President Trump

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Trump’s Base Shrinking?

The latest Pew Research poll of electors, conducted after the attack on the Capitol, confirms a significantly deteriorating and negative view of president Trump post the election as compared to a stable and positive view of Joe Biden. Those that view Joe Biden’s conduct since the election as “excellent” or “good” have increased from 62% to 64%, whilst those that view his conduct as “only fair” or “poor” have reduced from 37% to 35%.

The numbers for the President however have moved significantly against him, from 31% rating his conduct as “good” or “excellent” to 23%. Whilst those rating his performance as “poor” have increased by 8%.

Looking specifically at the issue of responsibility for the attack on the Capitol, 75% of all voters felt he had “a lot” or “some” responsibility for the violence. Further, even amongst Republicans and those that lean Republican, a majority (52%) felt he had “a lot’ or “some” responsibility.

It is of course true this leaves a very significant minority (46%) of Republican supporters reporting the president as having no responsibility for the actions on the Capitol. So clearly there are large numbers of dedicated Trump supporters who remain faithful. However, these figures show a substantial division within the GOP, one which has the potential to become a major rift. One which, further actions of a very angry and often irrational president, may increase.

All of this suggests it is becoming increasingly urgent for the Republican party leadership to decide whether they want to risk sinking with Donald Trump or swimming away from him. To date they have been frightened because of his base. As evidence emerges his base might be shrinking the “courage” to abandon him may grow.

The problem is that as the base shrinks it becomes more and more concentrated in and represented by a dangerous cocktail of extremists. People whose actions the president has legitimated and encouraged over 4 years. The clearer their extremism becomes the more difficult it will be for the many rank and file Republicans to align with them.

President Trump and the GOP have unleashed a tiger and they are now stuck holding its tail. Its actions may well revert to them and indeed it may end up devouring the party which released it. Vice President Pence and Lyndsey Graham have both felt its hot breath on their neck.

It will take Joe Biden a long while to get that genie back in its bottle and starve it of the wider despair and distrust that decades of political neglect have created amongst the vast majority of Americans.

Joe Biden won the election. It is increasingly clear he is winning the transition. His biggest challenge is to create a winning presidency. A presidency which unites the vast majority of Americans behind policies which provide tangible hope for the future over the divisive despair of the past.

This task is daunting as it means having to address the tectonic plates of economic inequality which structure so many of the problems of the United States. All of those interested in the future of democracy must wish him well and support him.

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Trump – Busted Flush?

Mitch McConnell clearly cannot decide whether Trump remains the key mobiliser of Republican support or has overplayed his hand with the incitement of the Capitol insurrection. Earlier in the week sources close to the leader of the Senate claimed he was minded to hear the arguments about Trump’s role in the incompetent insurrection. Now he confirms there will be no time for this to be considered in the Senate prior to the inauguration of Joe Biden.

When it was first intimated that Senator McConnell was distancing himself from president Trump there were few on planet earth thought he had emerged from a deep sleep unruffled by questions of principle and awoken to the danger the president represented to the constitution. Those who would accuse him of principle are few and far between.

Long before Donald Trump was anywhere near the presidency Senator McConnell was driving a partisan tank through convention after convention, blocking effective government and opposing any initiative of the Democratic president. This culminated in, what at the time appeared to be an outrageous abuse of process, the blocking of president Obama’s nominations to the Supreme Court for the whole of the last year of his administration.

So what we can expect from Senator McConnell is careful political calculation and at the moment he does not appear to be sure which way to jump. The attack on the Capitol threw all previous calculations into confusion.

The suggestions he may be sympathetic toward impeachment may have been partly to test the waters with Republican opinion outside Washington and partly to strengthen his hand in negotiations to bring some discipline to president Trump’s departure. It must be clear, if the incompetent insurrection did not destroy Trump’s power base it certainly weakened his authority.

It must be becoming clear that Trump has the potential to become a long term liability for the Republican party. He may always have a cult following of true believers. Those who think ANTIFA and BLM were responsible for the invasion of the Capitol. One has to believe they do not constitute a majority of the Republican party.

