It is one thing for right-of-center voters to enumerate the reasons Donald Trump is likely to win the 2024 presidential election. It is quite another for a prominent, died-in-the-wool leftist to do so. Thus, considering that the author of an explosive piece in recent days is the founder of MSNBC, the nation’s most transparently left-leaning cable TV platform, the headline in his story leaped off the page in a single bound.
Indeed, in a groundbreaking piece published by Newsweek, veteran liberal journalist Tom Rogers officially granted permission to his fellow travelers on the left to remove their heads from the sand and come to grips with an unthinkable reality, the thing that undoubtedly causes two-o’clock-in-the-morning cold sweats across the leftist landscape: the growing probability of Donald Trump returning to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Of course, the piece is replete with all manner of disclaimers and hedges, as Mr. Rogers reassures his audience of the constancy of his own political beliefs, thus dispensing with any notion that he is turning tail on his friends or, God forbid, believing Trump 2.0 would be even remotely acceptable to him. He makes certain his leftist cohorts understand that “this is an agonizing column for me to write” because Trump, obviously “would be a complete disaster and national tragedy” while admitting his view is “extraordinarily disheartening.” But nevertheless, he plunges a shiv into the heart of the establishment and the left with his shocking bottom line:
“It's Time to Freak Out: Donald Trump Is Very Likely Our Next President.”
… And They Thought Trump Was Finished
With that statement alone from a man long considered an almost unimpeachable source on the progressive left, one can envision angry leftists and establishment bureaucrats, after devoting years of their lives to stopping Trump, rushing to refill their sedative prescriptions that expired after the 2020 election. All they have to show for their tireless efforts to kneecap the 45th president is a forthcoming election in which Donald Trump is actually better positioned than ever to win.
The author argues that Trump is all but certain to capture the GOP nomination, and even with the entirely unprecedented backdrop of multiple indictments, asserts that in a televised trial, “strong advocacy on the part of Trump lawyers in the courtroom is going to give plenty of reinforcement to current Republican views that the charges are political and not disqualifying.”
Joe Biden (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
He says flat-out that “Biden will not be a strongly popular nominee,” VP Kamala Harris is unacceptable, and openly panics about the growing likelihood of a third-party candidate from the “No Labels” movement, which “seem[s] to be more serious than ever in terms of fundraising and gaining access to state ballots.” The No Labels skunk at the Democrats’ garden party would likely be rogue Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), who says he has long considered ditching his affiliation with the Democratic party as he faces an uphill climb for re-election in his own state.
In pointing out that Biden won a strikingly narrow electoral college victory in 2020 – winning three decisive swing states by less than one percent – Mr. Rogers similarly worries that Green Party candidate Cornel West will also draw progressive support away from Biden. And between the array of possible third-party challenges, he frets of history repeating itself – and with good reason. Prior to Trump, the only incumbents to lose their bids for a second term in the last 50 years were brought low by independent challengers – Jimmy Carter by John Anderson in 1980, and George HW Bush by Ross Perot in 1992.
The “What-Ifs” Favor Trump
While offering several reasons for his bombshell prediction, there are myriad additional “what if” questions that the author did not include in his shocking analysis – none of which bode well for the current president. Consider the consequences if:
Biden predictably continues to deteriorate – cognitively and politically – and refuses to debate Trump. That would amount to an admission of his growing incapacity.
Voters compare the roaring, pre-pandemic economy of Trump to that of Biden, tarred by inflation and the rising cost of the two universal needs which hit closest to home, food and energy.
Those same voters compare the situation at the southern border under Trump, famously hardline, and Biden, whose policies have led no less than the mayor of the largest, bluest city, New York, to declare a migrant-fueled emergency. What if voters see that all the proud, virtue-signaling talk from progressives about their sanctuary cities was just that, talk, and that those cities were unprepared and/or unwilling to put their money where their mouth is.
The electorate worries about the ultimate issue, security, as crime continues to soar, both in volume and in ways we have rarely before witnessed - see organized smash-and-grab retail theft, a predictable byproduct of the left’s BLM-fueled attack on police.
Parents rebel against the indoctrination of their children into behaviors long considered deeply disturbed but now nakedly designed to undermine decency itself – see lewd drag shows for children.
Voters throw out the issue of comparative morality, concluding from the growing mountain of damning evidence of influence peddling by the Biden family that this president is just as, if not more, corrupt than the last one.
The “secret Trump voters” return a la 2016, unwilling to admit publicly that they will vote for a man vilified by the nation’s establishment.
That’s an awful lot of what ifs that must be answered in the negative for Joe Biden to gain a second term.
Most of all, what if voters compare the totality of Joe Biden’s record to a single riot on a single day (while ignoring the progressive-fueled riots that brought the entirety of urban America to its knees)? January 6 is really the sum total of the argument against Trump. They can no longer chastise him over the pandemic. They can no longer claim he is a Russian asset. And even with the massive overkill implicit in the four indictments and 91 charges laid on Trump, they can no longer even claim the moral high ground without opening the supersized can of worms that crawled out of the world’s most famous Delaware laptop.
Unlike in 2020, President Biden is no longer a theory. He no longer represents merely a relief from the turmoil of Trump. He no longer has the hurricane known as the pandemic at his back - could any president win a second term in the midst of a deadly pandemic? He is no longer the sudden beneficiary of the greatest political bonanza the Democrats have ever enjoyed, namely the onset of Covid-19 and the attendant last-minute alterations to election laws in vital swing states. He can no longer hide Hunter the bag man and the shell companies designed solely to accept foreign cash raked in by their drug-crazed son. President Joe Biden is now a reality, and an unpopular one at that, falling well below the time-tested threshold of re-electability.
Considering the vast array of his sworn enemies employing the justice system in service of removing him permanently from public life through any available means, the second and final act of Donald Trump would be to come after the swampocracy with almost unimaginable force and fury. This time, he would see to it that the Swamp is truly drained.
Yes, for the left and the ruling establishment, it is indeed time to freak out.
