Here’s how Trump could pull off an authoritarian third term

The 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says, “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.”

Seems pretty clear-cut, right? 

But read carefully—”no person shall be elected” to the office. And therein lies the keys to Donald Trump’s fantasies of a third term, saying to NBC’s Kristen Welker on Sunday, “There are methods which you could do it.”

So how exactly would Trump become president without being elected president? 

Is Vance loyal enough to give up his hard-earned power were he to win the presidency?

One way, Trump said, would be to swap tickets with Vice President JD Vance. He would run on a ticket with Vance and get elected vice president. Then, Vance would give up the office out of the goodness of his heart and resign, or maybe Trump would just shiv him, who knows. Trump wouldn’t care either way. Regardless, he would then become president. 

Except that won’t work. 

The 12th Amendment says, “no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.”

Well, that seems pretty clear-cut, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, that’s not the only avenue for Trump to try and sneak in. 

The current order of presidential succession is: 

  1. Vice President

  2. Speaker of the House

  3. President Pro Tempore of the Senate

  4. Secretary of State

We’ve already noted that the first is clearly off the table. However, the rest are not. 

The Constitution doesn’t actually set requirements for speaker of the House, saying only, “The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.” 

While every speaker has been a member of the House, it’s clear that there’s nothing requiring that to be the case. Hence, a Republican House could simply elect Trump as speaker, and then elevate him after both the president and the vice president resigned to pave his return to power. 

A plain text reading of the Constitution makes this absolutely possible, though the courts would have to wrestle with the intent of both the 12th and the 22nd Amendments—which collectively make clear that really, two presidential terms is enough. But in this case, Trump wouldn’t be elected to the presidency, he would be elevated to the job. 

Related |‘I’m not joking’: Trump gets serious about running for illegal third term

The more practical impediment to this scenario is that two people would now need to surrender their chances to be president of the United States so fucking Trump could continue trashing the country and the world. People don’t want that, not even Republicans, and that’s before Trump’s policies really do a number on our economy. 

Not to mention, those two people will both have gone through a grueling national campaign, won the votes of tens of millions, and for what? To quit and give it all up right after taking the oath to office? 

Moving down the list, president pro tempore of the Senate is supposed to preside over the Senate in the absence of the vice president (hence the Latin “for the time being”), which the Constitution pretends is the president of the Senate (and in practice, just means a tie-breaking vote if necessary). 

Like the House speaker, the Constitution doesn’t provide any qualifications for the role, so by tradition, the majority party picks its oldest member for the mostly ceremonial position. It is currently Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley.

Presumably a Republican Senate could pick Trump as president pro tempore. But that would require the House to be in Republican hands as well, otherwise a Democratic speaker would ascend to the top. At that point, assuming the whole Republican Party is singing from the same choir book, it would just be easier for the House to make him speaker. 

And finally, there’s that secretary of state job. Imagine Trump as secretary of state? Dear god. In any case, it would be a short-term charade. But now you’re talking about four people giving up their chance to be president—the elected president, the elected vice president, the speaker of the House, and the president pro tempore of the Senate. Trump may be deluded enough to think that many people would clear the path for him, but that would fly in the face of human nature. A not-president Trump would have zero leverage over an actual president

And of course, that’s still assuming that the effort would survive legal challenges based on the 22nd Amendment. After all, it’s clear what the framers of that amendment intended—to prevent another Franklin D. Roosevelt from happening. That is, to prevent another president from entrenching themselves in the Oval Office. 

But it does say a lot about Trump that rather than focus on the job at hand, he’s obsessing over a third term. He wants power for the sake of power itself, jealous of despots like Russia’s Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. Of course, he’s going to indulge in these sorts of fantasies. 

Trump calls himself a king. But we know we are not a nation of kings—and we never will be. Get your Daily Kos T-shirt or hat to spread the message and wear it with pride: No Kings.

Why is Trump being so hard on his former pal Putin?

Donald Trump is a Russian asset, whether willing or unwilling. His obsequiousness toward Russian strongman Vladimir Putin during his first term wasn’t just embarrassing—it became a grave national security threat. 

Trump literally sided with Putin over his own intelligence agencies. And why wouldn’t he? Russia was a major factor in his 2016 election victory. 

Meanwhile, Trump’s first impeachment was literally centered on his effort to blackmail Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, drumming up a fake Hunter Biden investigation in exchange for anti-tank weapons to try to stave off a looming Russian invasion. 

Last year, Trump repeatedly promised to end Russia’s war in Ukraine within “24 hours” of taking office, which many took to mean pulling U.S. support for Ukraine and freezing the conflict in its current state—something Russia desperately needs. 

Yet a funny thing has happened. Trump slobbered over Putin, believing that he and Russia are strong and mighty, serving as an example for his own imperialist and undemocratic designs. But Russia is not strong and mighty. In fact, Russia has run out of tools to prop up its failing economy. And out-of-control inflation, sky-high interest rates, and lower global energy prices have put Putin in a precarious position. 

Somehow, Trump noticed this, and his disdain couldn’t be clearer. We just might have somehow lucked into a pro-Ukraine Trump presidency.

Trump shared his thoughts about Russia’s war in Ukraine on Truth Social Wednesday morning.

I’m not looking to hurt Russia. I love the Russian people, and always had a very good relationship with President Putin - and this despite the Radical Left’s Russia, Russia, Russia HOAX. We must never forget that Russia helped us win the Second World War, losing almost 60,000,000 lives in the process. All of that being said, I’m going to do Russia, whose Economy is failing, and President Putin, a very big FAVOR. Settle now, and STOP this ridiculous War! IT’S ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE. If we don’t make a “deal,” and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other participating countries. Let’s get this war, which never would have started if I were President, over with! We can do it the easy way, or the hard way - and the easy way is always better. It’s time to “MAKE A DEAL.” NO MORE LIVES SHOULD BE LOST!!!

How does Trump always manage to get so much wrong? 

