A Rock And An Even Harder Place

-by Patrick Toomey

Anyone who’s remotely paying attention understands the risks of a second Trump term and the fact that the GOP is increasingly disdainful of the expressed will of the voters. This site does an excellent job of sounding the alarm on both topics. In the “a stopped clock is right twice a day” department, HRC recently noted the dire consequences of Trump winning.

Given these consequences, seeing tangible confirmation of my intuitive concerns about the political impact of Biden & Blinken Bolster Bibi is jarring. This piece deserves to be read in its entirety.

These excerpts from it are particularly noteworthy:

A recent poll of 2,200 registered Muslim voters in key states, including Minnesota, Michigan, Arizona and Wisconsin, from Emgage, a Muslim-voter mobilization group, paints a clearer picture of how far Muslim Americans' threat to ditch Biden in 2024 resonates: 5.2 percent of respondents said they would vote for the Democrat if they had to cast their presidential ballots now, plummeting from the 80 percent who said they voted for Biden in 2020.

Instead, according to Emgage National Organizing Director Mohamed Gula, 15 percent of the polled voters said they would vote for former President Donald Trump while 53 percent indicated they'd cast their vote for a third party, the latter value up from just 4 percent who said they had voted third-party in 2020.

Those results align with a parallel poll from the Arab American Institute last week that found Arab American voters' support of Biden in 2024 dropped to just 17 percent in the wake of the violence in Gaza from 59 percent in 2020. The number of those identifying as Democrats also took a hit at 23 percent compared to the 32 percent who identified as Republican, marking the first time in the 26-year-old poll's history that a majority of Arab voters did not claim to prefer the Democratic Party.

And:

But Biden's Israel-Hamas response threatens to pull a wider array of potential voters from his base as his favorability rating among voters under age 35 hit 25 percent in a mid-October Quinnipiac poll, an alarming figure when considering how a higher youth turnout in 2020— in tandem with youth of colors' overwhelming support for Biden that election— was pivotal to his win. The same poll also saw 50 percent of voters under the age of 35 disapproving of Biden's handling of the nation's policy toward Israel and 44 percent disapproving of his response to the Hamas attack, compared to 21 percent and 23 percent of those in that age range who did approve, respectively.

National youth organization leaders authored and signed a letter to Biden on Tuesday, warning of the potential for millions of young voters to stay home or vote third-party in 2024 if he doesn't "broker a ceasefire, now," and "revive the peace process."

Assuming that the donkey persists in trying to foist Biden upon a country that clearly doesn’t want him, the utter absence of a margin for error cannot be understated. He carried Georgia, Arizona, and Wisconsin (37 total EVs) by razor-thin margins in 2020. Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Nevada (42 total EVs) were also very close.

I won’t belabor the recent NY Times polling showing Biden currently losing to Trump in 5 of those 6 states. ANY erosion of support in those states could lead to Trump gleefully taking a sledgehammer to what remains of our edifice of self-government. A group of dangerous radicals already control one house of Congress, and they could end up controlling both houses under these circumstances.

The literal current consequences of Biden’s blank check to Bibi are catastrophic to countless civilians in Gaza. The prospective future consequences of that check could be almost as harmful to 236 years of (nominally) constitutional government in this country. This increasingly dangerous threat appears to be dimly perceived by what passes for Democratic leadership.

Loud huzzahs were heard from Dems about the results of the recent off-year elections. There’s the threshold question, however, of whether the party coalition, as presently constituted, favors Dems in off-year elections. There’s also the question of the donkey’s 2024 prospects in the states where it was successful in 2023.

Beshear getting re-elected by a solid margin in Kentucky was a signature success. Biden lost Kentucky by 26 points in 2020, however, and I can’t recall the last time a Dem presidential nominee even bothered trying to compete there. The Ohio abortion referendum prevailing by a huge margin was another success. Biden lost Ohio by 8 points in 2020, however, and it’s widely assumed that Dems won’t seriously contest it next year. The legislative wins in Virginia were satisfying, but Biden carried it by 10 last time, and Dems will be in trouble nationally if it’s seriously competed next time.

Personally, I have never cared much for Biden since he totally botched the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings as Senate Judiciary Chair in 1991. I was already unimpressed after hearing him speak live during his abortive presidential run in 1987 (I was volunteering for Paul Simon then). His helping grease the skids for the Iraq War Resolution as Senate Foreign Relations Chair in 2002 wasn’t exactly a plus. The party mandarins creating an astroturf boomlet around him in March 2020 in order to thwart Vermont’s Red Menace didn’t sit well, especially when I was literally out knocking on doors for Bernie on the Sunday when the deal was effectively done.

All that being said, any sane person of halfway decent instincts must seriously dread the very prospect of an open insurrectionist (who is publicly vowing vengeance upon his enemies) regaining the most powerful position on this planet. There’s also the minor detail that any hope of meaningful action on climate change will evaporate. The nascent stirring of a labor resurgence would suffer a body blow with a GOP-dominated NLRB and federal courts. There isn’t much to gain by Biden getting re-elected, but there’s a LOT to lose if Trump wins a Battle of the Addled II.

Over the decades, I’ve gotten used to unappetizing presidential choices and to seeing the donkey shooting itself in various appendages. The prospective 2024 election appeared to be even worse than usual on the unappetizing choices before 10/7. The donkey has been shooting itself in every appendage imaginable since then, and it seems to be bound and determined to continue on a self-destructive course.

Currently, it’s hard to see a light at the end of this (very long) tunnel. Decades ago, I read Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five, with its theme about the illusion of free will. It’s a theme to recall in watching the donkey these days.