicaragua, who have helped swell evangelical churches in Florida. The campaign aides spoke with Hispanic pastors to obtain their support for the presidential campaign.

Dean Obeidallah: The Flavor Problem in the era of Covid-19: Ron DeSantis fought for his country’s independence

Editor’s Note: Dean Obeidallah, a former attorney, is the host of SiriusXM radio’s daily program “The Dean Obeidallah Show.” Follow him @[email protected]. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion on CNN.

It’s hard to know for sure who the “fool” is that Lake was referring to, but my guess would be Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who seems to be biding his time ahead of a possible White House run. The most significant threat to Trump at the moment, at least for the moment, seems to be Florida Secretary of State Ron DeSantis.

Lang publicly insulted the champ for not fighting him and yelled out to the crowd, “If he ain’t no coward, why wouldn’t he fight me then?” at the press conference.

For instance, the ex-president honed in on one of the strongest areas of the DeSantis record for many conservative voters – his frequent fight against federal Covid-19 restrictions and recommendations. Trump claimed that the DeSantis team was trying to rewrite history about his record. Trump told reporters there were Republican governors who did not close their states. “Florida was closed for a long period of time.”

In March 2020, in response to the rapidly spreading pandemic, the Florida governor issued an executive order closing bars and nightclubs, and urged people to follow US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines limiting gatherings on beaches to no more than 10 people.

But his recent remarks and pronouncements have veered sharply away from sensible, government-imposed Covid-19 protections in what appears to be a desperate bid to appeal to the GOP’s Covid-denying base voters ahead of an anticipated presidential run.

DeSantis’ decisions on Covid-19 are prime examples of how this recipe worked. He was decisive, even when public opinion started out against him. He was criticized in news reports and by editorial boards, public health experts including Dr. Anthony Fauci – then the nation’s highest ranking government official on infectious disease – and by Biden. The criticisms did not hurt him politically, they only increased his street cred with many Americans who wanted a champion to stand up against lockdowns.

Will Rubio Stop Fighting Against Trump? The Case for DeSantis: The Catastrophic Case of “Rocky III”

But any potential run inevitably means a face-off with Trump, who is, as yet, the only Republican to have formally announced in the race. The 40th anniversary of the release of “Rocky III” last year may have opened the door for the GOP nomination to again feature Clubber Lang.

But barring prosecution of the former President, if DeSantis wants to win in 2024, he can’t keep ducking Trump’s barbs. DeSantis should remember that even though in “Rocky III” the iconic fighter lost his title early in the film to the menacing and cruel Clubber Lang, the “Italian Stallion” prevailed in the end.

It would be too much to say that his rivals sense weakness given the former president’s deeply loyal bond with activist Republicans who decide primaries. Trump has so-so raising to date, his low- energy launch last year and his infrequent campaign appearances show how disastrous his campaign has been.

At first, Rubio didn’t attack Trump directly. When it came to the delegate count, Marco was in third place behind Trump and Cruz, and had little time to make a move ahead of the March 2016 Florida primary.

That’s when Rubio finally took the gloves off, calling Trump “an embarrassment” and a demagogue. It wasn’t enough for him, since he lost the Florida GOP primary the next day.

While sitting in the cockpit of his fighter jet as the Top Gov, he said, “No. 1 – don’t fire unless fired upon but when they fire, you fire back with overwhelming force.” He continued, “never, never ever back down from a fight.”

Perhaps DeSantis — a Harvard Law School graduate and former federal prosecutor — is waiting to see if Trump is criminally indicted, in the hopes he doesn’t have to meet him on the field of battle. The Fulton County, Georgia,District Attorney told a judge that she was about to make a decision in her investigation of Trump and his allies interfering in the 2020 election.

You need to put up a fight to prevail. There could come a time when GOP voters view DeSantis’ refusal to defend himself and punch back as a sign of weakness.

The longer he is silent in the face of Trump’s barrage of punches, the more likely people will ask themselves, as Rocky’s nemesis did: If he ain’t no coward, why won’t he fight?

The End of His Experiment: Trump’s Comeback to South Carolina after he’s Done with an Insurrection

There was also something jarring about a former president who tried to steal the last election – and incited an insurrection to try to cling to power – campaigning and being embraced by supporters as if nothing happened.

There is also a clear sense that Trump believes he is owed the Republican nomination and feels that certain sections of his party are not sufficiently grateful for his turbulent one-term presidency.

