TRUMP LEADS BIDEN IN BATTLEGROUND STATES

by Vijaya Chandrasoma

The involvement of the United States in two international wars in Ukraine and Israel, coupled with inflation and a general dissatisfaction in President Biden’s handling of the economy, has resulted in his lowest ratings in the polls in years.

Trump, with all his criminal baggage, has healthy leads over Biden in all the battleground states bar Wisconsin, according to a recent New York Times poll. Trump leads Biden by 49% to 45% in a CNN national poll of registered voters.

However, last Tuesday, November 7, Election Day in at least 37 states, where citizens voted on everything from Governorships and state legislatures to local referenda on specific issues, Democrats had a solid night, both in results and attendance. Democratic Governor Andy Beshear won re-election in the deep-red state of Kentucky, Democrats won both chambers in the Virginia legislature and Ohio voted to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution.

Abortion rights is likely to be one of the decisive factors in the November 2024 election. Many diehard pro-life Republican candidates are seen to be softening their previously intransigent stance on an issue they know will cost them votes. Even Trump, who padded the Supreme Court with pro-life justices, and claimed the entire pro-life credit of overturning women’s reproductive freedom, is changing his tune.

Last week’s state elections proved that ratings in polls do not automatically translate into success at elections. Democrats had a successful night in state elections in spite of Biden’s unfavorable ratings. Hopefully, Biden and the Democrats will win the November 2024 presidency, again in spite of Biden’s low ratings.

Biden’s first term presidential performance has been outstanding, displaying the positive facets of age – experience and wisdom. The enactment of bipartisan legislation like the sweeping $1.9 billion American Rescue Plan, the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and other progressive laws rescued the nation from the sinking economy and massive debt inherited from the Trump administration.

However, unlike inflation and economic downturn, which can be reversed, Biden is afflicted with a condition which cannot – old age. He will be 86 if he survives to the end of a second term. The performance of the duties of the most important job in the world at such an advanced age could be an insurmountable problem.

Trump testified in the $250 million New York state case of fraud against the Trump Organization last Monday. The guilt of his Organization in submitting fraudulent documents to defraud banks and tax and insurance authorities has already been established. His testimony contained many falsehoods under oath, and he proved, yet again, to be a defense counsel’s worst nightmare.

Ivanka also testified on Wednesday, and like her brothers, Donald Jr and Eric who testified the week before, pretended that her involvement in the Organization was minimal. She was most disciplined and cordial, though her favorite words during her four-hour testimony were, “I don’t recall”. She was, however, a little more forthcoming than her brothers. To some extent, she, the favorite child, threw her father under the bus, especially about the documentation of a large Deutsche Bank loan, and the project for the conversion of the Washington DC post office to a super-luxury hotel, which had been under her control. New York State Attorney General, Letitia James said after her testimony, “This case is about numbers, and numbers don’t lie”, and indicated that Ivanka did move the needle against her father to some extent.

This New York case is only about the determination of the legal damages to be paid by Trump; and whether his New York business licenses would be canceled, which will destroy his business empire in New York. This, in his mind, is a fate even more humiliating than the 91 felony charges he faces. The Trump Organization was the cornerstone of his reputation, his creation, his baby.

The third Republican debate last Wednesday, in Miami, Florida, featured five candidates, Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, Chris Christie and Tim Scott, who have no chance of beating Donald Trump, who didn’t even bother to participate. Instead, he spoke at a campaign rally in nearby Hialeah, dismissing the presidential aspirations of those who were participating in the Republican debate a few miles away.

The debate gave the opportunity for the Republican hopefuls to outdo each other in their futile quest for the Republican nomination. Ron DeSantis and former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley emerged as the winners, though their hopes to win the nomination would materialize only if something disastrous, like disqualification or conviction – not unlikely – befalls Trump before November 2024. In fact, there was a hint of conviction in the attitude, if not the words, of many of the candidates, that Trump would be defeated by his legal woes, that he will not end up as the Party’s nominee, in spite of his current lead in the polls.

Every single candidate questioned Trump’s absence at the debate, his refusal to be confronted with, and to explain the numerous questions about his current legal status. Legitimate questions, where his perennial defense of a “Witch Hunt” may satisfy his cult, but is certainly not an adequate answer for those who refuse to accept it solely on face value.

As for the Israeli airstrikes on Gaza and the continuing murder of thousands of Palestinian civilians since the Hamas atrocity on October 7, the support for Israel was unanimous on the debate stage.

The 2024 presidential election is beginning to be strangely reminiscent of the 2016 election.

