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I say again with incredulity and frustration, not pride (ok: some professional pride): I cannot believe how, almost alone within my class of journalists, I must explain once more the four highly related phenomena:
1. Why Donald Trump won in 2016.
2. Why Donald Trump, after nearly four years of Trumpiness in the White House, got the second-most votes of any presidential candidate in American history.
3. Why the Republican Party of Donald Trump is poised to dominate the midterms.
4. Why Donald Trump is the authoritarian frontrunner for his party’s 2024 presidential nomination and could easily get another four-year term.
(And, yes, I put three “I”s in the first sentence on Trumpian purpose….)
One might think, given the Dominant Media’s obsession with this person named “Donald Trump” that devoting a lot of reporting time and brain capacity to developing an extremely deep understanding of the whys, hows, and whats that explain those four matters would be not just a high priority, but one of the most important tasks for journalism in the United States (not to mention around the world) from 2015 to forever.
And yet there is not any great book on this topic, and the realities of the answers fail to infuse the daily journalism of the nation’s most influential periodicals or TV programs.
Granted, in the Red media there is on occasion something that gives a slanted, second-order description of what is going on – but that is a different kettle of beast than I am talking about.
For those few of us who understand this in all its multilayered complexity, every day is Groundhog Day, offering up constant reminders of why from the Reddest MAGAites to Rob Portman, the Grand Old Party is the Trump Party, not just competitive with the Blues in Washington and on the national town square, but on the precipice of having overwhelming, majority power in all three branches of government in about 2 ½ years.
Why do I nearly alone in my cohort understand this?
It could be because I covered Mr. Trump (and his supporters) in more than 30 states in 2015 and 2016.
It could be because I speak to enough Americans to understand that the long-running bipartisan consensus on issues such as immigration and China (what I call “The Rule of the Two Larrys”) was for years out of step with the views of tens of millions of the American people.
Or it could be because my residency in a variety of establishment/Gang of 500 quarters (grew up in Bethesda with the Washington Post as my hometown paper, went to Harvard, worked in the newsrooms of several Dominant Media organizations, live on the Upper West Side of Manhattan) has allowed me to view and understand the warts inside the belly of the beast.
I cannot tell you, Blue readers, the number of people I know who are anywhere from disgusted to their core by Donald Trump to wishing he would leave the stage who would vote for him for president in 2024 because they (still) want to send a message to woke corporate leaders, biased social media platforms, Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, Randi Weingarten, and the Dominant Media that amounts to “F You.”
Getting our heads around this all is important for at least three reasons:
1. We should all understand the recent history, current state, and future prospects of the United States of America.
2. If you are Bluesperson, you probably should be concerned about these topics to avoid losing more elections.
3. We cannot bring the nation together in unity to address our greatest challenges until we uncouple about half the country from a man who goes around falsely claiming the 2020 election was stolen, undermining our democracy and eating away at our collective soul.
Here is someone else who understands this topic quite well, albeit from a different perspective than I bring to the table – Gerard Baker of the Wall Street Journal editorial page, writing today on the Democrats and the left, breaking the code on their plans:
They’re going to do it again, aren’t they? It worked so well for them in 2020 that they can hardly be blamed for thinking they can repeat it in 2022.
The modern left’s rules for radicals were followed to the letter in the wake of George Floyd’s murder two years ago: Seize on an event that attracts national attention to promote their extreme ideological objective; knowingly misrepresent what that event means with the eager help of friendly media to maximize public fear; mobilize a mob to intimidate those who might stand in their way; compel the obeisance of a craven crowd of corporate chiefs, technology leaders and other influential figures; and have it all justified and promoted by Democratic officeholders and candidates.
In 2020 the campaign created enough of a climate of fragile uncertainty that many voters were persuaded to validate it to avoid further turmoil.
To paraphrase what I have said about my longtime colleagues in the Dominant Media who comically go around denying the existence of pernicious liberal bias in their work: You might not agree at all with what Baker writes, but you should know that about half the country not only believes it, but believes it fervently, and believe that what to them is clear-as-day systemic bias has tilted the playing field of politics, elections, governance, and society against them for several decades running.
Want another example of the thousands I could provide from today?
Read Jen Psaki’s too-little-too-late-not-enough tweet following on her previous unwillingness to say that protesting outside the homes of justices should be off limits:
This is all primarily the fault of the right (none of which is or should be excused), but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t unpack the culpability of the left and center left.
I’m about The Presumption of Grace and about trying to fix this — which starts with understanding.
[Forgive the typos.]
****
ESSENTIAL READING
* The Washington Post’s latest treatment on how the pending Supreme Court decision on abortion could impact the midterms illustrates that my original analysis still stands: nobody knows nothing about nothing on this topic.
* Midge Decter, RIP. Condolences to her whole family. What a life.
****
I am keeping this edition compact today because I have to catch a flight and because I wrote this all Tuesday morning from scratch and because I don’t see a lot of other new news out there and because I don’t want to dilute my main point, which I think is just so very, very important for ALL of America to grapple with.
So please grapple with it, denizens of Blue, Red, and Purple Nations!