{"id":19571,"date":"2024-11-06T11:43:23","date_gmt":"2024-11-06T09:43:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/?p=19571"},"modified":"2024-12-07T21:11:13","modified_gmt":"2024-12-07T19:11:13","slug":"crazy-campaign-plus-catastrophic-candidates-equals-surprisingly-normal-results","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/crazy-campaign-plus-catastrophic-candidates-equals-surprisingly-normal-results\/","title":{"rendered":"Crazy Campaign Plus Catastrophic Candidates Equals Surprisingly Normal Results"},"content":{"rendered":"Sometimes, in the insane world of American politics, a three-ring circus produces the most predictable and boring results.<\/strong><\/p>\n

On Tuesday, an extraordinary thing happened. A country on edge went to the polls \u2013 with no one knowing what would happen. In the end, the people spoke soundly, peacefully, and democratically. They reverted to the norm \u2013 ignoring all the static of this rollercoaster campaign to vote their pocketbooks, express their anger, and throw the incumbents out.<\/p>\n

The most potent numbers that usually speak loudest spoke loudly again: over the last four years, as more and more people felt their economic situation lag, their faith in America sag, registration for the party out of government, meaning the Republicans, inched up. That\u2019s what won the election<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, in the insane world of American politics<\/a>, a three-ring circus produces the most predictable and boring results. It was a crazy campaign featuring two assassination attempts<\/a> on the same candidate, an improvised switch of nominees mid-campaign, an increasingly unstable world, and a surprisingly unnerved electorate \u2013 with half the country fearing the other half.<\/p>\n

Difficult choices<\/b><\/p>\n

Both were catastrophic candidates. Not only did each catastrophize, feeding Americans\u2019 fear of the future and one another, but each kept running for the title of Worst Candidate in American History.\u00a0It was the King of Cussing versus the Queen of Word Salads. Kamala Harris launched a campaign of \u201cjoyous vibes\u201d – fueled by accusations that her opponent was a \u201cfascist\u201d and his supporters were American Nazis or simply garbage.<\/p>\n

Donald Trump rambled and rumbled, so steeped in a culture of insults that he and his people allowed an insult comedian who specializes in offending groups open for him at a Madison Square Garden. Ultimately, it was indeed \u201cthe economy stupid\u201d \u2013 as James Carville famously said during Bill Clinton\u2019s 1992 campaign.<\/p>\n

Americans voted for \u201cChange\u201d \u2013 what Barack Obama promised in 2008, and what Kamala Harris didn\u2019t when she couldn\u2019t think of one substantive thing she would do differently than the man she had to replace because he wasn\u2019t good enough to run but was somehow good enough to remain president, Joe Biden.<\/p>\n

While the mainstream media was busy bashing Donald Trump\u2019s Madison Square Garden rally for its offensive warm-up acts and wacky tone, a majority of American voters heard Trump echo Ronald Reagan\u2019s devastating question from 1980, which unseated Jimmy Carter: \u201cAre you better off today than you were four years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is true. After January 6, 2021, no one would have predicted that the former president, who faced multiple impeachments and was on his way to earning multiple indictments, would return.<\/p>\n

Like him or not, Donald Trump deserves credit for playing the politics of this moment in history cleverly. He was the one who never quit. He was the one who kept stoking his base and who tapped a deep, enduring anger over immigration, crime, and chaos.<\/p>\n

Trump challenged the fear of defending or loving being American and of DEI regimes and cancel culture, political correctness, and a \u201cfake news\u201d regime on top of the economic lassitude.<\/p>\n

He helped obscure justified charges over mishandled presidential papers by focusing on unprecedented charges of fraud pursued by the Manhattan District Attorney, who won\u2019t properly prosecute street criminals.<\/p>\n

Trump vowed that he wouldn\u2019t let the insanity of the universities and the \u2018American carnage\u2019 in too many small towns triumph from coast to coast.<\/p>\n

Additionally, he had a clearer vision of the need to fight vigorously against the evils of Iran while recognizing the degree to which too many Palestinians still cheer on Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis.<\/p>\n