Russia didn’t lose 60 million lives in World War II; it lost 27 million. And, really, seven million of those were Ukrainian, as that total is for the Soviet Union, not Russia. That’s a lot, so why the need to exaggerate it? Probably because the total number of people killed in World War II is around 60 million, and Trump is just too stupid to know the difference—or to fact check. 

Furthermore, tariffs don’t mean shit to Russia, since the U.S. doesn’t really trade with them. In 2022, the United States imported just $15 billion in Russian goods and services. Thanks to deep sanctions, what little we exported, like intellectual property (movies and such), was either appropriated by Moscow or just stolen. 

But sanctions are something that could be hiked up, which would be a welcome response from the Trump administration. 

If Trump really wants the war to end (and to take credit and have statues raised all over Ukraine in his honor), then he needs to do what former President Joe Biden was loath to do: open up the arms spigot and remove all restrictions on their usage. 

More specifically, he needs to flood Ukraine with aircrafts—Ukraine now flies F-16s—and long-range missiles. 

Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump

Russia has endless manpower to incrementally take ground in Ukraine. In October 2024, U.S. intelligence agencies estimated Russian casualties for the entire war at more than 600,000, including those killed and wounded. And that pace has increased year over year as Russia runs out of armor but continues to send soldiers on foot, motorcycle, and even civilian vehicles. 

Yet manpower continues to be sourced from Russia’s poorest, more remote regions, insulating the oligarch elites in Moscow and St. Petersburg from direct consequences. 

That economic instability, on the other hand, hits those oligarchs in the only place it matters, and a continued 10% inflation rate is taking a bite out of everyone’s earning power. 

How long can the czar remain in power if his people are starving? 

Meanwhile, the country’s banking system is on the verge of collapse as Moscow forces them to lend to the military industrial complex—at levels that far exceed their ability to cover the risk. With their inability to access foreign reserves due to sanctions, they are isolated and exposed. Wary of being caught up with retaliatory sanctions from the United States and the European Union, China is steering clear.

While Russia still has significant financial reserves to cover its massive defense-related budget deficits, they are on pace to be depleted by 2030, according to an analysis by Janes—and that’s assuming energy prices don’t crater. 

Saudi Arabia has been threatening to open the spigot, and if Trump’s policy to encourage additional domestic drilling pans out, global prices might further tumble to Russia’s great peril. And additional Western sanctions on oil and on countries that help Russia circumvent sanctions (cough, cough, looking at you, India) will further tighten the noose. 

Long-range missiles would help accelerate Russia’s economic woes. Ukraine’s biggest war gains the past year came from systematically targeting Russian economic engines like refineries and factories. On the ground, Ukraine needs to merely hold the line, extracting a steep price on Russian advances. But if they want to win the war, it will be with long-range missiles. 

Unfortunately, Trump didn’t threaten that, but once Putin ignores Trump’s demands for “A DEAL,” it would be a logical next step to ratchet up the pressure. Someone might even whisper  in his ear—with their fingers crossed behind their back—that if he helps end the war, a Nobel Peace Prize is on the table. 

Trump’s 180-degree turn on Putin clearly stems from Russia’s weakness not only in Ukraine, but also in Syria following the country’s humiliating defeat. 

One Russian Telegram channel claimed that secret negotiations between Russia and Trump representatives in December failed when the Americans made demands that Putin was unwilling to meet. 

All media, public authorities and controlled leaks of [Russian] economic data not only abroad, but also inside the country, the main goal was to convince first the ruling group of Biden, and in the last few months of Trump, about the normal state of the Russian economy, its moderate growth, the absence of critical problems, and the ability of the Russian Federation to continue the confrontation as long as necessary.

For example, our group had all the real indicators of the Russian Federation – a growing decline in GDP by 1-4%, inflation growth of up to 25% over the last year, etc. The main figures for the public space were carefully adjusted, the emerging holes were quietly filled with reserves from the National Wealth Fund. While there was a high probability of reaching an agreement with the US by demonstrating ‘muscles’, it was much more profitable and cheaper to demonstrate them with hidden doping.

There was a categorical ban not only on discussing serious restrictions and deprivations for the population, but also on actually working out such measures – because of possible leaks and confirmation of the ‘weakness’ of the Russian economy for US analysts.

The main scenario assumed that the newly elected U.S. president, who had his hands ‘untied’ at the beginning of his term, would be convinced of Russia's ability to continue the conflict throughout his presidency would want to resolve the crisis quickly, and that this would be the best time for agreements.

There were tense secret negotiations between Russia and Trump's representatives through almost all of December, but the conditions put forward by the Americans were completely unacceptable for the pro-Chinese elite group in Russia, which at this stage has the greatest weight [...]

​​China will not allow an agreement with the US (probably, China leaked the real data of the Russian economy to the US, hence such tough conditions from their side), it will not only receive resources below the cost price and supply its products with 200-300% markup but it will also solve its geopolitical task – talking about friendship and partnership of the Russian Federation, Russia's forehead will hit the US and the EU, bargaining for agreements for itself and preventing its open conflict with the US.

That is quite the conspiracy theory.

The United States doesn’t need China to know the state of the Russian economy. Heck, I’ve linked to a bunch of Western media sources and analysts who have had their finger on Russia’s true economic situation throughout the entire war. 

But the underlying point is quite interesting. Not only is it against China’s interests for the war to end, but Russia is also reliant on it for just about everything right now. Plus, China loves to see EU and U.S. dollars and assets spent on Putin’s theater rather than on Taiwan. 

The end result is a weak Russia and a pathetic Putin, groveling before North Korea for weapons and manpower. And if there’s one thing Trump abhors, it’s weakness. 

By aligning himself against China, Republicans’ favorite geopolitical boogeyman du jour, Trump is further susceptible to influence from pro-Ukraine voices inside the GOP and his administration. 

