“As he prepared to tee off at one of his Florida golf courses, a fellow player introduced Donald Trump as ‘the 45th president of the United States.’
‘45th and 47th,’ Trump responded matter-of-factly before hitting his drive.”
That’s how a story, apparently recorded on a cellphone video, began a week ago on the website of my old employer, ABC News. Who knows? Although we’ve never seen a hint of it before, maybe the man has a sense of humor after all. But if he was kidding, he was kidding on the square. The 45th president of the United States has made it no secret that unless something stops him— and that could be crumbling poll numbers, crumbling health, crumbling prospects in courts of law— he will bid to be the 47th president too.
Heaven help us. Maybe it will.
But not with the backing of today’s Republican Party, which still is firmly in Trump’s grip and if you need proof, it’s never been more manifest than what came out of the party’s winter meeting today in Salt Lake City. In a voice vote passed with almost no dissent, the delegates not only decided to censure the two honorable Republicans who serve on the January 6th committee in Congress, but they approved a resolution calling the committee’s work “persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse.”
You know, the legitimate political discourse which led on that dark day last year to as many as nine deaths, more than 150 injuries to law enforcement, and an assault on our democracy.
Trump’s Republican Party has gone over the falls. The question is, will he, and they, take the whole country down with them?
My gut says, no. Although I’ve learned the hard way since the day he first started running for president not to write off Donald Trump, it bears reminding that while in his reelection campaign in 2020 more than 74 million Americans voted for him, more than 81 million voted against him. In the 15 months since the election— between his ongoing unapologetic embrace of the big lie about why he lost, the growing evidence of his proactive support for the insurrection, and his pledge a week ago at a rally in Texas to consider pardons for the insurrectionists if he wins the White House again— it’s hard to believe that anyone who voted against Trump before all that has joined his camp now. My gut says that while his bombast about pardons is meat for his base, most Americans do not believe that the violent insurgents from January 6th deserve to walk free.
There are small signs that seem to confirm this, even among Republicans. An Associated Press poll last week showed that while a little more than two years ago— pre-election, pre-insurrection— 78% of Republicans had a favorable opinion of Donald Trump, today it has dropped to 71%. Another poll from Marquette University found that among all voters, Republican and Democrat alike, more than 70% of Americans do not want Trump to run again. And in one more example from polling, four months ago another GOP pollster, Patrick Ruffini, pitted Trump against Florida’s governor and likely presidential candidate Ron DeSantis and Trump came out 40 points ahead. Just a week ago, the gap was down to 25. Which might not bode well for the nation since DeSantis is a guy who sometimes out-Trumps Trump, but it doesn’t bode well for Trump either.
It was President Richard Nixon who popularized the presumption of a “silent majority” in support of his policies, but now Republican pollster Frank Luntz— known to viewers on CNN— suggests that the continuing support for Trump comes from a noisy minority. “The Trump group is smaller today than it has been in five years,” he says, “but it is even more intense, more passionate and more unforgiving of his critics.”
There also are signs from Republican party leaders themselves. It’s one thing for a Trump target like Utah Senator Mitt Romney to say of the party’s reprehensible resolution today, ”Shame falls on a party that would censure persons of conscience, who seek truth in the face of vitriol.” It’s quite another when it’s a longtime Trump enabler like South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham going rogue, calling January 6th “one of the darkest days in American history” and declaring after Trump’s pledge about pardons, “Those who take the law into their own hands for political reasons… must be held accountable.” And today, stunner of stunners, even longtime apologist Mike Pence said of his former boss’s big lie, “President Trump is wrong.”
These might be small cracks, but they are cracks.
Now the bad news. If the fortunes of the Democratic Party depend on Joe Biden’s popularity not only in this November’s races for control of Congress but in the next presidential election— whether Biden himself runs again or not— the numbers don’t look good. Beginning with our messy withdrawal from Afghanistan— notwithstanding the ultimate success of the airlift that got almost 125,000 people away from the Taliban’s grip— Biden’s popularity has plummeted. Whether the nation’s ills right now are Biden’s fault or not, only slightly more than one citizen out of five told the Pew Research Center last month that they’re satisfied with where things in the U.S. are going.
That’s why when Donald Trump talked at his Texas rally about “that beautiful, beautiful house that happens to be white,” it sent a message to his minions that he wants to be our 47th president after four years off and live in that house again. It also sent a chill up my spine.
Of course in politics, you’re only as good as your last act, which to me means two things. One is, Trump’s acts only get worse and worse, and if history is any guide, his capacity to change is limited. The other is, I haven’t given up on President Biden’s ability to turn the ship around.
But the time to do it keeps getting shorter. The fortunes of his party and, in light of the other party’s conduct, the fortunes of our country, are his to lose… if he hasn’t already lost them.
For almost five decades Greg Dobbs has been a correspondent for two television networks including ABC News, a political columnist for The Denver Post and syndicated columnist for Scripps newspapers, a moderator on Rocky Mountain PBS, and author of two books, including one about the life of a foreign correspondent called “Life in the Wrong Lane.” He has covered presidencies and politics at home and international crises around the globe, from Afghanistan to South Africa, from Iran to Egypt, from the Soviet Union to Saudi Arabia, from Nicaragua to Namibia, from Vietnam to Venezuela, from Libya to Liberia, from Panama to Poland. Dobbs has won three Emmys, and the Distinguished Service Award from the Society of Professional Journalists. Some of his writing also appears on a website he co-founded, BoomerCafe.com.
Greg, Great essay describing the ongoing threat by Trump. This year's midterms will provide critical course corrections for Democrats and Republicans.
A wise man told me that the more one uses the strengths that gets him to the top, the more those strengths become weaknesses....Because I believe that the former president, literally made a deal with the devil....I'm not certain that truism applies to him....Let's hope you're right.