Donald Trump needs a miracle
So much has happened in the past seven days of American politics that it’s almost a surprise to find so little has fundamentally changed. The Democrats are still prepping new outfits ahead of the public hearings they’re holding over the Ukraine “quid-pro-quo” scandal, beginning next week when Bill Taylor, still (miraculously) the acting ambassador to Ukraine, is expected to take to the Hill to turn his 324 page testimony into stuff suitable for prime time viewing. Republicans, meanwhile, seem increasingly convinced by the supernatural properties of their president, who this week hired Paula White, a Florida televangelist to work miracles in the White House.
To British eyes, it all looked rather odd seeing the President of the most technologically advanced nation on the planet standing with his eyes closed, surrounded by people in prayer touching him in order to channel the divinity that apparently flows through him. (We’re saving that for week three of our general election) At times, it’s hard not to think of Greg Stillson, played by Martin Sheen in David Cronenberg’s chilling adaptation of Stephen King’s The Dead Zone, who cries “Hallelujah, the missiles are flying!“ White has claimed that “to say no to President Trump would be saying no to God”. Well, if so, the Celestial Being certainly works in mysterious ways if manifest in the President who this week described former presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke as a “poor bastard”.
Quite how evangelicals rationalise the increasingly profane side of their President remains another of those contradictions for which there never be a satisfactory answer. The same is true of Rand Paul’s entry into Team Trump, which begins to resemble one of those zombie movies in which the least likely character turns bad. Perhaps he was bitten by Senator Lindsey Graham, who you might remember succumbed to a rabid raccoon on a golf course in Act II. Paul joined Trump at a rally in Kentucky to demand that the media release the name of the whistleblower. Yes, that’s the same Senator Rand Paul who has been a notable champion for tighter privacy laws, tweeting last year that “No American should have their right to privacy taken away!” No American, then, expect a whistleblower whose privacy is now threatened by a glaring loophole in the 1989 Whistleblower Protection Act…
Another mystery is why it took Beto O’Rourke so long to withdraw from the Democratic race. A few more should adopt his trademark move, roll up their sleeves and write out their “it’s been an exciting few months” letter. While they’re about it, somebody should also pen a handy guide that might explain the puzzling popularity of Andrew Yang, who continues to gain more traction in the media than he does in state polls, which have been tightening among the four front runners.
Project it all forward and you’d say that a recent uptick in Pete Buttigieg’s popularity gives him momentum and Biden’s slide proves that he is finished. However, it’s not even December, the numbers are well within margins of error, whilst most people simply haven’t made up their minds. Despite his critics who suggest he’s been harmed by Trump’s attacks, Biden is enjoying strong numbers nationally, which appear unaffected by the relative underspend of his campaign. He also leads in face-offs against the incumbent, with Trump sometimes trailing by double figures. Whilst it’s certainly telling that his campaign this week accepted the help of Super PACs (an admission that he might need financial help), looked at pragmatically it’s a sensible use of the tools available. In the current climate, nobody will reach the White House without adopting similar tactics.
For the moment, then, Democrats have little to fear except overconfidence. They need to minimise the mistakes that allow Republicans space to weave their nonsense. When Adam Schiff tried to be a bit too clever, adapting Trump’s transcript-that-isn’t-a-transcript into something that resembled an off-Broadway experimental comedy, Republicans accused him of manufacturing crimes. They were partly right. The evidence is damning enough without Schiff dramatizing it. Trump had no grounds to call for Schiff’s impeachment, of course, but it was a sign of how much of the Republican game plan is simply to keep things muddled. If they had any sense – and a few surely must have enough to realise how this ends if they follow Trump off the cliff – they would be eying their escape route. And if they didn’t already have an escape route, the result of this week’s elections in Virginia and Kentucky should convince them to start pricing rubber dinghies and rations.
It’s never easy to read a national picture from the result of local elections. Virginia is one of those states often described as “purple”, being neither Republican nor Democrat. On the evidence of this week, it’s now firmly a blue state. The Democrats now control the state’s legislature. To pin that on Trump would be to overlook trends but what is telling was the turnout which was unprecedented for these asynchronous elections. The context wasn’t a general election. It wasn’t even a midterm event. There was no big name to come out to support. This wasn’t about being part of a national ballot. The blue vote came out simply to vote for the Senate and House of Delegates, which is a sign of their engagement with politics and, specifically, their wish to punish Republicans who are proxy for the most unpopular president in American history.
Virginia was, therefore, painful for Republicans. It was Kentucky that should have brought tears to their eyes and not in a good “mystical vision” kind of way. Incumbent Governor Matt Bevin was defeated by Democrat Andy Beshear, who continues to press his Trumpian credentials by refusing to concede despite a deficit of 5000 votes. Republicans will again shrug their shoulder and point out that this was about local politics. Bevin is a controversial figure, having pushed some of those deeply divisive conservative policies that rarely end with hoedowns under Kentucky sunsets. Beshear is also the son of Steve Beshear, who was the state’s 61st Governor, serving until 2015. Laura Ingram certain did all that when she explained to Fox News viewers that Bevin “ran against a family that is legendary… the Beshear family!” That is really just a post hoc justification for the loss.
What isn’t expressed in the headline vote is that Trump campaigned for Bevin this past week, claiming that his defeat would “send a really bad message”. To his usual adoring crowd, this time wearing the newly minted “Read the transcript” t-shirts (remember: it’s not a transcript and what it does say is very bad for the President), he said “And if you lose, they’re going to say Trump suffered the greatest defeat in the history of the world!” He then gave the world a moment which is sure to become one of those enduring memes of this presidency: he cried out pleading, needy, and somewhat child-like “you can’t let that happen to me!” Trump would rightly argue he was having fun but that would do nothing to minimise the significance of the defeat. They did let that happen to him and if the number of hands being laid upon him is any sign, the President is now looking for a miracle to save him in 2020.