Advantage Trump?

You know, it's really beginning to look that way

MAGA shows its colors in the Bronx

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Over at The Free Press, Olivia Reingold reports on Donald Trump’s rally in the Bronx last Thursday. She spoke to many of the people who showed up to see the former president and hear what he had to say, and this led her to pose the question: “Could Trump Turn the Bronx Red?” The short answer to that question is “probably not”—but based on what she tells us of the ethnically diverse crowd’s reception of Trump, there are grounds to suspect that on Election Day 2024, the hitherto azure Bronx could be looking rather purple.

Six or eight months ago, I was of the opinion that Donald Trump could not beat Joe Biden in a 2024 matchup. Trump, I judged, was too polarizing, too mercurial, too unpopular to defeat even so lackluster an incumbent as Joe Biden. But what a difference those few months have made.

First, there is the undeniable fact that the Biden presidency has collapsed. It’s true that six months ago he was none too popular, having never really recovered from the hit he took over the Afghanistan debacle. And of course, there were other problems besetting the President and his administration: the state of the economy, crime, the border. But none of these things struck me as fatal handicaps. The mere passage of time might temper the public’s discontent. Economic conditions could improve, crime might subside, Biden could use his executive authority to do something about the border crisis.

As things turned out, however, the economy has not improved, at least in the eyes of the public. Ditto where crime is concerned. Ditto with a bullet where the border crisis is concerned. But Biden & Co. just sat there twiddling their thumbs while things got worse. And to these negatives has been added the absolute pig’s breakfast that the Biden Administration has made of American foreign policy, first over Ukraine and now in the Middle East.

That people trace much of the responsibility for these messes back to Biden’s increasingly obvious mental and physical incapacity make the situation all the worse for him. Winning reelection in this environment would be a heavy lift for any incumbent president. For Biden it’s perhaps impossible. Reports to the effect that the Biden campaign is getting serious, that it’s going on the attack against Trump, bubble up from time to time. But Biden himself is too far gone to lead the charge. It’s an insoluble problem for his handlers: Putting the President out there risks disaster; micromanaging his public appearances reminds people that there’s something seriously wrong with the guy.

It's also a problem for Joe Biden that his core supporters, the Democratic Party base, are people who’ve lost touch with mainstream America. A recent example of this estrangement was the Left’s vexillogical jihad against Supreme Court Justice Samual Alito. On the strength of a couple of flag displays at his residences, the comrades charged him with sedition and treason, demanded his recusal from January 6-related cases, called for his resignation or even his impeachment. It was a telling—and typical—display of bad faith and stupidity by people who claim to be defending “our democracy.”

Nor does it help that Biden’s core supporters are antisemitism adjacent. By that I mean that though they themselves aren’t openly calling for river-to-sea ethnic cleansing and genocide in “Palestine,” they manifestly tolerate those who do. And though they never tire of reviling Trump and MAGA as fascists, they have nothing to say about the Islamofascist, Jew-bashing, anti-American rage in the streets of our big cities and on university campuses. The American public, a robust majority of which supports Israel in the current crisis, has noticed this.

Finally, there is the fact, which has not sufficiently been remarked upon, that the Trump of 2024 is not the same candidate as the Trump of 2016 or 2020. This is due mostly to circumstances, perhaps with an assist from the low cunning that the Prince of the Golden Escalator has always exhibited.

It must be a source of great frustration and angst to the never-Trump mob that their lawfare campaign against the former president hasn’t worked as expected. Indeed, in some ways it positively benefits Trump. The glaringly obvious unfairness of the Alvin Bragg prosecution in New York, the meltdown of Fani Willis and her election interference case in Georgia, the travails of Jack Smith’s two cases, have drawn their sting. It now seems doubtful that a conviction in the Bragg case will sink Trump’s campaign. Too many Americans now view that case as a politically motivated hit job. And the trial kept Trump off the campaign trail for weeks—paradoxically magnifying the impact of the appearances he did make, of which the Bronx rally is the latest example.

It’s also obvious that the 2024 Trump campaign itself is a much more professional, much more adroit organization than its 2016 and 2020 predecessors. His campaign managers seem to be giving Trump good advice—and what is more, I have the impression that Trump is listening to that advice. Note, for example, the alacrity with which Trump accepted Biden’s debate challenge, calling the President’s bluff—no doubt to his and his people’s consternation.

Good advice may also explain why we hear much less these days about the supposedly stolen election of 2020, much more about the issues. Sure, Trump will always be Trump. He’ll never give up his grievances, nor the pleasure of baiting the opposition with some outrageous comment. But there’s no doubt that he’s gotten in touch with public opinion this time around and realizes which strings are most profitable to harp upon. When he talks about the economy, crime, the border, anti-American Hamas-hugging activists, people prick up their ears—and those people are not just non-college-educated white males, as Olivia Reingold found at Trump’s Bronx rally.

In short, Trump could beat Biden in November. Indeed, if the election were held today, he probably would beat the President. Of course, only time will tell if Trump’s current, slim, but undeniable advantage will hold up. He could easily blow it. But for Joe Biden time is running out, and it’s obvious that he and his people have no idea how to turn things around.

Who’d have thought, six or eight months ago, that it would come to this?