We are awaiting big news in American politics in the coming days, when Ron DeSantis, governor of Florida, is expected to file the formal paperwork to run for president. DeSantis will add a new level of excitement to a field of Republican candidates that so far has been dominated by former president Donald Trump.
Since DeSantis has not filed yet, we cannot say much about what kind of presidential candidate he will be. Once his paperwork is in and his campaign platform is up, we can give him a good examination in Part 2 “The Race for 2024.” However, it is clear already, now that with Trump in the spotlight, anyone else vying for the Republican ticket next year will have a tough time competing with the former president.
Donald Trump is such an unusual politician in many ways that his candidacy for a second term may seem like an impossible project. However, there are at least two reasons why we should take him seriously. The first is a man known as John Durham, a so-called special counsel with the U.S. Department of Justice.
In October 2020, with only weeks left to the presidential election where Biden beat Trump, Attorney General William Barr appointed Durham to investigate improprieties related to a pack of documents known as the Steele dossier. It was said to prove that Donald Trump colluded with the Russian government in order to cheat his way into the White House in 2016.
The dossier was eventually proven a hoax and the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign was fined for its role in creating it. Given how the justice system is currently going after Trump for alleged hush-money payments to some woman he supposedly had an affair with, the leniency shown the Clinton campaign for its role in the Russia collusion hoax looks downright absurd. But at least they got fined.
John Durham was appointed special counsel under the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate how the dossier made its way into the political spotlight. This status allowed him to continue his investigation independently; when Democrat Merrick Garland succeeded Republican William Barr as Attorney General, he could not fire Durham or otherwise influence his investigation.
Given his independent status, Durham was able to dig up some interesting information. He found that the FBI not only got involved in the Russia dossier hoax, but in doing so failed to hold itself to the standard of “fidelity to the law.”
In plain English, this means that the FBI ignored its own solemn duty to be an impartial agency of law enforcement. Instead, it took political sides for the Democrats in general, and for Hillary Clinton in particular, and against Trump. Their investigation into the dossier and thereby their endorsement of the false accusations against Trump was an unabashed exhibition of political partisanship. It was so bad, in fact, that it is difficult to see how the FBI is going to come back from it and regain the trust of tens of millions of Trump supporters.
According to Fox News, John Durham explains in his final report that
senior FBI personnel displayed a serious lack of analytical rigor toward the information that they received, especially information received from politically-affiliated persons and entities. … In particular, there was significant reliance on investigative leads provided or funded (directly or indirectly) by Trump’s political opponents.
All in all, Durham’s report provides the final exoneration of Trump regarding the false accusations that he colluded with Russia. But it does more than that—and here is how it can serve him well as a presidential candidate: by clearing his name, the Durham report elevates Trump to the moral high ground among candidates going into 2024. At the same time, President Biden is being pulled deeper and deeper into a cesspool of his own corruption; standing on the foundation of the Durham report, Trump can now put the moral shoe on the other foot. During his entire presidency, Trump had to be on the defense, answering to a barrage of false accusations and pure fairy-tale stories in the ‘news media.’
This time he can be on the offense and rightfully point the finger at his opponent.
However, he can do even more than that, which brings us to the second reason why we ought to take Trump seriously. On May 10th, he gave us an appetizer of what kind of media relations he will have as he goes on the campaign trail. He held a townhall meeting with CNN, with live audience and all. And it was a fireworks show.
I am probably not alone wondering why CNN invited Trump in the first place, but if they wanted to put a nail in his 2024 ambitions, they failed miserably. The host, Kaitlan Collins, tried to confront Trump on issue after issue, but fell flat to the ground. Per John Nolte at Breitbart:
Her laughably transparent game plan was to get under the former president’s skin, but it backfired. She looked feckless. He looked cool, calm, prepared, and unflappable. While she heckled and lied, he delivered. … While she stamped her feet, he won over the audience and offered a vision for a future filled with promise and prosperity.
It would be wise not to overstate the effect that this townhall will have on public opinion, in part because CNN does not have that many viewers. At the same time, given the attention the event has gotten after the fact, Trump’s performance will solidify his position as the GOP frontrunner. Every event like this reinforces Trump’s support among the tens of millions who still consider him a good president.
More than that, though, by performing with this level of confidence and clarity, and by talking straight—not speaking politics—he wins over new voters. People who were opposed to him in 2020 but are dissatisfied with life, cost of living, and the left’s unending war on mainstream culture, find his bluntness and confidence refreshing. They will take another look at him going into 2024.
