NY Times Editorial Board: America Deserves Better Than Donald Trump

Mr. Trump is unfit for public office. As president, he showed himself to be incompetent and self-dealing. He should have been convicted by the Senate in 2019 for abusing his power and in 2021 for inciting an insurrection. Voters repudiated him at the ballot box after his second campaign, but he has the legal right to try again, so Americans must weather the trial of a third candidacy. If he is still in the race when the first votes are cast in 2024, the election will once again be a referendum on American democracy, because if our system of government is to survive, voters must choose leaders who accept and submit to the rule of law.

The case against Mr. Trump is straightforward. He uses demagogy to stoke racism. He lies about matters great and small. As president, he frequently placed his personal interests above the national interest. He promised to lift up ordinary Americans and instead delivered tax cuts for the wealthy that significantly increased the federal debt. He was a friend to dictators and an inconstant ally to liberal democracies. He made the country’s military position in the world demonstrably weaker by foolishly withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal, which even a senior Israeli official now concedes was a serious self-inflicted wound. And in perhaps his greatest test as president, he treated the Covid-19 pandemic as a public relations problem, downplaying the danger and resisting basic safety measures that would have saved lives. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/15/opinion/trump-2024-announcement.html

George T. Conway III: Trump is out for vengeance — and to protect himself from prosecution

Donald Trump was always going to run. Absent incarceration or interment, and perhaps only the latter, he inevitably would seek the presidency again. His narcissism, his megalomania, his delicate yet illimitable ego, would have it no other way.

Donald Trump craves the power. Even more, he craves the attention. And more than ever — after an unprecedented two impeachments, a humiliating reelection defeat that he can’t even admit, and amid multiple criminal investigations and civil suits — he seeks vengeance. The l’état c’est moi president who apparently tried to sic the IRS on his enemies (and perhaps succeeded), and who tried to extort Ukraine into smearing Joe Biden, can’t wait to get back on the job.

Trump won’t succeed, as his successive losses of the House, Senate, presidency and last week’s midterm results show. Too many Americans would crawl on broken glass to vote against him, no matter who his general election opponent may be. They have seen enough. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/15/george-conway-trump-2024-prosecution/

Ron Brownstein: While Democrats may have bucked the national trend, Republicans still hold a large sway in GOP-led states

In Democratic-leaning and swing states, voters last week delivered an unmistakable cry of resistance to the restrictive Republican social agenda symbolized by the drive to ban abortion.

But in red states where Republicans have actually imposed that agenda over the past two years, GOP governors cruised to reelection without any discernible backlash.

That sharp contrast underscored the depth of the divide between red and blue America and points toward the further partitioning of the nation into divergent, and increasingly hostile, blocs living under fundamentally different rules for civil rights and liberties. Last week’s results could simultaneously embolden red state Republicans to continue advancing the militantly conservative social agenda they have pursued since 2021 on abortion and other issues like voting and book bans – while also making clear that such an agenda is electorally untenable outside of those core GOP states. https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/14/politics/abortion-midterm-voters-politics-democrats-republicans-fault-lines/

Tom Scocca: Don’t Be Fooled, Trump’s Hold on the G.O.P. Is Stronger Than Ever

Spiritually and practically, Trumpism was everywhere this election season, and it shows no signs of retreating before the next one. If Mr. Trump’s most shameless supporters faltered at the polls in November, the Republicans who stood up to him were purged from the party long before then. The combination of resentment, rule-bending, and shamelessness that gave rise to Mr. Trump’s presidency is still the reigning attitude of the party — a necessary attitude, for a minority party bent on dominating the majority, rather than forming a majority of its own.

Distrust of and disdain for democratic outcomes shape the party’s agenda, both internally and externally. Before Nevada’s Senate race was called, Senator Lindsey Graham, the eager bellwether of Mr. Trump’s flock, was already telling his Republican colleagues that there was “no mathematical way Laxalt loses.” If he did, Mr. Graham said, it would be a “lie.”

Some Republicans may imagine the 2022 results as a way to rid themselves of Mr. Trump’s particular scandals and his celebrity personality cult. Giving up on his philosophy of impunity, though, is a different thing. They may feel brave enough to call him a loser, but none of them have shown the courage to find another, less Trumpy, way to win. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/14/opinion/trump-republican-gop-midterms.html

Jonathan Last: Democracy was on the ballot. And attempts to end it were met with universal scorn.