“So then when I hear he might run, I consider that very disloyal. It is always about loyalty for a lot of people, that is what Trump said, as he spoke with reporters aboard his jet this weekend.

He came to New Hampshire and gave a boring speech. He went away after the response was that he stuck to the talking points, Sununu told Bash. I think that many people saw that in ”16, he wasn’t really bringing that fire. It was a little disappointing to some people. … So I think a lot of folks understand that he’s going to be a candidate, but he’s also going to have to earn it. That is New Hampshire.

Trump isn’t yet ready to acknowledge that reality despite his comments about evangelical leaders. He decided to visit an ice cream parlor in South Carolina at the end of the day, in order to make contact with voters and retail politics.

Trump appeared Saturday to understand that his two years of fury over the 2020 election, which he still falsely says was stolen from him, may have turned off voters in 2022, when many of the election-denying candidates he promoted in swing states lost – potentially costing the GOP the Senate.

The future will be the focus of this campaign. This campaign will be about issues. In South Carolina on Saturday, Trump said he would make sure that Joe Biden did not get four more years.

All of his rhetoric is still the same. He called into a rally for his favorite election-denying candidate, failed Arizona governor candidate, Kari Lake who’s still lying about her election win. And earlier on Saturday, in New Hampshire, the former president – who is facing criminal investigations by the Justice Department and a district attorney in Georgia over his attempt to overturn the 2020 election – could not resist taking aim at institutions that are revealing the true course of events in 2020.

“We’re going to stop the appalling weaponization of our justice system. There’s never been a justice system like this. It’s all investigation, investigation,” Trump said. He characterized his resistance to such probes as proof of the quality that the many Republicans in his party embraced at the time and helped propel him to the White House.

He said there has been only one president who has ever challenged the establishment in Washington and that he will do it again next year.

The Time for a New Generation. Getting Away From Washington, Missing a Preliminary Election? An Interview with Nikki Haley

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley is expected to launch a campaign on February 15 in Charleston, a source familiar with her plans told CNN Tuesday. Mr. Mike Pompeo is making the type of political throat clearing noises used by would-be candidates while promoting his new book. And South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott is setting off on a listening tour focusing on faith. The first two stops just happen to include Iowa and his own state – early voting pillars that will frame the GOP primary contest early next year.

Increasingly clear indications of several forming campaigns are notable because they appear to show that Trump, who has been the most influential force in the GOP ever since 2016, is not so prohibitively formidable that he cannot be challenged by serious rivals.

The winner-take-All nature of most Republican primaries allow for a candidate with a few votes to build up a lot of delegate leads in a crowded field.

In other words, if Trump can split the opposition, he can win the primary, but that’s no guarantee for the general election given that the twice-impeached former president left Washington in disgrace after trying to steal an election and fomenting a mob attack on the US Capitol.

She exited the Trump administration on her own terms, unlike many of his Cabinet members. Her photo-op departure meeting with Trump in the Oval Office even then looked like potential footage for a future Republican primary campaign. Haley is not being subtle about her pitch – one that could allow her to gently argue that it’s time to move on from the ex-president and President Joe Biden without directly repudiating the Trump presidency and his fans.

It’s time for a new generation. It’s time to do more leadership. Haley said in a Fox News interview that they have lost the last seven popular votes for president. “It is time we get a Republican in there that can lead and that can win a general election.”

Yet the most fundamental question that Haley will face is whether the Republican base, which has rewarded culture warriors, extreme “Make America Great Again” rhetoric and election denialists, has any interest at all in what she plans to sell.

Her credentials look formidable in isolation but less so when considering the values of the party whose nomination she is seeking. There is a market for a less strident delivery vehicle for the GOP’s “America First” creed. The ex- president creates more of an emotional connection with his most ardent fans, than with liberals or the media.

She rebuked her party for following Trump down a path that she did not think was good for them after leaving the administration. But with Trump still a powerful figure in the GOP, she repositioned herself in October 2021.

And the former South Carolina governor’s casting around for the GOP sweet spot has some observers wondering exactly how she will build a sufficiently wide support base to take her to the nomination.

There is a lot of room for three candidates in this race. The more anti-Trumper is a person who will not vote for Trump and will not help him in the election, said Adam Kinzinger, a CNN political commentator. She said she was not going to run if he ran, now he is, so it will be a struggle for her. She doesn’t really have a constituency yet. She is a smart lady, so we will see how she does.