If he wants to end the war, Trump needs to give Ukraine the means and permission to further target Russia’s failing economic engine. Long-range missiles are the way to do it.

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Men, please don’t take Fox News’ toxic dating advice

Fox News’ Jesse Watters took a break from his election and political propagandizing to give men some dating advice. 

Please don’t listen. 

The chyron reading “Kamala might sink with Biden’s ship” was stupid enough. It’s not the vice president who has consistently trailed in most of the key polling the entire election, with Trump struggling to even hit 46% nationally. For someone who says cringey things every single day on the air, this bit with Trump senior adviser Stephen Miller and Watters is among the worst:

Watters: We are getting a lot of texts from women about Stephen Miller. Our audience believes you are some sort of sexual matador.  Miller: Some advice to any young man out there. If you are a young man who's looking to impress the ladies, to be attractive.. the best thing you… pic.twitter.com/PMwMO3Voz1

— Acyn (@Acyn) October 9, 2024

Watters: We just have to address the elephant in the room. We are getting a lot of texts from women about [Stephen] Miller about his appearances, about his appearance. Our audience on Primetime believes you are some sort of sexual matador. What do you have to say for yourself?  

Miller: Some advice to any young man that’s out there. ... If you are a young man who's looking to impress the ladies, to be the alpha, to be attractive, the best thing you can do is wear your Trump support on your sleeve. Show that you are a real man. Show that you are not a beta. Be a proud and loud Trump supporter and your dating life will be fantastic.

First of all, no, it’s doubtful Fox News is getting “lots of texts from women” about Miller being “some sort of sexual matador.”

But maybe they got one weird-ass message. There are, after all, some pretty deranged people in the world. So Watters sees this message, or maybe not even that, and they decide to do a whole bit on it. 

This wasn’t extemporaneous. Miller had his answers queued up and ready to go. And in the script, Watters thought calling a top Trump surrogate a “sexual matador” was the way to go. 

Eww. 

But then it all gets worse, because Miller sits there with that stupid grin, and decides he’s going to lecture the poor saps watching the show about being “alpha” and not being “beta.” 

And the incels watching are being told that their dating fortunes can be turned around if only they hump Donald Trump harder, something that has consistently been shown to destroy men’s dating lives. Who wants to date men who are drawn to Andrew Tate’s toxic brand of misogyny

As Tate says, “Females don’t have independent thought. They don’t come up with anything. They’re just empty vessels, waiting for someone to install the programming.” 

Is it any wonder that as the electoral gender gap continues to widen to a chasm, then a gulf, into interstellar space, conservatives now argue that women shouldn’t even have the right to vote? 

Christian nationalist Douglas Wilson continues to gripe over women having the right to vote: "The net effect of women's suffrage was not an advance in women's rights but rather part of a push to replace covenanted entities, like families, with raw individualism." pic.twitter.com/wpLMvkcyAu

— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) October 8, 2024

Conservative attacks on the 19th Amendment have picked up steam lately, like John Gibbs, a Trump-backed Michigan congressional candidate who defeated an impeachment-voting incumbent Republican. As a student in the 2000s, he argued that women did not “posess (sic) the characteristics necessary to govern” and said that men were smarter than women because they “think logically about broad and abstract ideas in order to deduce a suitable conclusion, without relying upon emotional reasoning.” He also claimed that the patriarchy is “the best model for the continued success of a society.”

If you’re wondering how much luck Gibbs has had with the ladies, well, the Muskegon Republican Party website has an interview with him that answers that question: “He has never been married, as he believes it has been God's will, but believes it will be in his future.”

Maybe Miller doesn’t actually have the best dating advice for men.

Trump’s refusal to change up his campaign only helps Harris

A very limited number of people like Donald Trump, and his handlers have finally come to terms with that. Yet their answer—to drag Vice President Kamala Harris into the muck with him—only works if he focuses his attention on her. 

Instead, he can’t get past me, me, me. 

This is hardly an original thought. Our own Mark Sumner wrote about it Tuesday, saying, “[Trump is] caught in a trap of reacting to Harris, and when he tries to struggle out, he and his arrogant campaign staff make things all the worse.” But the notion is certainly worth exploring even more. 

There is an old political adage, “When you’re explaining, you’re losing.” No one wants to hear excuses, and by responding to an attack, it inherently both restates it once again, and validates it.” A smart politician knows when to ignore an attack and when to engage it. 

BASH: Trump suggested that you happened to turn Black recently for political purposes, questioning a core part of your identity. HARRIS: Same old tired playbook. Next question, please. BASH: That's it? HARRIS: That's it. pic.twitter.com/RTNin7siVL

— Acyn (@Acyn) August 30, 2024

By ignoring the question about race and asking CNN’s Dana Bash to move on, she not only starved Trump’s sad attempt at an attack line of oxygen, but she made Bash look the fool for even asking it. 

There was no way for the media to even talk about it without being utterly scorched, as Politico found out to its chagrin, when it changed the headline to a corresponding story three times to avoid being dragged by commenters. Here is White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre giving Fox News’ Steve Doocy the same treatment

For all the legitimate attacks Trump faces such as on his illegal Arlington National Cemetery campaign video stunt, his flailing on abortion rights, his pledge to be a dictator on Day One, or his claims that this is the last election anyone has to vote, he also faces a ton of stupid, niggling ones. A smart politician would ignore all that noise and focus on salient attack lines. The old Trump was able to do that. 

But today’s Trump, haunted by his litany of grievances, cannot escape the gravitational pull of even the slightest criticism. Rather than entertain his base with his old formula of crass bigotry and childish schoolyard taunts, he now bores people to tears responding to slights they have no clue even existed. 

For example, it’s becoming increasingly clear that Trump is incapable of holding a coherent thought in his brain, and more and more people are discussing whether he is suffering from cognitive decline. Trump could ignore those attacks. Instead …  “I do the weave,” Trump responded at a rally, likely confusing attendees and leaving them wondering what he was prattling about. “You know what the weave is? I’ll talk about, like, nine different things, and they all come back brilliantly together ... and friends of mine that are, like, English professors, they say it's the most brilliant thing I've ever seen.”

