Trump continuing to insist on his Victimhood will hit the electorate, by 2024, as an assault on the Rule-of-Law. Celebrity that TFG says he is, the American public has demonstrated that it can turn on it's celebrities when it comes to jury trials, as Bill Cosby, and others, can surely attest to.
It's interesting, listening to recent pundit commentary on the significance of the beginnings of legal accountability for TFG. By 2024, TFG will be running for office, as the head of the Republican party, with a conviction by a jury for sexual assault that they've heard him pretty much confess he's done numerous times in the past, as well as likely forthcoming criminal indictments ranging from seditious conspiracy (Fani Willis’ GA investigation) to obstruction (Jack Smith’s Mar-a-Lago probe).
The American practice of jury trial is an interesting detail about American society and the way it binds citizens to the Law and, by extension, Government. Many (most?) countries don’t use jury trials in their justice systems, or at least not to the extent the United States does. But thanks to that practice (I’ve personally sat on numerous civil and criminal trials here in Manhattan, and in the same building Ms Carroll just had hers! I’ve even had the honor of serving on a federal grand jury, which is another fascinating experience of citizenship in America). The point being, millions of Americans have done their duty sitting in judgement of their fellow citizens, and all the data shows that virtually all jurors take their responsibility seriously, and that for all of our obsequiousness toward famous people and celebrities, questioning the integrity of the American justice system is often the rock that ‘famous people’ founder on.
When it comes to TFG’s recent conviction of sexual abuse in the E Jean Carroll case, national polling clearly shows women and men have come around to the whole point of the #MeToo movement in the 21st century — that accountability for assault on women and girls needs to be taken seriously. Because men have mothers and sisters, have wives, and raise daughters, yet experience enough toxic masculinity in their lives to know that it shouldn’t continue to be normalized, just as it once wasn’t discussed. Men were able to buy into the #MeToo movement because women are family. And family matters.
Yet, the self-anointed, erstwhile cardinals of ‘family values’ on the right, have today allowed themselves to be brainwashed into thinking that taking such care for others, is ‘men being feminized’.
It doesn’t get more misogynistic than that.
With the GOP likely to continue to be bolted onto the Trump train, and the prospect of an insurrection-supporting sexual predator asking voters to make him President again, it's going to leave voters open to another repeat from 2020: that Joe Biden — even a 4 years older Joe Biden, along with his administration — are the 'safe hands' the country needs to be remain in.
That's the rebuttal to the trope that Joe Biden isn't capable, or worthy, or deserving, of a second term as President.
Whatever you think about Biden's mental capacity, 'continuity' is preferable to the wack-jobber servitude to a sexual predator and candidate that flagrantly disrespects the legal system and the Law, along with a party and a movement slavishly, and disturbingly, loyal to him.
However, that rebuttal also suggests how the Donor class will respond to a weak (Republican) candidate, as it has in other countries with weak political institutions: Funding multiple candidates to split the opposition vote.
To the extent there are donors that want to salvage the Republican brand by funding Republican alternatives, Trump's vanity will likely keep that to a minimum on the right, ahead of the primaries. But on the so-called left? That's where the messaging from the Biden presidential and Democratic congressional re-election committees have to be on point:
1 — Save Democracy,
2 — Rule of Law,
3 — Safe Hands with Biden and the Democrats.
And...it had all better have a TikTok presence.
Why TikTok? Love it or hate it (I'm not a user of the service, myself) TikTok is a window to an awful lot of American voters (just as in other countries) - particularly young one's - and in their own way, what they see and hear in that space is taken seriously, even if it’s marketed as a platform for fun hijinx on video. Jair Bolsonaro, was a fringe, disgraced, Brazilian military man, and ex-Congressman, known for his religion-based conservatism, who TikTok'd his way into the Brazilian presidential palace in 2016, alongside Trump's upset victory here in the US.
Steve Bannon, TFG’s erstwhile 2016 campaign advisor, took note of that at the time, but failed to get the Trump family to do what Bolsonaro and his adult sons did: humanize their fringe-y Dad to appeal to a wider electorate. (The reasons are likely the same reasons that Apprentice and Celebrity Apprentice outtakes are still in producer Mark Burnett’s vault, to this day. Real life Donald Trump would not be a pleasant experience, either for the American public, or for the video editors to package appropriately.)
The Biden re-election campaign, for it’s part, would be wise to own something like a 'Grandpa Joe' meme, to bake in the idea of ‘connecting generations’, with a ‘culture of acceptance’ that a proverbial grandfather would possess. “Uncle Sam, meet Grandpa Joe”.
We can already see efforts to split the Dem vote getting funded on the left, like the 'No Labels' organization, pushing the faux centrist alternative to 'Biden Democrats', and floating a 'suburbanite' candidacy by getting No Labels ballot access in all 50 states. Names like former Senator Joe Lieberman and West Virginia's nominal-Democrat Senator, Joe Manchin, are thrown around as ‘heartland centrist’ candidates. (Hey, what's with the name 'Joe' in American politics? Next to fundraising prowess, it seems to be a prerequisite for Donor class electoral viability these days!)
No Labels, and other groups and candidates like them - Marianne Williamson comes to mind here - are going to be the astroturf attempts by the Donor class (who were amused enough to constitute nearly half of Williamson’s fundraising for the 2020 election campaign) to blunt the obvious strengths the Democrats bring to the table for 2024. We can't just 'barely win' in 2024. Republicans and Trumpism need to be rebuked, and beaten decisively. Framing this election is going to be critical to overcoming Republican election rigging. The Donor class smell blood, in spite of their poor starting position in the political popularity ratings of an honest cross-section of registered voters.
But given enough time, and a lack of decisive electoral outcomes, their Wealth will allow the Donor class to prevail long enough to match the inevitable moment, when they manage to grind down Democracy enough, through the funding and support of candidates engaging in legislative vandalism and abuse, to cause enough American voters to lose trust in the efficacy of the prevailing system, and bring the American Experiment to an end, having consumed itself into a fearful, splenetic, and schizophrenic...military giant on the world stage.
Therefore, in ‘Grandpa Joe’ we must trust, as an avatar of reasonable and accountable governance, the goal of everything I think we’re all trying to preserve. Not to mention, preserving a Government with real electoral legitimacy that, unlike the MAGA GOP, has every right to defend itself from domestic Vandals.