“I’ve spent time in Iowa and New Hampshire. He said at the forum in Washington, DC, that this is not random. We are trying to find our way through this. It is an unbelievably momentous decision to say you believe you should be the leader of the United States of America,” he added.

The Governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, Revisited: Is It Really That You Wanna Let a Conservative Governor Win?

Since he was an aide to the ex-president at the State Department and the CIA and shared many of the populist, nationalist foreign policy instincts of his former boss, it seems like there is a bigger positioning issue with Pompeo than with Haley. Almost all of the things that a GOP primary voter could get from Pompeo, they could get from Trump, although the West Point graduate and Kansas congressman would probably argue that he boasts a calmer temperament.

Is there anything liberals can do besides condemn him for his political weaknesses, and hope that his public-speaking skills and distaste for glad-handing will be enough to get him elected? It would be easy to write off the governor of Florida because he is too crazy for the job.

Ron DeSantis has made freedom his top priority and some conservatives have become wary of how liberally he is using government power to impose his will.

As Florida state lawmakers met earlier this month to give new authority over Disney World to the governor, Chris Sununu of New Hampshire took a shot.

“I’m a principled free-market conservative,” said Sununu, who is also weighing a bid for president. “For others out there that think that the government should be penalizing your business because they disagree with you politically, that isn’t very conservative.”

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a right-of-center First Amendment group that argued for White nationalist Richard Spencer’s right to speak on a Florida campus, has joined DeSantis in opposing diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI, programs. Nevertheless, the group has repeatedly criticized Florida’s heavy-handed approach to forcing conservative beliefs on universities and is suing the state over the Stop WOKE Act, a DeSantis-backed measure that legislated how professors teach certain topics.

The legal director of FIRE said that you cannot censor your way to freedom of expression. “You cannot trade one orthodoxy for another. In Florida we have seen a troubling willingness to do that.

“Corporatism is not the same as free enterprise, and I think too many Republicans have viewed limited government to basically mean whatever is best for corporate America is how we want to do the economy,” the Florida governor said at a speech last year at the National Conservatism Conference. “My view is, you know, obviously free enterprise is the best economic system, but that is a means to an end.”

A Democratic Candidate who is not afraid to set an example of freedom: Reply to DeSantis in a Social Media Scenario

Being perceived as racially insensitive is not a good place for a Republican to be in the long term.

A supporter pointed out the fight over an Advanced Placement course on African American studies as well as the dispute with the College Board, saying the governor could lose some supporters who would otherwise back him.

But Republicans voters have yet to be introduced to many potential contenders for the party nomination. The Club for Growth and Americans for Prosperity indicated that they would get involved in the primary.

DeSantis’ remarks to the Club for Growth were first reported by Fox News. people for the group didn’t respond to requests for comment

“I’m a genuine libertarian; I’m kind of a live-and-let-live kind of girl,” Levin told CNN. She said she has no problem with candidates who hold personal beliefs on social issues but that she objects to the idea of putting the power of his state behind his social conservative views.

“DeSantis is always talking about he was not demanding that businesses do things, but he was telling the cruise lines what they had to do,” former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a fellow Republican, said of DeSantis last year. Hogan has been critical of the Florida governor even as he considers entering the GOP race.

Meanwhile, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, another potential GOP contender, has also compared her Covid19 record against DeSantis in ways that suggest Florida was too hands-on – for ideologically disparate reasons. Noem said Friday it was her state, not Florida, that “set an example of freedom” by refusing to shut down at all. Florida, which DeSantis has called a Citadel of Freedom, closed schools, bars and theme parks and restricted other economic activity early in the pandemic.

The “Pasta” of the Florida Republican Party: Ron DeSantis’s “Micropolitically-Governed” Response to “The Case against Disney”

His approach has included more government programs, such as an office to pursue voter fraud and a program to conduct missions to surveil, house and transport migrants from border states to Democratic jurisdictions, more regulation, or flexing government power in unprecedented manners.

The growing chatter has pushed the allies back against it. The governor was reelected in November with a 19 point win, though Christopher Rufo had claimed that he was using his power as an elected leader.

DeSantis last month appointed Rufo to the board of New College, a small liberal arts school that the governor has targeted for a drastic overhaul to become a more conservative university.

