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The President Is Toast
From The New York Times, a devastating critique of where the President’s re-election chances stand now that the Democrats are more emboldened in Congress:
At midterm, the once-dazzling political momentum… has stalled. In the year ahead, the President faces what his allies and advisers see as the most critical tests of his Presidency both at home and abroad.
”Historically, the third year is the one that makes or breaks a Presidency,” said one GOP pollster.
”It’s the year when people will judge the President not only by the goals he articulated in the campaign or the legislation he has passed, but how his program has affected their lives,” he continued. ”It’s also a year in which foreign policy will be given a more severe test.”
On the major issues, some of the President’s White House aides and Cabinet associates see similar forks in the political road. They prefer not to be identified in speaking. But privately, some acknowledge their concern that his presidency faces serious difficulties.
Their brimming optimism of 2016 has been tempered by losses in the November elections as well as by stunning defeats in the recent session of Congress. They concede… a perceptible shift in power from the White House toward Congress since November, and open splits and uneasiness among Republicans, especially while there is uncertainty whether the President intends to run in 2020. On Capitol Hill, Republicans grumble that the White House is not being well run but is hobbled by factional tensions.
”If the President doesn’t like the word ‘compromise,’ ” one aide said, ”well then, let’s say he’s got to make some adjustments in the original course. There’s a problem with people who think there’s so much mileage in being right all the time, I don’t care who it is, even the President of the United States.”
”You can’t govern this country when it’s polarized,” said the Republican moderate Senator from Maine. ”I think the President has got to compromise on most issues…”
Political realities have changed dramatically since 2016. The loss of Republican seats in the House has buried the coalition that passed his big tax cuts and has given Democrats control of the House.
Beyond that, White House strategists acknowledge that the elections showed an erosion of public support; many minority, blue collar and elderly voters who supported him in his election went back to the Democratic Party.
They also concede that the election mood will affect the legislative debate. Some of the 19 Republican senators up for re-election are acutely sensitive to avoiding (associating with the President) as they approach the new Congressional session.
In sum, the President’s political impact has diminished. He is not the feared figure of 18 months ago.
In reality, this is from The Times in December of 1982. (Read the original here.) The President was Reagan, not Trump. All I did was mask a few names and change the dates. Trump is not Reagan, but the conventional wisdom is not necessarily wise either. The tires are stuck in the same mud they’ve always been in and they just spin and spin and spin.
Published in Journalism
This conversation from back then is most illuminating. And shows that I am not ‘bashing’ without good support. Several of the ridiculing commenters of me back then are exactly the ones who ultimately admitted that they were not all that concerned about a Hillary Clinton administration … The Case For Trump.
For Every Action, There Is An Equal And Opposite Reaction
The Next President … Unbound
Don’t get weirdly literal on me, Gary. I’m saying that it will be interpreted as a political betrayal by those who voted for Trump and think he’s doing a good job. No sitting President has been successfully primaried in modern history, and it will be hard to convince the Trump enthusiasts that it wasn’t a result of the establishment flexing its muscle in self-defense. We will lose them.
I’m not talking about the electorate. I’m talking about 2016 Trump voters. Yes, 25-35% of them love Trump — they’re the ones we’ll lose if we oust him. But that 45-50% you mention who “despise and loathe” him aren’t the 2016 Trump voters. Most of the 2016 Trump voters will vote for him again; we’re in no danger of losing half of them.
I think the Trump challenge project hinges on people believing that whoever is chosen in his stead won’t be demonized by the press and media as a continuation of Trump’s horrific rule. I think people who want to dump Trump imagine that it’s Trump’s vulgarity and petty dishonesty that makes the left hate him so much. I don’t think that’s true. That’s just a tool the left uses to demonize him; one can be as decent as a Romney or a Pence or a Bush and be treated as poorly. They won’t waste the anger.
In other words, I don’t think a Trump substitute would pick up a lot of support Trump doesn’t already have. I do think he would lose a lot of support Trump already has — and risk seriously dividing the Republican party in the process.
Our tradition is to support the incumbent. I think it’s a good one.
Spot on. I am reminded of something Goldberg said years ago about people who accused Republicans of not wanting Obama because they were racist – something to the effect of, ‘we don’t want him in because he’s a Democrat, race doesn’t enter into it at all – the only people who could reasonably be accused of racism are Democrats that don’t vote for him.’
We may be scandalized by how Trump talks and what he says, but they are offended by his R – anything else is just something they can use to try to get us to help them get a Democrat in the White House.
Like I’d have voted for a white guy with Obama’s agenda.
Gary, I don’t understand your aversion to the moniker “NeverTrump.” I know George here at Ricochet and Jonah Goldberg and a lot of others find the term offensive but I embrace it.
I. Will. Never. Vote. For. Trump.
Would you, could you give an inch?
Would you, could you in a pinch?
Vote for Trump to prevent a fate in,
Which we get a President S
tatan?Thank you.
They’ve been heading that way. I wasn’t sure they’d arrived yet.
And I completely respect your right to take that position.
For myself, I’ll say it differently: I will vote in the way that I think is best for my country. And, since I don’t yet know who is running, I can’t say yet, with certainty, how I’ll vote.