Even CNN had to admit that Trump is digging in as the Republican frontrunner. He remains very popular despite blatant efforts by his adversaries to use the legal system against him. As a case in point, Trump’s popularity has not taken any beatings from the March 30th indictment by the district attorney’s office in Manhattan, New York. Part of the reason is that the case is so weak that the grand jury to which D.A. Alvin Bragg presented it was reluctant to give him the go-ahead.
A grand jury does not sit in trial—its job is to assess whether or not there is sufficient evidence to prosecute someone. Even if it were to approve of Bragg’s case, it is by no means an indication of the outcome of the case in court.
In other words, from a public opinion viewpoint, the legal cases against Trump are going to work to his favor. Meanwhile, there is a growing pile of evidence of serious corruption by President Biden and his family. You do not have to be a dyed-in-the-wool Trump supporter to be dismayed by the unhinged media bias against Trump and for the current president, whose mental abilities voters are already concerned about.
With all this in mind, though, and with all that he has going for himself, Trump must also face the inevitable question: can he win?
If it comes down to a straight race between him and Biden, the answer is affirmative: by the time we get to October next year, with only weeks to go to the election, Biden’s mental health is probably going to be so poor that he may not even be able to speak to the media. There will be no way for his team, or for the Democrats in general, to hide the truth like they did in 2020.
However, there is a fair chance that it won’t be a two-man race. There is a wild card in the deck by the name Liz Cheney. This is the former Representative from Wyoming who ousted herself from the Republican party by going after Trump based on the events of January 6, 2021. She co-chaired the Congressional committee named after that date, appointed under the Democrat House majority in 2021.
Cheney used the committee squarely as a tool to go after President Trump for his alleged incitement of an insurrection. Trump was supposed to have done this out of frustration over losing the 2020 election.
As it turned out, the whole case that Cheney and the committee was trying to build against Trump was based on deliberate misinformation, perhaps even lies. The committee blatantly concealed evidence in Trump’s favor, and went to great length to rewrite the history of that day.
The plan for Liz Cheney was to use the January 6th committee as a launchpad for her own presidential campaign—not officially, of course, but in practice. That committee was meant to give her an aura of integrity and bipartisan appeal, which in turn would make her the inevitable presidential candidate in 2024.
That did not work: her committee failed to produce anything that materially pinned the insurrection accusations on Trump. On the contrary, the final report from the committee was for the most part a nothing burger. When the Republican House majority released over 40,000 hours of video footage showing that there was no insurrection, Cheney’s J6 launchpad fell apart.
Her performance on the January 6th committee may have precluded Cheney from challenging Trump for next year’s Republican nomination. However, that does not mean she has given up her plans for 2024. Her current gig, to teach at the University of Virginia, is just a stopgap measure while she plots her way back into the thick of American politics.
Her chances of winning the presidential election are slim, unless one of two things happen:
a) A miracle, or
b) The Democrat party decides to embrace her and throw all their resources behind her.
There is no substantive difference between these two options. A more likely scenario is one where Cheney runs as a third-party candidate.
The fact that she is going to run is almost out in the open. At the time of Trump’s townhall with CNN, Cheney’s campaign organization, also known as political action committee, launched an attack ad on Trump in New Hampshire. According to the Washington Post (free subscription required),
The 60-second spot, which Cheney narrates but in which she does not appear … recounts Trump losing the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden and lying to his followers about the results.
She then repeats the unsubstantiated accusation that Trump “mobilized a mob to come to Washington and march on the Capitol.”
As a third-party candidate, Cheney could steal enough moderate Republican votes to give Biden the edge he needs to win. It is very likely that Cheney would do this if she feels she can: stopping Trump from being elected again is all Cheney cares about. She has nothing to contribute regarding the American economy, or on how to rein in the unsustainable budget deficit. On these issues, a Democrat president would be far worse than a Republican who is willing to work with the fiscally conservative majority in the House of Representatives.
Cheney is also mum on cultural and social values, which have become increasingly political in recent years. In addition, she would sacrifice America’s children to sexualized content in school books, if it meant that she could stop Trump from another term in the White House.
To be fair, Cheney has not announced her candidacy yet, so technically speaking she could still deliver meaningful policy ideas on the economy and the cultural war. At the same time, nothing in her record from six years in Congress gives us any reason to believe as much. With the exception of foreign policy and national security, she does not stand out from the crowd.