In 2016, the Republican Party of Law and Order and Family Values, nominated as its presidential candidate Donald Trump, a man with five children by three wives, convicted as a co-conspirator for paying $130,000 with campaign funds to have sex with a porn star while his third and current wife was pregnant with his youngest son. A convicted, self-confessed sexual predator and fraud, Trump defeated Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, possibly the most qualified and experienced presidential candidate in US history.

You may guess the reason for this disastrous defeat was misogyny. No woman has been elected to the presidency in US history. You will be only partly correct.

In 2024, Donald Trump is the prohibitive favorite to be, once again, the nominee of the Republican Party of Law and Order and Family Values. But a new, even more seriously flawed and treasonous version. A twice-impeached former president, a man who has been convicted of rape and fraud, and arrested and on bail on four indictments for 91 felonies, is amazingly favored to defeat incumbent President Joe Biden, who has one of the best achievements of a first-term president in US history.

You may guess the possibility of an even more disastrous defeat is ageism. Biden will be 86 if he survives till the end of his second term. Again, you will be only partly correct. Especially because Trump is not that much younger.

The real reason is the continuing resentment and hatred caused by the election of a black president in 2008. Even worse, the scandal-free and brilliant two-term performance of President Obama, personal and administrative, scared the hell out of the predominantly white electorate. Hatred that has been almost surgically exploited by the white supremacist, corporate and billionaire base, through its bigoted front man, Donald Trump. Hatred that has been blatant during Trump’s administration until the present day.

If Biden loses in 2024, then Trump and his white American cult would hold sway over the American electorate, America’s Great Experiment of Democracy would have come to an ignominious end. That won’t happen, not in a million years.

The American electorate is crying for a new generation of leaders. Historically, third-party candidates have had no success in presidential elections. But 2024, which features two candidates with chronic deficiencies – Biden with senility, Trump with senility combined with criminal, treasonous corruption – may well throw the path wide open for a third-party candidate who, even if they cannot win, will at the very least act as a spoiler.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr, nephew of JFK, has launched an independent run for the 2024 presidency. A convicted drug addict and anti-vaxxer, a liar second only to Trump, he espouses Republican values in spite of his illustrious Democratic background. He has been disowned by his family, but he is capable of picking up votes from both Trump and Biden, if only because of his famous name.

More dangerous to the Democrats is the proposed independent candidacy of Princeton Professor Dr. Cornell West, an outspoken voice in left-wing politics in the United States and a former surrogate of Senator Bernie Sanders. As an independent, he will split the Democratic vote right down the middle, and hand over the 2024 presidency to the Republicans on a progressive platter.

To make an already complex situation even more enigmatic, Joe Manchin, Democratic Senator from West Virginia who invariably voted Republican in the Senate during the Trump administration, and Jill Stein, Green Party candidate who probably cost Hillary Clinton the presidency in 2016, have both announced their presidential bids for 2024.

The rules of the Electoral College make it well-nigh impossible for a third party or independent candidate to win the presidency. But in the context of the 2024 election, these third-party candidates would help the chances of a second Trump presidency.

The Republican Party is no longer the Party of Moderate Conservatism, of Law and Order and Family Values. It is the Party of Trump, of Phony Christianity, of White Supremacy, of tax-cheating billionaires and corporations and of authoritarian Kleptocracy. If, for some reason, Trump fails in his bid for the Republican nomination, then his replacement will be a younger version of Trump, like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis or former UN Ambassador, Nikki Haley, who both espouse Trump’s radical-red worldviews. Anti women’s reproductive freedom, anti all and any measures of gun control, anti LGBTQ and gay marriage. In short, against all progressive issues that have the approval of the majority of the American electorate.

In fact, the Republican Party already has compiled an agenda that will be put in force if Trump wins the election, without the guard rails of re-election. An agenda that will terminate the constitution; weaponize the Department of Justice and Law Enforcement, bringing them under the control of the Executive; raise the retirement age and cuts to Social Security and Medicare; in short, repress the freedoms and privileges of all but the privileged class.

On the other hand, the Democrats have highly competent and experienced candidates, many of who are reluctant to challenge for the Democratic nomination out of misplaced loyalty to President Biden. An admirable quality which has no place in the context of today’s politics, as it may possibly present the 2024 presidency to the Republicans.

Candidates like California Governor Gavin Newsom, Transportation Secretary, Pete Buttigieg, Michigan Governor, Gretchen Whitmer, VP Kamala Harris, there are many others, who will continue with Biden’s progressive policies and not only strengthen the economy and save the nation’s democratic freedoms, but will drive the radical-red, white supremacist element back into the woodwork.

As for Trump, he will be where he belongs – in prison, or, if the legal system shows mercy for his senility and mental condition, in a comfortable lunatic asylum.