“The complaint about using ‘state power,’ meaning constitutionally-mandated democratic governance, to correct the ideological corruption of public universities, i.e., state institutions funded by taxpayers, is ridiculous,” Rufo tweeted. The people can not regulate the state.

There are apprehensions among some of the allies, but they haven’t lost support for Ron DeSantis. Ken Griffin, the billionaire hedge fund owner of Citadel and a major DeSantis donor, said he was “troubled” last year by the governor’s move against Disney.

According to audio of his remarks obtained by CNN, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis described other Republican leaders as “like potted plants” in his 40-minute speech before a room full of donors.

A telephone survey of Biden’s demographic shifts and his chances at the 2020 State of the Union: Democratic vs. Independent demographics

Independents soured on him and Democrats were not enthusiastic about his presidency, as he bottomed out at 36% in July of last year. But Biden has made steady improvement since then, and this month, he is up to 46% approval with all respondents and an even higher 49% with registered voters.

According to several surveys, Vice President Biden is too old to win the White House with someone else, and his own party thinks that if he ran, he would have a better chance.

That’s good news for the president. He has been at 50% since the Afghanistan withdrawal, his highest mark in nearly a year. He’s benefiting in the survey from a rebound with Democrats and he needs his base shored up.

The largest shifts are coming from whites without a college degree, those who make less than $50,000 annually, and voters under 45 years old. The key target demographic groups helped Biden win in 2020. They’re the kinds of voters he peeled away from Trump, who made inroads with these groups in 2016.

These are Democrats and independents who lean Democratic, so they are open to Biden’s message. Three potential reasons:

That’s significantly better than Vice President Kamala Harris, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg or Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who the poll also tested.

Still, the percentage saying they would be better off with someone else hasn’t budged. Voters with college degrees are less likely to say that they would be better off with someone else than voters who make more than $50,000 a year.

The live caller telephone survey, using cell phones and landlines, of more than 1,300 adults and about 1,200 registered was conducted last week by the Marist Institute for Public Opinion, well after the president’s State of the Union address. The survey has a margin of error of 3.3 percentage points where all adults are referred, meaning results could be a bit lower or a bit higher. Where registered voters are referenced, it has a similar +/- 3.5 percentage point margin of error.

There were 570 Democrats and independents who lean Democratic. Where they’re referenced, it’s a +/- 5 percentage point margin. Over 500 Republicans and Republican-leaning independents were interviewed. The margin for this subgroup is +/- 5.7 percentage points.

Murdoch’s media empire as a buyer’s remorse over Trump: the story of an ex-president and the Dominion

But the ex-president’s entire political career, the modern Republican Party and a vast conservative media empire are based on the exact opposite premise of the Rolling Stones’ song: giving the party base exactly what it wants to hear – whether it is true or not.

Fox News is the latest example of opinion formers on the right being held hostage to anger they helped to cause. Murdoch, the chairman of Fox Corporation, admitted in a deposition that some of the network’s stars endorsed false claims that the 2020 election was stolen as he attempted to stop viewers from defecting. Previous disclosures showed some of those Fox hosts knew they were peddling lies but were worried they’d alienate their audience if they told the truth about Trump’s false claims.

The new details showed how key players on the right feel like they have no choice but to appease voters andflame viewers in order to get what they want, which is political power.

Some media commentators would argue that Murdoch’s entire business model – using television stations in his native Australia and tabloid newspapers like The Sun in Britain, as well as Fox News in the US – has evolved from seizing upon and feeding political anger. And while he’s more known for backing conservatives, Murdoch has switched sides when business demands – for instance, when The Sun endorsed the British Labour Party’s Tony Blair over the fading Conservative Party in a 1997 general election.

There is a chance that the billionaire publisher will finally be getting buyer’s remorse over Trump after seeing the headline of the New York Post in November.

As he said in a deposition made public in a court filing on Monday in the Dominion case: “It is not red or blue, it is green,” referring to the color of a dollar.

Why did Donald Trump run riot in 2016? The legacy of his victory for the House Speaker’s 2020 convention and the politics of the next president

The Republican politicians who appear on Fox are influenced by what the political market will do. Their unfiltered adoption of much of the doctrine favored by the conservative grassroots ultimately stretched American democracy to the limit.

