Summer's first blast arrived in Washington this week, adding to an oppressive sense that election-year politics are coming to a poisoned boil.
Six months from Sunday, Americans will decide whether to hand another four year term to Joe Biden, who at that point will be two weeks short of his 82nd birthday. Or will they choose Donald Trump, a twice impeached wannabe autocrat who tried to crush democracy and wants to rule with absolute immunity from prosecution?
The outline of an ugly election season started to come into view this week. Protests at multiple college campuses opened another bitter seam in the politics of a nation that is far from at ease with itself. The spectacle of two, old, White presidential candidates trying to make sense of the situation — or in Trump's case to exploit it — only underscored the gulf between them and protesters, many of whom are six decades their junior. The demonstrations started amid outrage over the civilian toll of Israel's war in Hamas-controlled Gaza — but like everything in a modern America, soon became a cause of cultural and political schisms. Trump tried to frame them as an example of a nation on fire, wracked by radicalism and disorder.
Biden, ever the institutionalist, found himself split between young, progressive voters furious over his support for Israel and more moderate swing state voters who might be susceptible to Trump's exaggerations that the president lost control. Biden finally bowed to pressure to deliver an on camera statement on Thursday and argued that free speech rights must be protected and so must the rule of law, as he condemned violence and vandalism. In a clear swipe at his election rival, who wants National Guard reservists to go in a crush protests, the president said, "We are not an authoritarian nation where we silence people or squash dissent." The two dueling presidents came of age in an earlier time of turmoil -- but both also dodged the society-cleaving upheaval of the civil rights and Vietnam War era student protests of the 1960s and 1970s. "By the time the war movement was at its peak, I was married, I was in law school, I wore sports coats," Biden told reporters in 1987. It's hard to believe now, but America's oldest president was once of the youngest senators in US history. But his way was always to seek change through establishment politics, legislating and the mobilizing of labor unions rather than through protests. As he said the same news conference in 1987: "You're looking at a middle class guy, I am who I am. I'm not big on flak jackets and tie-dye shirts — you know, that's not me."
Trump was against the Vietnam War alright -- so much so that he obtained repeated draft deferments for what he said were heel spurs. But Trump, heir to his father's real estate fortune, wasn't a marcher either. He once told the New York Times, "I was never a fan of the Vietnam War ... But I was never at the protest level, either, because I had other things to do." The lessons that Trump seems to have taken from the 1970s is the Nixonian one that government is a corrupt deep state and a racially tinged one, that left-wing protests are an un-American scourge, and that "law and order" must be restored. |
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Gaza protests broke out across the country this week. |
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The former president was responsible for another ominous moment this week. In an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel newspaper, he refused to commit to recognizing the result of November's election. Of course, if the vote is "honest," he said, he'd be happy to go along. But he implied that the only definition of an honest election could be one that he won. This followed a chilling interview with Trump in "Time" magazine in which he laid out a platform for a strongman presidency, mass deportations of migrants, politically motivated justice and retribution against his enemies. Asked whether he understood why this scared many Americans, he said: "I think a lot of people like it." We all saw this movie in 2020. Nothing is normal right now. After all, the previous and possibly future president is on trial in New York. He was just fined $9,000 for repeatedly violating a gag order with his verbal attacks on witnesses and contempt for the court that almost certainly would have landed any normal defendant behind bars by now. But two weeks into testimony that at times has been damaging for Trump, there's no sign yet that it's changing the political dynamics of a deeply divided nation. Perhaps this is because the alleged crimes date from yet another election in 2016. Trump is accused of falsifying business records in making a hush money payment to a former adult film star to cover up an affair, which he denies, and thereby committing an act of election interference to mislead voters. It's the kind of theory that may make sense to a jury immersed in the case but could puzzle voters. So a question hangs over this case: If a former president and current presumptive nominee is to be tried for the first time in history, shouldn't it be about something that put the republic at risk, given the extraordinary precedent being created? It's far easier to argue that Trump's other three trials, over election interference in 2020 and hoarding classified documents really do reach that bar. But thanks to his legal delaying tactics and the desire of the conservative majority on the Supreme Court to have a say, these cases are unlikely to go to trial before the election.
There's a good chance that Trump will end up convicted in a case that many Americans think only proves his claims that he's a victim of persecution -- while he goes untried on graver cases. It may be better to be born lucky than rich. But Trump is both. |
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Trump, as usual is not telling the truth, as he speaks outside a Manhattan court room on Thursday after another day at his trial. |
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Most pundits will tell you the election is too close to call right now. But polls also suggest that Trump leads Biden on almost every major issue — from immigration to foreign policy to the economy. Biden does have an opening, however, on abortion rights and he and Vice President Kamala Harris spent the week slamming Trump for engineering that conservative Supreme Court majority that overturned the constitutional right to an abortion. Democrats are betting that the issue will fire up activists who long ago soured on Biden and will damage Trump with female voters who are critical to the outcome in battleground states. The ex-president is still flailing comically on abortion — his formulation that it's up to the states to decide what to do only ensures that every time a conservative state legislature or judge comes up with a far right abortion restriction, Biden says it's Trump's fault. It's a good line -- but it's asking a lot for it to save an election. Six months out, there's every reason to think that the 2024 election will be as close and acrimonious as the 2020 version. Trump probably just has his nose in front. But the prospect of a second Trump term is moving from hypothetical to genuine possibility. And that reality alone may be sufficient to scare enough Americans to come out to vote for Biden. Grisly months of the lowest form of political combat lie ahead -- and America may look very different in 2025. That may be why the mood at Saturday night's annual White House Correspondents' Dinner -- where Biden pleaded with the hacks to focus on an imperiled democracy rather than horse race polls -- had a vibe akin to the last parties before the fall of Saigon.
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