Of course, to all Trump’s Jewish voters and Israeli supporters – beware what you wish for.<\/p>\n

Trump has promised to push to end the war quickly – on his timetable, not ours. Trump remains the same mercurial man who deemed Netanyahu ungrateful when he behaved properly toward Biden and first dismissed Israel as losers after October 7th.<\/p>\n

It’s clearer than ever that Israel and the world need a strong and functioning United States with a president representing and respecting all Americans.<\/p>\n

At the same time, the Democrats earned this loss fair and square.<\/p>\n

In September 2023, your not-so-humble-correspondent wrote in Newsweek, \u201cThe Democrats are stuck. President Joe Biden remains unpopular, with two-thirds of Democrats believing him too old to run again, while two-thirds of Americans doubt his fitness for the job\u2014yet Vice President Kamala Harris is even less popular. And this while the Republican frontrunner, former President Donald Trump, continues to consolidate a 30-point lead against his closest rivals.<\/p>\n

\u201cDemocrats claim that defeating Trump is their top priority. If they mean it, they will act boldly: Kamala Harris should quit so Joe Biden can retire nobly. Most Americans dread a Biden-Trump rematch, and whichever party finds a fresh candidate to avoid this ordeal will improve its chances of winning the presidency.<\/p>\n

Yet the ongoing scourge of political correctness is preventing the supposedly people’s party from listening to the people. Why not trust them to pick vigorous new candidates strengthened by a robust open primary season?\u201d<\/p>\n

I was pilloried. I was called \u201cageist\u201d for doubting Joe Biden\u2019s abilities. I was called \u201csexist\u201d and racist\u201d because you\u2019re apparently never allowed to criticize a black woman, no matter how undistinguished she was as a presidential candidate in 2019 or as a Vice President.<\/p>\n

I was called \u201cright-wing,\u201d \u201cTrumpian,\u201d and on and on, even though I was challenging Democrats to save the country from Trump \u2013 and themselves.<\/p>\n

Democratic denial<\/b><\/p>\n

However, the Democrats couldn\u2019t help lying to themselves and to the people. They continued lying about Biden\u2019s weaknesses until his first debate with Trump.<\/p>\n

They denied Harris\u2019s incompetence, vagueness, distance from Israel, and closeness to San Francisco progressivism until the election results started coming in.<\/p>\n

In 1980, when the Democrats lost, they didn\u2019t ask, \u201cWhat\u2019s wrong with the American people?\u201d Instead, they asked, \u201cWhere did we go wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 1981, Charles Manatt, a lawyer and banker, became chairman of the Democratic National Committee to fix a party that had been, he admitted, \u201coutconceptualized, out-organized, out-televised, out-coordinated, out-financed and out-worked.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2016, Democrats lost \u2013 and blamed Trump \u2013 as well as the \u201cdeplorable\u201d American electorate.<\/p>\n

In 2024, as Trump came back, Democrats blamed Trump \u2013 as well as the \u201cfascist\u201d American electorate. It\u2019s time for soul-searching rather than finger-pointing.<\/p>\n

But, of course, Republicans should beware, too. A clear election victory is no guarantee of a successful presidency. The divisions remain. The problems domestically and internationally are mounting.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s shortcomings are still glaring \u2013 and may be exacerbated because there\u2019s nothing more dangerous than an angry, vindictive, victorious narcissist. One hopes that the House will turn Democratic because every party needs institutional brakes \u2013 especially now.<\/p>\n

However, even if the House stays Republican \u2013 the chaos we have seen in the Republican caucus should calm any fears of some kind of Republican monolith or dictatorship.<\/p>\n

Still, Trump and the Republicans have earned a victory lap. And the American people should enjoy the fact that the result seems to be pretty straightforward \u2013 while doing everything every citizen can to keep the transition smooth and peaceful.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes, in the insane world of American politics, a three-ring circus produces the most predictable and boring results.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":19572,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","topics-geopolitics","library-op-ed","library-publications"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19571"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19897,"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19571\/revisions\/19897"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}