If she wants to be anything more than an anti-Trump neoconservative, she has her work cut out for herself. In the meantime, Donald Trump forges ahead, determined to return to the White House in January 2025.
The America Report:
The Race for 2024, Part I
We are awaiting big news in American politics in the coming days, when Ron DeSantis, governor of Florida, is expected to file the formal paperwork to run for president. DeSantis will add a new level of excitement to a field of Republican candidates that so far has been dominated by former president Donald Trump.
Since DeSantis has not filed yet, we cannot say much about what kind of presidential candidate he will be. Once his paperwork is in and his campaign platform is up, we can give him a good examination in Part 2 “The Race for 2024.” However, it is clear already, now that with Trump in the spotlight, anyone else vying for the Republican ticket next year will have a tough time competing with the former president.
Donald Trump is such an unusual politician in many ways that his candidacy for a second term may seem like an impossible project. However, there are at least two reasons why we should take him seriously. The first is a man known as John Durham, a so-called special counsel with the U.S. Department of Justice.
In October 2020, with only weeks left to the presidential election where Biden beat Trump, Attorney General William Barr appointed Durham to investigate improprieties related to a pack of documents known as the Steele dossier. It was said to prove that Donald Trump colluded with the Russian government in order to cheat his way into the White House in 2016.
The dossier was eventually proven a hoax and the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign was fined for its role in creating it. Given how the justice system is currently going after Trump for alleged hush-money payments to some woman he supposedly had an affair with, the leniency shown the Clinton campaign for its role in the Russia collusion hoax looks downright absurd. But at least they got fined.
John Durham was appointed special counsel under the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate how the dossier made its way into the political spotlight. This status allowed him to continue his investigation independently; when Democrat Merrick Garland succeeded Republican William Barr as Attorney General, he could not fire Durham or otherwise influence his investigation.
Given his independent status, Durham was able to dig up some interesting information. He found that the FBI not only got involved in the Russia dossier hoax, but in doing so failed to hold itself to the standard of “fidelity to the law.”
In plain English, this means that the FBI ignored its own solemn duty to be an impartial agency of law enforcement. Instead, it took political sides for the Democrats in general, and for Hillary Clinton in particular, and against Trump. Their investigation into the dossier and thereby their endorsement of the false accusations against Trump was an unabashed exhibition of political partisanship. It was so bad, in fact, that it is difficult to see how the FBI is going to come back from it and regain the trust of tens of millions of Trump supporters.
According to Fox News, John Durham explains in his final report that
All in all, Durham’s report provides the final exoneration of Trump regarding the false accusations that he colluded with Russia. But it does more than that—and here is how it can serve him well as a presidential candidate: by clearing his name, the Durham report elevates Trump to the moral high ground among candidates going into 2024. At the same time, President Biden is being pulled deeper and deeper into a cesspool of his own corruption; standing on the foundation of the Durham report, Trump can now put the moral shoe on the other foot. During his entire presidency, Trump had to be on the defense, answering to a barrage of false accusations and pure fairy-tale stories in the ‘news media.’
This time he can be on the offense and rightfully point the finger at his opponent.
However, he can do even more than that, which brings us to the second reason why we ought to take Trump seriously. On May 10th, he gave us an appetizer of what kind of media relations he will have as he goes on the campaign trail. He held a townhall meeting with CNN, with live audience and all. And it was a fireworks show.
I am probably not alone wondering why CNN invited Trump in the first place, but if they wanted to put a nail in his 2024 ambitions, they failed miserably. The host, Kaitlan Collins, tried to confront Trump on issue after issue, but fell flat to the ground. Per John Nolte at Breitbart:
It would be wise not to overstate the effect that this townhall will have on public opinion, in part because CNN does not have that many viewers. At the same time, given the attention the event has gotten after the fact, Trump’s performance will solidify his position as the GOP frontrunner. Every event like this reinforces Trump’s support among the tens of millions who still consider him a good president.
More than that, though, by performing with this level of confidence and clarity, and by talking straight—not speaking politics—he wins over new voters. People who were opposed to him in 2020 but are dissatisfied with life, cost of living, and the left’s unending war on mainstream culture, find his bluntness and confidence refreshing. They will take another look at him going into 2024.