Catering to that base helped fuel the rise of Trump in 2016, as he shattered the Republican establishment presidential field. GOP lawmakers who did not cross the president then allowed him to run riot. That helped foster an unstoppable radical tide that led to the US Capitol insurrection in 2021 and eventually to Republicans acquitting him in not one but two impeachment dramas.

The power of the Republican base made a big difference in the new House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s victory in the conference vote. McCarthy had earlier watched as two predecessors, former Speakers John Boehner and Paul Ryan, tried to resist the GOP’s far right insurgency and lost their job. As McCarthy showed by handing Fox host Tucker Carlson access to hours of Capitol Hill security footage last week – despite Carlson’s conspiracy theories about January 6, 2021 – his speakership is a totally owned subsidiary of the GOP’s most extreme elements.

McCarthy’s dominance by the same GOP base that Murdoch worried about driving away is one reason why a coming showdown with the White House over raising the government’s borrowing limit has so many financial experts fretting about a possible default that could rattle the global economy.

When a nominee has to pivot to a general election, both Democrats and Republicans have had to contend with the dilemma of winning their party’s base voters while trying to court middle America. This political leap may need a supreme political skill from whoever makes it through the GOP’s “America First” primary.

This was why Trump, an apparently unlikely clarion of the people after spending his life in Manhattan and flying around the country on a private Boeing with gold-plated fittings, was the perfect candidate for the moment. Liberals condemned him for his rhetoric, which they found to be racist and profanity-laden. Trump’s early rallies were more like stand-up comedy shows than traditional presidential events. There was a person who was shouting out loud what millions of Americans had believed for a long time, but felt constrained from saying because of social convention. Many commentators decried Trump’s demagoguery but fewer examined the social, economic and political reasons for his rise.

“This persistent theme — that Republicans in Washington fail to effectively represent the values of the people who elect them – foreshadowed the nomination of Donald Trump in 2016,” DeSantis writes in “The Courage to be Free,” published on Tuesday.

“The chasm between the aspirations of the GOP voter base and the behavior of party leaders in Washington would continue to grow wider in the ensuing years.”

He complains that politicians who become instruments of politics that work against their interests forget where they come from. The need to raise the debt ceiling to keep the government solvent is one example of how important foreign policy questions are to the leaders of the country.

In an appearance at the annual Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Kansas City in 2018, President Trump foretold of his presidency and the conservative media infrastructure.

Don’t leave with us. The fake news is from these people. … What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening,” he said.

Fox News, the Republican Movement, and the MyPillow CEO: Why Do We Need to Let Fox News Become a Platform in the Conservative Movement?

The truth is that every TV anchor and media executive should know, that the public release of email and text messages can be very damaging to a company.

Fox News anchor and executives are shown in the messages to be knowingly allowing false information on the air.

Lawyers for Dominion Voting Systems released portions of unflattering messages and depositions in court filings as part of their $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox for broadcasting conspiracy theories about Dominion’s role in the 2020 presidential election.

Carlson told Sean Hannity that she should be fired. What the f**k? I am shocked that it needs to stop immediately. It’s measurably hurting the company.”

He said that he was with the company. The Fox leaders and top talent were focused on the company, not the country. Democracy was at stake, but the larger concern at Fox News appears to be that rival Newsmax was gaining traction after Trump lashed out at Fox News for his 2020 election loss.

Fox Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch didn’t mind the politics of putting the conspiracy theory-pushing MyPillow CEO on Fox News, he said in a deposition, according to court records.

In the interview posted Tuesday on The Bulwark Podcast, Ryan said he believed Fox News is “gonna have to be a part of the solution if we’re going to solve the problem in the conservative movement.”

Ryan said there isn’t a bigger platform in America. I don’t like where the conservative movement is at right now, because it is going through a lot of turmoil.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/01/politics/fox-news-republicans-what-matters/index.html

How Ron DeSantis fought against the invasion of Ukraine in the 2024 presidential campaign: CNN interviewed Borges and Parini, a poet and novelist

During the George W. Bush administration, Fox would have been a major backer of military aid for Ukraine if Russia had invaded as it did a year ago. Many guests on the network talk about the importance of Ukranian aid.

Carlson, like Trump, questioning whether the US should be opposed to Russia for invading ofUkraine and authoritarianism.

As they prepare for the 2024 presidential contest, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is the evolution of his own position, as CNN explains: “DeSantis wanted to send weapons toUkraine when he was a congressman.”