Democrats have been getting a lot of traction calling the Republican ticket weird. "[Gov. Tim Walz] is weird, right? He's weird. I'm not weird. No, he's a weird guy, a weird dude, you know?” Trump said at a Wisconsin town hall. “They always come up with sound bites, and one of the things they say is that JD [Vance] and I are weird. But wouldn't that guy, who's so straight, say that? JD is doing a great job—he's smart, a top student, a great guy, and he's not weird. And I'm not weird either. I mean, we're a lot of things, but we're not weird, I will tell you. But that guy is weird. Don't you think?"

Trump can’t handle Michelle and Barack Obama criticizing him at the Democratic National Convention, complaining about it here, here, and here. The former president’s joke about Trump’s manhood broke him. 

He can’t even get over President Joe Biden passing the baton over to Harris. As recently as last week, on Aug. 26, he whined about Biden while visiting a campaign office in Michigan.

"It's so disappointing" -- Trump is currently at his Michigan campaign office whining that he's no longer running against Biden pic.twitter.com/2pCZovIjmI

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 26, 2024

“They basically take away his nomination,” he said. “No one has ever seen anything like that before.”

You can feel the lack of energy in the room. 

No one cares about his thoughts on Biden’s campaign exit or Obama’s convention dick joke, but by repeatedly bringing up those and other items, he gives new life to the attacks. Frankly, it makes them even funnier. 

But his campaign isn’t laughing. “Americans’ views of the Republican nominee have barely budged over the past nine years, spanning three White House bids, two impeachments, an insurrection, four indictments and an assassination attempt. He remains deeply divisive, with enthusiastic support and intense opposition,” The Washington Post reported Monday. “With little chance of improving Trump’s standing, Trump’s advisers see the only option as damaging hers.”

CNN had its own version of that story. “Donald Trump is trying to crush Democratic nominee Kamala Harris’ persona as a force of change and to destroy her personal credibility as a potential president as their still-fresh competition careens into the final nine weeks before Election Day,” the network reported. “In recent days, the ex-president has unveiled a broad assault using the insult-driven politics with which he won power in 2016, even as his advisers have been pleading with him to focus his attention on top voter concerns including high prices and immigration.”

There are 61 days until Election Day. These Trump advisers are right—Trump needs to drag Harris down in order to win the race. So far it hasn’t happened. Every single day that Trump is fixated on responding to Democratic attacks, big and small, is one day less that Republicans have to hurt Harris.

And yet Trump can’t focus. Even when he does, screeching about Harris being a “communist” is so patently absurd, it doesn’t land with anyone outside the MAGA bubble. 

The consequences of Trump’s inability to focus speak for themselves. In the 538 polling aggregate, Harris had a favorability rating of 37.8 favorable, 52.4 unfavorable on July 21, when Biden dropped out, or a net negative 14.6 percentage points. 

Today? She’s at 46.3% favorable, 46.8% unfavorable, a net improvement of almost 14 percentage points despite the combined mighty efforts of the entire right-wing noise machine. The last seven polls all have Harris either in net positive territory except one, which has it even. The trend is unmistakable. 

Trump is at 43% favorable, 52.5% unfavorable. That is far better than he deserves, but still well underwater. That disparity in the candidates’ favorabilities will cost Trump the election unless they are reversed.

Yet no one can convince him to focus on Harris. He still has feelings about Biden’s exit he needs to process … and he’s doing so very publicly. 

So it seems they’re doomed to watching their nominee waste valuable days by focusing on the most trivial, irrelevant topics, like arguing how attractive he is in response to jokes about his appearance (especially compared to Harris). “I was sort of like a hot guy,” he said to his confused audience. “I was hot as a pistol. I think I was hotter than I am now and I became president. Okay. I don't know. I said to somebody, was I hotter before or hotter now? I don't know.” 

Trump: I was sort of like a hot guy. I was hot as a pistol. I think I was hotter than I am now and I became president. Okay. I don't know. I said to somebody, was I hotter before or hotter now? I don't know pic.twitter.com/7SA1wWkZ4w

— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) May 23, 2024

In any case, tired old Trump isn’t campaigning much these days. His next campaign rally isn’t until Saturday, after having just seven campaign events last month. His people will point to all the media he’s doing, but it’s a combination of Fox News, right-wing podcasts, and other assorted MAGA media hanger-ons. 

Those audiences already hate Harris. He’s not damaging her where Republicans need to kneecap her, among the broader mainstream. 

Let's Kamala Harris keep Trump on the defensive, and put more states in the blue column with a $5 donation to the Harris/Walz campaign.

Biden says he won’t step aside. What happens next?

Despite continuing calls for him to step aside as the Democratic Party’s nominee, President Joe Biden says he’s not going anywhere. A significant contingent of Democratic leaders disagrees with that decision.

So where do things stand now?

This year’s presidential race was already neck-and-neck heading into a June 27 debate that Biden requested, using rules he established. The result was not great, as I wrote at the time. “President Joe Biden had one job Thursday, one job only—prove to America that he still has what’s needed to be president, despite rampant questions about his age. He didn’t do that. Instead, he validated the worst criticisms.”

Three weeks later, the debate rages on inside the Democratic Party: Should Biden stay or should he go?

The problem is, there is no real mechanism to force him out. Some have said that delegates can take it upon themselves to ditch Biden, given the party rule stating that “Delegates elected to the national convention pledged to a presidential candidate shall in all good conscience reflect the sentiments of those who elected them.” That sounds good on paper, except that it’s not as simple as that.

There are 3,979 pledged delegates to the Democratic National Convention. To oust Biden, 1,990 would have to not just abandon Biden, but do so for a single other candidate. This means there would have to be an actual campaign, with all the trappings that would entail—public appeals for support, clearing the field, and managing the inherent divisiveness of such a move. (Disclosure: I’m a California delegate to the convention.)

