Expect! The 2024 field is rich. There’s Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley…the list goes on. All candidates who adopt conservative policies without the concerns of the Don.
New York Post Editorial Board, June 11, 2022
MAGA’s hardened right wing did all it could to deaden and numb American senses ahead of Thursday’s televised primetime hearing. The decision to bring the evidence into people’s living rooms and treat the audience like adults, like people who want the truth, can discern the truth, and then can handle the truth, was so monumentally cool, so game-changing. course of history. , that the fear emanating from Bedminster, the executive suites of Fox News and Capitol Hill was palpable. They turned down more and more, no commercials during Tucker…push, push…
According to Nielsen ratings, approximately 20 million people tuned in to a committee made up of adults talking to adults. The hearing heard Officer Caroline Edwards testify about bloodshed. They learned that the representatives requested preventive pardons. They saw Ivanka say that her dad lost. And, most damningly, Trump’s presence or personality permeated everything so strongly that the viewer was forced to feel it.
There are at least four more publicly televised hearings, but a titanic paradigm shift has already occurred. The editorial board of the ever-Trumpy Murdoch-owned New York Post has seen enough and sent a quake through mainland MAGA, just two days after the first hearing. Publishers who had been so pro-Trump declared him unworthy of the office of president.
Trump has become a prisoner of his own ego. He can’t admit that his tweets and his narcissism turn off millions. He will not stop insisting that 2020 was “stolen” even though he has offered no proof that it is true.
Meanwhile, reports that Trump was pleased that the crowd on January 6th shouted for Vice President Mike Pence to be hanged, a truly reprehensible sentiment, makes him unworthy for office. Trump cannot look beyond 2020. Let him stay there.
Don’t misunderstand the Board, don’t put them on the DNC mailing list. They’re not suddenly endorsing the Committee or even acknowledging its importance, quite the opposite, in fact, calling the hearings “a Democratic campaign ad, a thinly veiled partisan exercise,” all, they say, “to bolster the failed presidency of Joe Biden.” The Board is still completely MAGA, they have just decided that Trump is not.
The Board’s rationale is as predictable as one might expect. They do not point to new revelations or facts, nor do they have a new philosophical perspective. No, hidden between the smug pronouncement is an acknowledgment of power in the presentation that they call “partisan exercise.” If presenting adult truths to other adults is suddenly partisan, so be it.
And therein lies the problem, anyone who looks at the evidence this committee presents and talks about Pelosi failing to secure the Capitol and… is being a child and a petulant child. The NY Post didn’t suddenly realize that they had been wrong all along. Suddenly they realized that they had the wrong brand in the future, the landscape has changed.
As Americans learn what really happened, Trump is looking more like Blockbuster Video.
Trump’s response? He insults Barr and dismisses Ivanka as “reviewed.” He clings to fancier theories, like Dinesh D’Souza’s debunked “2,000 mules,” even as tallies in Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin confirm that Trump lost.
Trump still wields enormous power in the Republican party and particularly in the MAGA right. And under no circumstances should anyone think that a DeSantis presidency is preferable from a political sense. But as for the ever-important “brand,” Trump’s outer gloss, his logo, his personality, the “factor” that used to fill the coffers of for-profit groups like CPAC and Turning Points, it’s all stale, old . and increasingly dangerous. Get Kyle, Kayleigh and DeSantis.
The Editorial Board has decided it’s time for a new ad campaign featuring a new leader in the cult of personal allusions and philosophies. The cult lives but the center moves. His decision, of course, comes hours after he first saw it, knowing that there is more to come. The Post is out now, and they can’t be the only ones. (Remember the Murdoch connection, watch out for Fox News.) The Select Committee’s message is powerful and it is for adults who need to face the truth. There is no way in hell that the MAGA movement is or is going to meet the moment with the baby face and disposition of Trump.
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