CNN interviewed two dozen or so lawmakers that they described as “hardcore Trump supporters,” people who were part of the Freedom Caucus and people who were essentially his defenders during his four years in office.

Multiple members of the Freedom Caucus actually traveled to Florida not to meet with Trump, but instead to talk to DeSantis, according to Raju. They were impressed.

Editor’s Note: Jay Parini, a poet and novelist, teaches at Middlebury College. His most recent book, the memoir “Borges and Me,” is an account of his travels through the Scottish Highlands of Scotland with Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges in 1971. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. CNN has lots of opinion articles.

A Conversation with Robert DeSantis, Governor of Miami, and His Importance to Students and Students of the Working Class: Baseball, Politics and Political Correctness

That’s unlikely. Only fans or parties who are interested in getting someone back in 2024 will take the time to read the book, and unsold copies will pile up, rubbing shoulders with past examples of campaign self-advertising.

I’ve read a number of these books and they’re rarely good. DeSantis redefines what cliched writing can sound like by taking the dullness to a new level. It’s not one thing to offer the public a bit of wood, but it is one thing to have a yard of lumber.

And we can be sure the governor read the book and approved of its contents before publication. We have to assume that the ideas in this book are his.

The book talks about his love of baseball and his working class roots in Ohio and Pennsylvania, both of which were mentioned in the book. They were Italian-Americans — a family of immigrants, although DeSantis has shown little interest in helping recently-arrived migrants on their American journey: he famously flew two planeloads, primarily comprised of Venezuelan migrants, from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard in 2022, a cruel, calculated political stunt designed to embarrass the Biden administration and liberal elites with their “sanctuary cities.” That he would play politics with the lives of these poor souls doesn’t, I fear, speak well for him – nor that he performed throughout the ensuing media cycle with such glee.

But this hard-heartedness is a core part and parcel of the narrative, which offers a litany of resentfulness. In his book, DeSantis writes that he had never seen a limousine before his time at Yale. Those students who were the most strident in their leftism… came from the most privileged background.” He was pushed to the right by leftism on campus and is still there.

Everywhere in the book, one senses his rage against political correctness. He rails, on nearly every page, about “the woke agenda” that he sees permeating almost every level of life in America.

In his mind, Dr. Anthony Fauci is seen as public enemy #1, and is the leader of a dire tyke group that is headed by him. He devotes a whole chapter of this book to railing against Dr. Fauci and people who used the powers of the federal government to implement “heavy-handed public health ‘interventions’” during the Covid-19 pandemic. These measures did little, in the governor’s opinion, to slow the course of the disease — rather, they “destroyed livelihoods, hurt children, and harmed overall public health.”

When his own free speech is important to him, he shows little interest in the First Amendment. He seems not to have heard the great words of Thomas Jefferson, who wrote: “Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.” Jefferson understood that we each have a right, even a patriotic duty, to speak without permission from the authorities.

Instead, DeSantis rails against the “legacy media” — by which he means The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic and so forth. These are “the praetorian guard of the nation’s failed ruling class, running interference for elites who share their vision and smearing those who dare of oppose it.” He would probably want to exempt Murdoch’s media empire from this judgement.

Sayfie Sayfie: A Voice for America during the 2020 Pandemic. A New Perspective on President Donald J. DeSantis and the Importance of Security and Border Security

Prior to joining the Bush family, Sayfie worked in the administrations of three Republican presidents and was a top adviser. Sayfie is a partner at the lobbying firm of Ballard Partners and publisher of SayfieReview.com, a website on Florida politics. The views he has expressed are of his own. CNN has more opinion.

His ascent started in 2020 when he became a hero to millions for filling a leadership vacuum during a time of global crisis.

Vulnerable older adults in Florida witnessed how he prioritized their health and safety by prohibiting transfers of patients infected with the coronavirus from hospitals into long-term care facilities, unlike in New York. Parents of Florida schoolchildren witnessed how he focused on keeping schools open, so students wouldn’t fall behind in their learning. Small-business owners witnessed how he battled to get and keep businesses open, so they and their employees could continue to feed their families during the pandemic.

DeSantis’ governance style during the pandemic not only earned him respect from many around the country, but it also became a weathered template for other battles he has fought.

Step 1: Take decisive action. This step follows a counterintuitive political principle that DeSantis gets: It’s more important for a leader to be decisive than for the decision itself to be popular. Voters do not want weathervanes for leaders. They appreciate a leader who takes bold action and gets things done in a timely fashion, not someone who is always indecisive about which direction to go next.