In other words, forcing Biden out of the race against his will would require an organized rebellion and unity in purpose that is well beyond the Democratic Party’s ability. You can see it even in the statements of those demanding that Biden quit—few are clearly advocating for the obvious alternative, Vice President Kamala Harris. They all talk about some truncated primary process because the second an actual Biden alternative is named, it generates opposition from supporters of other potential replacement candidates.

That’s why on Wednesday, California Rep. Adam Schiff called for Biden to “pass the torch” without explaining how and to whom. The second he named a name, people would disagree with that alternative, starting a debate that does nothing to help us win in November.

Timing is important here, as there are several deadlines approaching. One is the party’s decision to nominate Biden in a virtual roll call, first agreed on to avoid the filing deadline in Ohio. Like Alabama, Ohio’s deadline has since been moved to after the convention, so efforts to continue with the virtual roll call appear to be motivated by the desire to shut down Biden’s intra-party detractors and lock in Biden’s nomination ahead of the late-August Democratic convention.

That doesn’t mean that Biden, even after being nominated, couldn’t drop out and release his delegates by the convention’s start. The bigger timing issue is simple: We’re less than four months away from Election Day, and every single day that the focus isn’t on Donald Trump is a day that he has effectively won the news cycle.

Elections are usually a referendum on the incumbent. This year, we effectively have two incumbents—a sitting and a former president. So in order to win, we have to make this election about Trump and ask voters whether they want to return to the chaos, incompetence, and fascist tendencies of the Trump administration … but supercharged.

538’s polling average has shown a roughly 2-point drop for Biden post debate, a relatively small effect given his disastrous performance and the media’s near-constant coverage of it. But the explanation is simple: It’s about the narrative.

Before the debate, Democrats said Trump was a dangerous liar, and Republicans said Biden was cognitively addled and old. Then the debate happened, and what did voters see? They saw that Trump was a dangerous liar, and Biden was old and suffering from cognitive decline. The narrative had been set, and the debate confirmed it. Biden missed a golden opportunity to reset that narrative, but it wasn’t to be.

Ultimately, voters saw nothing in the debate that they didn’t already assume was true.

And because of that, some Democrats’ efforts to push Biden out of the race have largely proven self-destructive. The news cycle is speeding past at a dizzying pace. An assassination attempt on Trump four days ago is now old news. Had Democrats shrugged off Biden’s performance and quickly moved on, the whole debacle would now be ancient, mostly forgotten news. Instead, Democrats have insisted on replaying the ordeal in the news every single day.

I get it—we have a lot more at stake than Republicans do. Democrats recognize that our rights and our very democracy are on the line. As for Republicans: What do they have to fear from Biden? Just look at Trump’s nickname for Biden—”Sleepy Joe.” We are fearful of losing our rights, they are fearful of what—a president that falls asleep?

We even have data on this. A March AP poll found that around 70% of Democrats were fearful of another Trump presidency, while a significantly fewer 56% of Republicans said the same about a Biden presidency. He’s just not that scary.

That’s why conservative memes often portray Biden as a puppet being manipulated by George Soros or Bernie Sanders (the Jews!), or Barack Obama or Harris (the scary Blacks!). Or maybe all of the above.  

Trump and his MAGA ilk really don’t know how to run against an old white man, someone who looks just like the Republican base. They prefer to run against the “other.” That’s always been the case, and that’s why Trump called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on July 25, 2019, to try to manufacture a fake investigation against Hunter Biden. That was the same phone call that led to Trump’s first impeachment.

At that time, Biden was polling in the high 20s or low 30s in the Democratic primary. Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren were polling high, and had they united the left wing of the party, could’ve posed a serious threat. But Trump wasn’t worried about them: He was worried about Biden, and actively working to kneecap his candidacy early. Turns out, Trump had every reason to fear Biden the most.

For his part, Biden is through listening to his party’s critics. He wanted to run for president in 2016, but party leaders pushed him aside in favor of Hillary Clinton. When he geared up to run in 2019, the same voices claimed he was too old and archaic to defeat Trump. Heck, I was saying those things. Yet Biden proved his critics wrong, and did something that has only been done five times since 1912—he defeated an incumbent president.

Biden is done listening to critics.

So the critics in the Democratic Party are saying he should step aside, and he’s thinking, “They were wrong in 2016, they were wrong again in 2020, and they’re wrong again today.”

Of course, the Biden of four years ago is a different one than today’s Biden. Heck, he even seems different from the Biden who nailed the State of the Union address back on March 7. So yeah, people have reason to be freaked out, but the fundamentals of the race haven’t changed. Swapping out a candidate won’t reset the race for the Democrats; it’ll just create strife and ill feelings at a time when we need to be focused on Trump and his Project 2025 agenda. And much of what I wrote pre-debate about why Biden is not looking as bad as the polls indicate? It still holds up today.

Democrats have been overperforming polling since 2020. That includes 2022, when everyone declared that a red wave was inevitably going to sweep Democrats out of power in Congress, state houses, and state legislatures across the country. That certainly didn’t happen. And in regular and special elections, Democrats continue to overperform. Meanwhile, Trump underperformed his polling during the contested part of the Republican primary season.

Even globally, the far right has underperformed polling and expectations in India, Poland, and most recently, in France. (The right was swept out of office in the United Kingdom, but that was well predicted by the polling.) We’re consistently seeing that when facing right-wing authoritarian fascism, voters turn out in greater numbers than predicted, no matter what the polls say.

None of that means Biden is a shoo-in, but we’re not facing a calamitous situation. Indeed, Biden’s chances of winning in 538’s election model have inched up in recent days, to 54%. That’s a coin flip, within the margin of engagement. That was true before the debate, it’s true after the debate, and it will be true after the Republican convention and even the Democratic one.