Even CNN had to admit that Trump is digging in as the Republican frontrunner. He remains very popular despite blatant efforts by his adversaries to use the legal system against him. As a case in point, Trump’s popularity has not taken any beatings from the March 30th indictment by the district attorney’s office in Manhattan, New York. Part of the reason is that the case is so weak that the grand jury to which D.A. Alvin Bragg presented it was reluctant to give him the go-ahead.
A grand jury does not sit in trial—its job is to assess whether or not there is sufficient evidence to prosecute someone. Even if it were to approve of Bragg’s case, it is by no means an indication of the outcome of the case in court.
In other words, from a public opinion viewpoint, the legal cases against Trump are going to work to his favor. Meanwhile, there is a growing pile of evidence of serious corruption by President Biden and his family. You do not have to be a dyed-in-the-wool Trump supporter to be dismayed by the unhinged media bias against Trump and for the current president, whose mental abilities voters are already concerned about.
With all this in mind, though, and with all that he has going for himself, Trump must also face the inevitable question: can he win?
If it comes down to a straight race between him and Biden, the answer is affirmative: by the time we get to October next year, with only weeks to go to the election, Biden’s mental health is probably going to be so poor that he may not even be able to speak to the media. There will be no way for his team, or for the Democrats in general, to hide the truth like they did in 2020.
However, there is a fair chance that it won’t be a two-man race. There is a wild card in the deck by the name Liz Cheney. This is the former Representative from Wyoming who ousted herself from the Republican party by going after Trump based on the events of January 6, 2021. She co-chaired the Congressional committee named after that date, appointed under the Democrat House majority in 2021.
Cheney used the committee squarely as a tool to go after President Trump for his alleged incitement of an insurrection. Trump was supposed to have done this out of frustration over losing the 2020 election.
As it turned out, the whole case that Cheney and the committee was trying to build against Trump was based on deliberate misinformation, perhaps even lies. The committee blatantly concealed evidence in Trump’s favor, and went to great length to rewrite the history of that day.
The plan for Liz Cheney was to use the January 6th committee as a launchpad for her own presidential campaign—not officially, of course, but in practice. That committee was meant to give her an aura of integrity and bipartisan appeal, which in turn would make her the inevitable presidential candidate in 2024.
That did not work: her committee failed to produce anything that materially pinned the insurrection accusations on Trump. On the contrary, the final report from the committee was for the most part a nothing burger. When the Republican House majority released over 40,000 hours of video footage showing that there was no insurrection, Cheney’s J6 launchpad fell apart.
Her performance on the January 6th committee may have precluded Cheney from challenging Trump for next year’s Republican nomination. However, that does not mean she has given up her plans for 2024. Her current gig, to teach at the University of Virginia, is just a stopgap measure while she plots her way back into the thick of American politics.
Her chances of winning the presidential election are slim, unless one of two things happen:
a) A miracle, or
b) The Democrat party decides to embrace her and throw all their resources behind her.
There is no substantive difference between these two options. A more likely scenario is one where Cheney runs as a third-party candidate.
The fact that she is going to run is almost out in the open. At the time of Trump’s townhall with CNN, Cheney’s campaign organization, also known as political action committee, launched an attack ad on Trump in New Hampshire. According to the Washington Post (free subscription required),
She then repeats the unsubstantiated accusation that Trump “mobilized a mob to come to Washington and march on the Capitol.”
As a third-party candidate, Cheney could steal enough moderate Republican votes to give Biden the edge he needs to win. It is very likely that Cheney would do this if she feels she can: stopping Trump from being elected again is all Cheney cares about. She has nothing to contribute regarding the American economy, or on how to rein in the unsustainable budget deficit. On these issues, a Democrat president would be far worse than a Republican who is willing to work with the fiscally conservative majority in the House of Representatives.
Cheney is also mum on cultural and social values, which have become increasingly political in recent years. In addition, she would sacrifice America’s children to sexualized content in school books, if it meant that she could stop Trump from another term in the White House.
To be fair, Cheney has not announced her candidacy yet, so technically speaking she could still deliver meaningful policy ideas on the economy and the cultural war. At the same time, nothing in her record from six years in Congress gives us any reason to believe as much. With the exception of foreign policy and national security, she does not stand out from the crowd.
If she wants to be anything more than an anti-Trump neoconservative, she has her work cut out for herself. In the meantime, Donald Trump forges ahead, determined to return to the White House in January 2025.
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