More than half of Americans believe it is completely or somewhat true that the United States is experiencing an invasion at the southern border, with 76% of Republicans and 47% of independents holding this view, according to an NPR/Ipsos poll in August. According to a survey, more than half of Democrats and Democrat- leaning independents say border security is very or somewhat important, while almost 4 of 10 Democrats say it is less important. The political space for the decision to relocate migrants was given by the widespread bipartisan unhappiness on border enforcement.

In September a New York Times-siena college poll found that Republicans were against the bill, 39% of Democrats were against it, and Hollywood moguls disapproved of it. More interestingly, 71% of independent voters strongly or somewhat opposed classroom instruction of gender identity to children in elementary school, the poll found.

DeSantis issued a proclamation declaring Florida native Emma Weyant the winner of the NCAA Division I women’s 500-yard freestyle final after the NCAA declared Lia Thomas, a transgender woman, the victor. The poll indicated that Republican and independent voters were very much in favor of the position of DeSantis, while Democrats were almost evenly split.

In today’s “cancel culture” environment, DeSantis has uniquely channeled the emotions of what former President Richard Nixon called the “silent majority.” People who consider themselves part of this group even if they are not a majority feel more silenced now than they did before.

One might be tempted to believe that it has limited appeal, but consider this: Despite Trump beating Biden in Florida, Biden beat Trump by 11 points among independent voters. Two years later, he won back this important group of voters by winning a majority of independents and defeating his opponent by 8 points.

It’s a recipe that has worked brilliantly in Florida – an incredibly diverse, multicultural and fast-growing megastate. If anyone doesn’t think it can work elsewhere, they may be regretting their skepticism in the future.

The Case for Donald Trump: The First Five Years of the GOP Presidency and His Failure to Win the Democratic Presidential Premion in 2020

“I’m going on offense,” DeSantis told the audience at the conservative Club for Growth event at The Breakers Palm Beach resort. Some Republicans allow the media to define the terms of the debate, while sitting back like potted plants. They let the left decide what it was talking about. They take all this incoming, because they’re not making anything happen. I said, “That’s not what we’re doing.”

He took a shot at the state’s Democratic Gov., calling him “Preoccupied” with him ahead of his upcoming visit to California.

Donald Trump is the clear favorite to win the Republican nomination for president next year. Right now, he is averaging roughly 50% in national primary polls. He has 15 points in his favor over DeSantis.

Most of the candidates who are in Trump’s position have gone on to win their primary. All the candidates who averaged between 34% and 35% in past national primary polls in the first half of the year before the primary should be looked at.

Since 1972, about 75% of these candidates have gone on to win the nomination when they faced at least one major challenger. When polling less than 50%, those who won have won about 70% of the time.

It would be convenient to dismiss Trump’s numbers as a product of high name recognition, but history seems to suggest something different. The group’s eventual nominees are Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush, and Bob Dole.

Candidates in DeSantis’ position haven’t been nearly as successful. Those polling between 20% and 35% have gone on to win their party nods about 40% of the time since 1972.

The Republicans had a poor performance in last fall’s elections. His once 40-point polling lead over DeSantis declined to 10 points, on average, over the latter half of November through December. Trump’s share of GOP support went from north of 50% to about 40%.

It was clear that the blame for the GOP under performance for the opposition party was laid at the feet of Donald Trump. He supported candidates who supported the lie that the 2020 election was illegitimate.

The End of the American Dream: Donald Trump’s Last and Last Stand against the Dark Side of the Tea Party, the Left Bankrupt, and the Left Behind

I am very appreciative of everyone who has encouraged me to run for president. I do not want my family to have to go through a campaign just for the experience after eight years of serving Maryland.

I wouldn’t run for president because of my desire to get into a cabinet role. I have long said that I care more about ensuring a future for the Republican Party than securing my own future in the Republican Party. I will not be seeking the Republican nomination for president.

Since Donald Trump won the nomination in 2016, I have fought to make clear that our party cannot be successful if we put personality before principle, if our elected officials are afraid to say publicly what they freely admit behind closed doors, and if we can’t learn from our mistakes because of the political cost of admitting facts to be true. The party did not pass a campaign platform in 2020. For too long, Republican voters have been denied a real debate about what our party stands for beyond loyalty to Mr. Trump. A cult of personality can be compared to a party of principle.