The winner of the 2024 presidential election will come down to which side out-hustles the other one on the ground, turning out their vote in just a handful of battleground states. There isn’t a single potential candidate (pie-in-the-sky nominee Michelle Obama doesn’t count) that would significantly change the dynamics of this race. The country is locked into hyperpartisanship so strong that few people’s minds will be changed by anything—not even the attempted assassination of one of the candidates. (It’s true: Trump got zero bump.)

With Biden fully committed to his reelection campaign, it serves little purpose for senior Democrats to continue undermining the sitting president. You don’t have to like it (most don’t), you can think it sucks (and you might be right!), but Biden is holding all the cards. We either get back to focusing on Trump and Project 2025, or we give Trump a big assist in his bid to reoccupy the Oval Office.

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ICYMI: Judge says woman can get abortion, Texas AG loses his mind

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is out of control

Only hours after a judge ruled to allow a Texas woman facing a nonviable, life-threatening pregnancy to seek an abortion, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton threatened hospitals and doctors with both civil and criminal penalties if they comply with the judge’s ruling.

When possible, Republicans have enacted some of the most extreme abortion bans, and Texas has among the worst. But cases like this one, which expose the GOP’s cruel and heartless attitudes toward women, have further galvanized national opposition to the bans. They’re also giving Democrats ammunition heaving into an election cycle with a generally favorable environment.

In fact, Paxton’s unhinged response is beyond absurd, and must be read to be believed.

More top stories

Venezuela is threatening war with Guyana, and the tankies approve

Here is everything you ever wanted to know about the next possible war, this one brewing in South America.

Gov. Tim Walz criticizes GOP's 'obsession' with strange and cruel issues

Yup. See the opening item above.

Carlson turns a sober warning of Russian threat into a false claim of extortion

Word is that Trump wants this propagandist as his running mate.

GOP impeachment resolution: A circus without substance

House Republicans seem hell-bent on moving forward with their sham “impeachment inquiry” against President Joe Biden, but they don’t even pretend to have a reason for doing so.

Senate Republicans hand Putin a propaganda victory

When Republicans aren’t busy inventing fake impeachments, they’re busy handing Russia and its murderous dictator Vladimir Putin propaganda victories.

This week’s most-read stories

  1. In late-night rant, George Santos shows he's determined to light the GOP on fire

  2. The Ziegler story gets more icky, but what it reveals about Republicans is just as bad

  3. Donald Trump is so thrown by his own shaky performance that he thinks it’s AI

  4. The Newsom-DeSantis debate did not go well. For Ron DeSantis

  5. George Santos was just expelled. Here's what happens to his seat

  6. Taylor Swift is Time's person of the year and the far right is big mad about it

  7. Justice Samuel Alito isolated in tax case he refused to recuse from

  8. White House has things to say as Speaker Johnson reverses course on impeachment inquiry

  9. The moment of reckoning: When DeSantis realizes Newsom just cleaned his clock

  10.  A House Republican tells the truth about the push to impeach Biden

Comic:

More comics.

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ICYMI: Republicans reveal the smoking (cap) gun in Biden impeachment inquiry

Monday’s theme? Republican weakness

Republicans don’t seem to be trying very hard as we head into the December holidays.

The Republican effort in the House to impeach President Joe Biden took a new step forward before quickly taking two steps back. Rep. James Comer sure thought he’d found the smoking gun, but his latest claims were debunked in record time, and we could feel secondhand humiliation from here.

Meanwhile, Republicans are dipping their toes into the world of “deepfakes” and artificial intelligence with a new scare campaign aimed at America’s beloved national parks

And finally, some Republicans are starting to recognize the sustained damage Donald Trump has done to the GOP over the past seven or so years.

These stories are all signs of the weakness of the Republican platform going into 2024. With no evidence of any crimes by Biden, Republicans are throwing anything and everything at the wall to see what sticks in order to keep their conspiracy-lovin' base happy.

More top stories

The cults that took over Christian colleges now aim to take over your government

So gross.

Texas GOP executive committee rejects proposed ban on associating with Nazi sympathizers

Everything really is bigger in Texas, even the WTFs.

The Newsom-DeSantis debate did not go well. For Ron DeSantis

We are still wondering how it is possible Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is still a candidate for anything after this spectacular meltdown.

Kari Lake demonized Arizona Republicans. Now she’s demanding their support for her Senate run

It is very difficult to tell who's bullshitting who on this one.

Sunday Four-Play: DeSantis-bot glitches out, and ex-Trump aide says the former guy is 'slowing down'

For a party that has invested so much in the “Joe Biden is cognitively addled” narrative, it doesn’t help when their own candidate has so clearly lost a step … or three.

After Trump re-ups Obamacare repeal threats, Biden drops ad touting cuts in health care costs

People like Obamacare. Democrats are thrilled that Trump has once again promised to destroy it.

With 100% clean energy mandate, Michigan Democrats show elections have consequences

Good things happen when Democrats win elections.

White House warns of impending crisis in Ukraine assistance funding

President Joe Biden is issuing an urgent appeal for help.

Comic:

A cartoon by Mike Luckovich.

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ICYMI: Media sleeps as Trump blatantly disregards constitutional norms

Why is the media ignoring Trump's direct threats to our Constitution?

Donald Trump keeps threatening our nation’s democracy in no uncertain terms, and yet the nation’s media insists on treating his proclamations as spectacle, when they’re not outright ignoring him.

Take Trump’s fascist declaration that his potential next administration would “root out the communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country, that lie and steal and cheat on elections.” Historians have noted the alarming similarities to Adolf Hitler’s and Benito Mussolini’s eliminationist rhetoric, yet a Media Matters for America analysis found that our media could barely be bothered to care. Indeed, comparing the media’s coverage of Hillary Clinton’s “deplorables” comment to Trump’s “vermin” comment is … just go look for yourself.

