“Will He, or Won’t He?” Sydney Williams
http://www.swtotd.blogspot.com/
The question in the title, of course, is aimed at Mr. Trump and the 2024 Presidential election. While I admire what Mr. Trump accomplished as President and for the way he battled media vilification, I find his ego, language and bullying offensive.
Obviously, no one knows the answer to the question, including, in all probability, Mr. Trump. The election is thirty months away, with midterms coming first. Mr. Trump will turn 76 on June 14 – granted he would be younger than was Mr. Biden in 2020, but no longer in the flower of youth, nor even in the comfort of middle age. Mr. Trump remains controversial and divisive – not the soothing, empathetic figure the nation needs when it is fraught with division as to who we are and what we stand for. (Is it really alright to let young men in high school who self-identify as women use girls’ showers? The condoning of deviant behavior in the name of social justice, no matter what the LBGTQ community may claim, is aberrant.)
Mr. Trump remains the dominant figure in Republican politics. A poll of potential Republican primary voters taken in March of this year by Morning Consult, a global decision intelligence company, gave Mr. Trump 55% of the vote, Ron DeSantis 12%, Mike Pence 10% and Nikki Haley 7%. Ohio’s J.D. Vance appeared to have been helped by Mr. Trump’s endorsement in the May 3rd Senatorial primary. Other Trump-endorsed candidates like Georgia’s Herschel Walker’s bid for the U.S. Senate and Arkansas’ Sarah Huckabee Sanders’s campaign for governor were successful. Yet Virginia’s gubernatorial election last November and Georgia’s primary on May 24th suggest Mr. Trump is not a fool-proof king maker. In fact, last week’s Harvard-Harris poll showed a preference for Mr. Trump had declined to 41% among Republican primary voters.
Nevertheless, Mr. Trump still dominates Republican circles, but his Party detractors, and others, are adamant in opposition. The January 6 protest (this was not an insurrection) added fuel to a “Never Trump” flame that had been kindled by Mr. Trump’s opposition to Washington’s insiders during his 2016 campaign and during his four years as President. More recently, Illinois Representative Adam Kinzinger has led the “crossover movement,” which encourages independents and Democrats, as the Associated Press put it, “…to take down pro-Trump candidates in GOP primaries whenever and wherever possible.” Intra-Party debate, when it leads to compromise, is healthy, but when hatred becomes personal it leads to unhealable fractures. As Matthew has Jesus say in 12:25: “…every city or house divided against itself will not stand.”
Trump, as I have written before, has become a liability for Republicans and an asset for Democrats. Not for his policies, but for his character. His followers are loyal, vociferous and legion, but his detractors are plentiful. They control the Democratic Party, the media and cultural institutions, and a large swath of Republican and independent “Never-Trumpers.”
Yet, what Trump instinctively understood is that people, collectively, make better political and personal decisions than experts, including government functionaries. He knew that elected officials are responsible to the people. He also understood that markets, reflecting millions of individual decisions, give us better products at better prices than economies managed by “experts.” Capitalism works better for more people than Socialism. Experts are important in business, education and government, but the latter should be subordinate to elected officials. Trump’s problem was capsuled by Senator Schumer when in 2017 he said: “Let me tell you: You take on the intelligence communities, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.” Did Schumer mean to imply that the intelligence bureaucracies were above reproach because of fear of retaliation? Over time, dozens of federal bureaucracies have grown large with no separation between legislative, executive and judicial functions, giving enormous power to the appointed officials that direct them. The consequence has been an abuse of power. Trump thought that addressing these issues could be a winning strategy – to return power to the people and away from Washington’s credentialed elite. It was, but the “empire” struck back.
None of what I have written speaks to probabilities posed by the question in the title. I don’t pretend to have an answer. But the issues that divide us are still there and pose a risk to democracy. Each month, I&I (Issues & Insights) and TIPP (TechnoMetrica Institute of Policy and Politics) conduct a unity poll. In the poll taken May 4-6, a mere 24% of Americans said the United States was “united.” These numbers, which show division deepening, confirm a PEW Research poll taken in 2020 that showed Americans divided over core American values. Extreme partisan candidates will not heal the wounds. Despite campaign promises, Mr. Biden has further divided an already divided nation. In fact, the Harvard-Harris poll, which gave Mr. Trump 41%, gave Mr. Biden only 24% among Democrat primary voters. Mr. Biden was the oldest person ever elected President and Mr. Trump the second oldest. But age has not brought wisdom to the White House. In the current instance, it appears to have brought senility. It is time to hand government’s reins to a new generation, willing to take on the Washington establishment with stamina and humor. For President we need an individual who can befriend more of their own Party and alienate fewer of their opponents.
The task, especially for Republicans, will be difficult. The woke, who dominate our schools, universities and cultural entities, are selfish and unprincipled. They infest our government, tech companies and Wall Street. What is needed is a renewed effort in our schools and colleges on inclusion and diversity – of ideas. Only then will we head toward a more equitable society.
Will he, or won’t he? As I wrote, I don’t know; but I hope he does not. I wish Mr. Trump would graciously retire, confident that he accomplished a great deal and that he exposed the rot in Washington. But I suspect the word gracious is not in his vocabulary, nor will “never Trumpers give him credit for the good that he did. However, there are younger, talented, better humored (and thicker-skinned) Republicans who could pick up the mantle. Regardless, we are in for an interesting time, as both Parties deal with a divided nation and aged leaders. How all this plays out remains to be seen.
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