I believe the tides are finally turning. Republican voters are fed up with the drama and open to new leadership. I am worried about the next election and I am optimistic about the future of the Republican Party. For the fourth election in a row, we cannot afford to have Mr. Trump as our nominee. To once again be a successful governing party, we must move on from Mr. Trump. Several competent Republican leaders have the potential to lead. I can’t risk getting in a multi car pileup that could help Mr. Trump regain the nomination.

Trump served up his familiar brew of fury, falsehoods and dishonest braggadocio at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday, billing himself as the only man who could save the planet from World War III, girding his adoring supporters for their “final battle” against communists, globalists and the “Deep State,” and declaring: “I am your retribution.”

We will beat the Democrats, expose the fake news media and deal with the RINOs, that’s what we said. Trump said at a Maryland convention center on Saturday that he will take Joe Biden out of the White House.

“I can tell you in four years, you didn’t see our administration leaking like a sieve, you didn’t see a lot of drama or palace intrigue,” said DeSantis, whose punch-by-punch speaking style is far more ordered and methodical than Trump’s wild flights of rhetoric. The thing you witnessed was precision execution. Day after day. We beat the left day after day, because we did that.

Still, if DeSantis were to win the Republican nomination, there would likely be questions over whether his own radicalism would hurt him in the same swing state districts where Trump lost the 2020 election – even notwithstanding a public persona that is more disciplined than Trump’s. There’s not much subtlety in his rhetoric about a “woke mind virus”: Much of the Florida governor’s phrasing comes with the implication that anyone who does not share his views is, by definition, a left-wing extremist. He would be promising one the most right-wing presidencies in modern history.

Pompeo, who, like his former Cabinet colleague got a fairly tepid reception on the ex-president’s turf, stacked his speech with plausible deniability to avoid taking on Trump directly. But one remark could be read as as much of a criticism of the ex-president as the Democrats he specifically targeted when he said: “We can’t become the left, following celebrity leaders with their own brand of identity politics, those with fragile egos who refuse to acknowledge reality.”

Another potential Republican candidate, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, was on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday and attacked Trump’s fearsome culture war talk.

The leader of our country should not be engaged in a personal vendetta. He talks about his vendettas when he talks about vengeance, that is not good for America. It’s not a great idea for our party.

The debate over Donald Trump and his replacement, Asa Hutchinson, in the state of the Union on Sunday (with a podcast interview with CBS News)

That debate was on full display on Sunday when Larry Hogan, a moderate voice in the party, announced he wouldn’t run for president.

Hogan told CBS News that Trump and DeSantis had soaked up all the oxygen, getting all the attention, and then a lot of the rest of us in single digits.

The Republican party is grappling with how to stop Donald Trump and what it might take to put someone other than the former president in office in four years.

There is a disagreement between how many options there should be. Some think a small field with a clear alternative to Trump – perhaps Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis – is how the party can best set a new course. Others say that a bigger field with more competitors is needed to move the GOP away from the former president.

“The stakes are too high for me to risk being part of another multicar pileup that could potentially help Mr. Trump recapture the nomination,” Hogan said in a statement. When Trump emerged victorious from a heavily splintered group in the 2016 primary, the warning was brought up again.

But another former governor who was term-limited from running again in 2022 – Arkansas’ Asa Hutchinson – is still weighing a run, and therefore thinks “more voices” in the race are “good for our party.”

Even if Donald Trump doesn’t win, providing an alternative is the best thing to do. So hats off to Larry for what he’s done, what he’s contributed. And I’m glad that he will continue to do so,” Hutchinson told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union” Sunday.

Of course, Hogan and Hutchinson, both critics of Trump, come from different political geographies, which could also be informing their views of the race and their place in it. Hogan governed a blue state that voted for President Joe Biden by more than 30 points in 2020, while Hutchinson — who said he’ll make a decision in April — led a state that backed Trump by nearly 30 points.

Haley’s Proposal for the NLCP Re-examined Conference on Non-Inclusive Discriminant Scattering

That will narrow, and it will probably narrow quickly. We need to have a lot of self-evaluation as you go along, but I think more voices now that provide alternative messages and problem-solving and ideas is good for our party,” he added.

In her prepared speech, Haley said there is a Republican candidate out there who she did not invite to the conference.