Well, now he’s threatening the media, promising in a social media post to “come down hard” on MSNBC for its “constant attacks” on him. Clearly, Trump has no use for the First Amendment or the Constitution in general. Yet, can we expect the media to rally around its freedoms by calling out such outrageous threats? Don’t hold your breath. The media has a history of ignoring his threats, after all. If only his name were Hillary Clinton, perhaps then they’d be more suitably outraged.

More top stories

Senate Republicans do Trump's bidding on Ukraine, immigration

Once upon a time, the Republican Party stood tough against Russian imperialism. But now, thanks to Trump, they are Vladimir Putin’s useful idiots.

Hunter Biden called James Comer's bluff. Now Comer is flailing

This was hilarious yesterday. Given how Republicans are still flailing, it remains hilarious today.

Students for Trump co-founder charged with assaulting woman with firearm

They really are deplorables, though.

Reporter asks simple Biden impeachment logic question. Speaker Mike Johnson changes the subject

Republicans are forging ahead on their Biden “impeachment inquiry” despite zero evidence to support it. With one question, one reporter lays bare the absurdity of the Republicans’ actions.

Trump tries to delay trial with another spurious court filing, but this one’s a stinker

This is what happens when Trump dictates his legal strategy instead of letting people who know what they’re doing take the lead.

How many times will Tommy Tuberville pull the football away from Senate Republicans?

This time he’ll allow military promotions to proceed, promise! He just needs a couple more days. …

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Republican chaos is purposefully designed to dampen voter engagement

The Washington Post ran an illuminating story on Sunday titled, “In a swing Wisconsin county, everyone is tired of politics.”

A more honest headline would’ve been, “In a swing Wisconsin county, everyone is tired of Republican politics.”

With conservative nihilists either actively destroying our institutions, like the Freedom Caucus and the U.S. House of Representatives, or promising to do so, like Donald Trump, it should come as no surprise that people are growing increasingly tired of this.

Still, traditional media outlets remain wary of ascribing proper blame, doing a disservice to people who take that “both sides do it” coverage to heart. The Washington Post article featuring people in Wisconsin’s Door County, which is between Milwaukee and Green Bay, exemplifies that. It is one of just nine counties in the country that have voted for the winning presidential candidate since 2000. Let’s take a look.

The pandemic and inflation have already rattled folks, and the broader political backdrop — the impeachments, Trump’s torrent of falsehoods about the 2020 election, the Capitol insurrection, the band of hard-right Republicans ousting their speaker — has blocked out notice of what both sides cast as accomplishments, such as the billions of dollars poured into updating the nation’s roads, bridges and ports. Even as the economy grows at the strongest pace in two years, and jobs continue to proliferate, signs of progress are easy to miss amid what voters see as screaming matches.

So what are these screaming matches voters tell the Post are distressing them? Impeachments, Trump’s 2020 lies, the insurrection, and former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s ouster. What do all these items have in common?

The answer is obvious: They are all things conservatives do. Even the pandemic was exacerbated by anti-science Republicans. Yes, voters refuse to see positive news on the economy because of those Republican screaming matches, but that’s on purpose. Republicans have every interest in making sure Democrats don’t get credit for being responsible stewards of our economy.

Here is the next paragraph:

They long for compromise. They want to feel heard and understood. Most Americans, for instance, desire access to abortion, tighter restrictions on guns and affordable health care. Many wonder why our laws don’t reflect that.

Access to abortion, tighter gun restrictions, and affordable health care? Which party is fighting for that, and which one opposes all those things?

Again, the article shouldn’t be about how people are disenchanted with politics, but with how Republicans are poisoning the electorate that otherwise supports the core Democratic agenda.

Nichols, a 58-year-old caregiving service manager in the city of Sturgeon Bay, sees Biden as “not super impressive” at a time when she aches to be reassured. She wants a leader who can bring the sparring factions together — a feat no one seems to be close to accomplishing. (Her favorite thing about Biden, though: “He’s not always in the news.”) Trump, on the other hand, was guilty of “mean girl behavior,” she thought, picking fights with even his own party while racking up criminal charges.

The government in general reminded her of the reality series “Big Brother” — “with all the lies and deals behind the scenes.”

“You don’t know where to turn or who to believe,” she said.

So … she longs for a leader who can bring everyone together, but she is upset by “all the … deals behind the scenes.” Politics isn’t about facts and figures, it’s about vibes. That entire sentence is nonsensical, yet this voter absolutely believes it. It doesn’t mean she’s stupid or unsophisticated; we need to stop thinking of voters that way. (I used to do so, and I’m increasingly realizing that it is not helpful in achieving our goals.) It means Republicans have done a great job of muddling the political landscape so that it repels people who are natural Democratic supporters.

Talking about Washington, [League of Women Voters advocates] decided, isn’t the best way to nudge Door County voters to the polls. But when the group focused on hot-button issues, Kohout noticed, residents seemed eager to listen. Chairs filled up at their event focused on mental health and opioid addiction.

Investment in mental health and opioid addiction? Again, those are government investments Democrats are happy to make, and Republicans are eager to block.

Henderson had liked Trump’s outspokenness at first — she would have voted for him in 2020 but was recovering from surgery on Election Day. Now she resents his “cockiness” and wishes he and other politicians would channel more energy into addressing the soaring cost of food. Two months ago, she’d had to lift the price of every menu item by 50 cents, and now her barbecue chicken Mother Clucker sandwich cost $10.75. Customers, she knew, wouldn’t pay much more than that.

Inflation is a serious issue, and arguing that the United States has the lowest inflation rate of any industrialized nation doesn’t do much to assuage those concerns. But we also know that a big part of inflation is corporate America taking advantage of it to artificially raise prices, leading to record Wall Street profits. One party would do something about that, the other wants to give corporations unfettered ability to price-gouge Americans.

The article then meanders around some Libertarians in the area, because sure, why not talk to a Libertarian about (checks notes) abortion rights, tighter gun restrictions, affordable health care, corporate price gouging, and mental health and opioid programs?