As things go from bad to worse for Trump he becomes an ever loser cannon. At some point Mitch McConnell has to jump. He has to decide if Trump is now, or soon will be, a busted flush. If he leaves it too late he may find even Republican voters feel he has liability for whatever outrageous thing Trump the president, or the citizen, does next.

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The Deep State is Growing!

In the US it seems ever greater numbers of people are becoming part of the deep state. More and more members of the Republican party are starting to contradict the presidential view of the world. Even some of the party’s long time strategists like Karl Rove, who served as Deputy Chief of Staff under GW Bush, has stated that the election result will not be overturned. That, in an editorial in the Wall Street Journal. Even Fox news has called out against the president.

Many of the GOP’s leaders are finding ever more convoluted ways of supporting the president. Very much trying to hide behind a commitment to observing the law. Trying to pretend that baseless legal challenge is a concern for procedural propriety and not an attempt to subvert the democratic process.

An agency of the president’s Department for Homeland Security has supported a daily initiative to address rumours about election fraud. In a joint statement the Elections Infrastructure Government Co-ordinating Council and the Election Infrastructure Sector Coordinating Executive (to be fair some parts of the state need to be deep, in fact the deeper the better!) stated “The November 3rd election was the most secure in American History.”

Those responsible for the election process in the swing states have been quick to address and rebut claims of fraud. Of course they have only been rebutting such claims with facts, and there may be “alternative facts” out there, nay possibly an alternative universe in which larger numbers count for less than smaller ones, and in which a second Trump term is in prospect. Here on planet earth, however, more and more people, Republican as well as Democrat are recognising the reality of a Biden win.

As the numbers of those who accept the result increase, the numbers in the deep state increase. As it deepens and widens what happens when the vast majority are in the deep state?

All of this, of course is ridiculous. In a film it would be a fantasy comedy. In reality however it is serious. The lives of dedicated election employees, and volunteers, are being threatened; a smooth transition of power is being prevented; worst of all there is an attempt to undermine faith in the keystone of the democratic process – free and fair elections.

President Putin is not going to contact president-elect Biden until president Trump’s legal challenges have been through the courts. I wonder if he has spoken to president Trump since the election. He may well prefer another four years of Trump but I am sure he is happy with the outcome to date.

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The Coming Victory of Democracy.

In 1938 Thomas Mann, the Nobel Prize winning novelist, carried out a coast to coast speaking tour of the United States. He started his talk as follows:

“The expression “to carry owls to Athens” is a familiar humanistic expression in Germany. It denotes an act of superfluous effort, the transfer of an article to a place where such things already exist in abundance…

In undertaking to speak on democracy in America, ladies and gentlemen, I feel as if I, too, were carrying owls to Athens. It looks as I were not aware that I am in the classic land of democracy, where the mode of thought and the type of social structure which are characterised by this name are essentially at home and a universally ingrained conviction; where, in short, democracy is an all-pervading matter of course, upon which the Americans need no instruction – least of all from a European.”

How disappointed would he be with the quality of the current leadership of the City on the Hill? The refusal of President Trump to concede is appalling but worse yet is the moral bankruptcy and craven fear of the GOP.

There are many explanations put forward for the failure of leading Republicans to call out the unconstitutional behaviour of the President. Their use of the slippery language of a razer parsing literalist lawyer to pretend that what is happening is perfectly normal when the world cries out against them.

It is said they are frightened of Trump because he may stand for election again in 2024 and wreak his vengeance on those who fail the loyalty test. The are worried he will set up a PAC and use its funds to attack those he sees as traitors. They believe Trump will turn his 70 million voters against them. If anything these are all reasons for action against an incipient tyrant.

At some point it might just be worth their thinking about what is the right thing to do rather than what is in their short term political interest. Further they may not even be right about that interest. They might reflect on the fact that many Republican voters may retain that, “universally ingrained conviction” for democracy which Thomas Mann spoke so passionately about. Whilst they voted for President Trump their belief in him may evaporate if he clearly appears to be trampling on the democracy which they engaged with in such large numbers.

Thomas Mann’s reticence to offer advice from Europe remains valid. The title of his talk however is germane to the current context. Whilst America might need no lessons in democracy, it seems clear their current president and the leadership of the Republican Party could do with a few owls.