The LGBTQ+ community here is small, [Owen Alabado] said. As a gay man with Filipino roots in the overwhelmingly White town of Baileys Harbor, he stood out. It felt personal when Door County’s board of supervisors voted in September to restrict what flags can be raised on county poles, effectively banning the Pride rainbow. Then lawmakers in Washington elected a House speaker who had previously suggested criminalizing gay sex.

Alabado was sick of the division, he said. Neither party, he thought, seemed capable of fixing it. He wished he could be excited to vote for Biden, rather than feel obligated to do so to defend “basic human rights.”

“I can’t really speak to anything he has done,” he said, “because I’ve tuned it out, like a lot of people have. We’re so tired of the us-against-them politics.”

One party is banning the LGBTQ+ flag and trying to criminalize gay sex, but sure, both parties are part of the problem. And “I don’t know what Biden has done because I refuse to pay attention” is a weird flex. But again, vibes. People are fed up with the toxicity of our politics and they want to tune out. Who does this benefit? Republicans. Conservatives are doing this on purpose.

The single most successful Biden moment over the past three years hasn’t been any of his actual and very real policy accomplishments. It was the Dark Brandon meme.

We can lament the lack of sophistication among key voters, chastising them for not doing politics right, or we can understand that nihilist conservatives are destroying our institutions precisely to drive down voter participation and engagement.

If it takes Dark Brandon to combat that, sign me up. And over the next year, we’re going to have to find ways to talk to people in a way that calms and reassures them while also driving home the existential threat to our democracy that Trump represents.

Does that seem like an impossibly contradictory task? It is. But that’s what the country wants, and it will be our job as liberals and Democrats to find the solution.

Republicans are challenging labor leaders to fights and allegedly physically assaulting one another. Donald Trump says he will abolish reproductive rights entirely and is openly calling for the extermination of his detractors, referring to them as “vermin” on Veterans Day. The Republican Party has emerged from its corruption cocoon as a full-blown fascist movement.

ICYMI: Trump praises terrorists, calling them ‘very smart’

Donald Trump praises terrorists

Donald Trump has always been a terrible human being, but no one can say he wasn’t effective. He conquered the Republican Party and won the presidency by projecting power and strength. He also has an uncanny ability to tickle the conservative lizard brain, validating their most racist, sexist, xenophobic, and bigoted tendencies. However, those political instincts seem to have abandoned Trump lately. His low-energy, slurred-word, bizarrely meandering speeches (like this one and this one) are getting him in repeated trouble.

Trump has already angered his anti-abortion constituency by criticizing the draconian restrictions that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law. But today, Trump finally united his Republican primary challengers in outrage. First, he criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu because Netanyahu, in Trump’s words, “didn’t make me feel too good.” Second, Trump made sure everyone understood just how impressed he was by the terrorists attacking Israel. “You know, Hezbollah’s very smart, they’re all very smart. The press doesn’t like when they say [unintelligible],” he said. But just in case his admiration wasn’t clear enough, he restated his main point: “But Hezbollah, they’re very smart.” Good luck walking that one back.

The 2016 version of Trump would not have made this mistake, but that Trump wasn’t burdened with two-plus years of post-presidential grievances. Trump never got over Netanyahu congratulating Joe Biden on his victory in 2020. “Fuck him,” Trump said about Netanyahu at the time. For Trump, that anger now manifests as him praising terrorists.

Republicans still can’t govern

Trump isn’t the only challenge facing Republicans, who every single day prove their inability to govern. In the House of Representatives, the Republican majority still can’t get their act together to pick a speaker. While earning the official backing of a majority of the Republican caucus, Rep. Steve Scalise is still a long way from the 217 votes he needs from the entire House to become speaker. With enough “hard no” votes among nihilist Republicans to scuttle any leadership vote, Republicans remain paralyzed—and will continue to be until they cut a deal with Democrats. What could Democrats demand? At minimum: funding for Ukraine, Israel, and disaster relief; an omnibus bill to keep the government funded until after the 2024 elections; and an end to the baseless impeachment inquiry against Biden. Meanwhile, Rep. Kevin McCarthy wants his old job back, and he thinks pretending to be an elder statesman will get him there. His problem? He sucks at it.

So where is Trump in all of this? Ghoulishly using Scalise’s cancer diagnosis to undermine him.

Other top stories:

A new indictment charges Sen. Menendez with being an unregistered agent of the Egyptian government 

Unlike Republicans, Democrats don’t rally around their crooks. Menendez must go.

Ukraine Update: Russia suffers catastrophic losses in two ill-fated attacks

In these dark days, who doesn’t love a heart-warming story of a massive Russian battlefield loss?

Ohio effort to end GOP gerrymandering can begin gathering voter signatures for the 2024 ballot

Trump won Ohio by 8 percentage points in 2016 and 2020, yet Republicans hold 10 of the state’s 15 seats in one of the nation’s most aggressive partisan gerrymanders. In August, Ohio voters soundly rejected a Republican effort this summer to curtail citizen ballot initiatives. And speaking of gerrymandering, the U.S. Supreme Court is considering a case out of South Carolina that might make it harder to challenge Republicans’ racial gerrymanders.

'Podiumgate': The Huckabee Sanders' scandal that keeps on giving

Arkansas Republicans weakened child labor laws so that kids could work at bars on school nights. The state also enacted some of the nation’s strictest anti-abortion laws. And apparently, that’s all A-okay with voters. But buying a $20,000 lectern with taxpayer money? Suddenly, people are pissed!

Banker says Trump’s financial statements were key to loan approvals, but there were 'sanity checks' 

A bank official testified that his financial institution relied on Trump’s reported valuations, but they also kinda knew he was lying, giving the numbers “haircuts.”

Moms for Liberty's school board takeover strategy is meeting pushback

These Moms for Liberty tactics are deplorable, but parents are getting savvy to them and pushing back.