There were seven Republican gubernatorial candidates who would not commit to certify Biden’s 2020 win. They went 0-7 in the midterm. (Or 0-8 if you toss in David Perdue’s pathetic primary performance against Brian Kemp).  Eight blue or purple state GOP Secretary of State candidates would not commit to certifying the election if the Democrat won. They went 0-8 last Tuesday. (Or 0-10 if you count the Tina Peters faceplant in the Colorado GOP primary, and Saint Brad Raffensperger crushing all comers). Two swing district election deniers successfully primaried Republicans who voted to impeach Trump, Joe Kent and John Gibbs. Both got schlonged.

And for good measure, ‘My Kevin’ McCarthy is poised to either (1) suffer the most embarrassing defeat in the history of the House of Representatives, or (2) be saddled with the narrowest House majority in decades and be forced to grovel in front of Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz if he wants to finally grab the gavel he sacrificed his dignity for.

There was indeed a bloodbath in 2022—just as Don Jr. predicted. But the bathers imbrued in crimson were his fellow coup conspirators. The taste of their defeat is making me feel downright vampiric, so I wanted us to take a moment to inject ourselves with the platelets of democratic victory, together. https://thetriad.thebulwark.com/p/democracy-was-on-the-ballot-and-attempts

Ron Brownstein: How Democrats Avoided a Red Wave

Republicans did not win those economically pessimistic voters by quite as big a margin as midterm precedents had suggested. Usually, the party out of power has dominated voters with those views: Democrats, for instance, in 2018 won about 85 percent of those who described the economy as either not so good or poor.

This year, Republicans slightly exceeded that result among those who called the economy ‘poor,’ the most negative designation. But among those who gave the equivocal verdict of ‘not so good,’ Republicans won only 62 percent, way down from the Democrats’ total four years ago. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2022/11/midterm-election-results-democrats-avoid-red-wave/672050/

Eric Lutz: Republicans Might Be Swinging At Trump — But They're Still Striking Out

If the GOP wants to break up with Trump, they should should stop talking about it and actually do it. The party has squandered six years' worth of opportunities to ditch Donald Trump — including two impeachments and an insurrection — because they were too afraid of him and his base to take a firm stand. And now, as the former president prepares to launch a third bid for the White House, the Republican Party seems destined to repeat the same mistake.

While the GOP is expected to gain back the House, the party's underwhelming midterm performance has forced members fringe and establishment to take stock of their allegiance to Trump, whose deep unpopularity has weighed them down in three straight elections now. Such soul-searching has brought about some unusually frank rhetoric about the former president: “He’s been on the mound and lost three straight games,” Utah Senator Mitt Romney told the Associated Press. “If we want to start winning, we need someone else on the mound.” Some have already turned their gaze toward potential 2024 successors: “Let me tell you something,” Republican Representative Maria Elvira Salazar told reporters. “I do know the next Republican presidential contender is coming from Florida” — a reference, it seemed, not to the man in the gilded golf club in Palm Beach, but to the guy in the governor’s mansion in Tallahassee: Ron DeSantis.

Still, all this talk of moving past Trump feels notably passive. Former Vice President Mike Pence, who has been teasing a run of his own, finally found the courage to admit that he was “angered” when Trump sicced an armed mob on him on January 6. But in that same primetime interview with ABC News’ David Muir, Pence still couldn’t bring himself to say that Trump shouldn’t be president again.

“Given all you witnessed in the Capitol that day, this is a pretty straightforward question, a yes or a no — do you believe that Donald Trump should ever be president again?” Muir asked.

“David, I think that’s up to the American people,” Pence replied, not giving a yes or a no, but assuring him that voters may have “better choices in the future.” https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/11/republicans-criticize-trump-ahead-of-expected-2024-announcement

Tim Alberta: Trumpism Is Toxic

According to exit polls, 20 percent of voters said inflation has caused their families ‘severe hardship’ over the past year. Among those respondents, 71 percent supported Republicans, and 28 percent supported Democrats. This is broadly consistent with other findings in the exit polling, as well as public-opinion research we saw throughout the summer and fall, showing disapproval of Biden and his stewardship of the economy. This would seem damning for Democrats—that is, until you consider the numbers in reverse and ask the obvious question: Why did three in 10 people who said they’ve experienced ‘severe hardship’ decide to vote for the party that controls Congress and the White House?

The simplest explanation is that although many of these voters think Democrats are out of touch, they also think Republicans are out of their minds. And it seems they prefer the former to the latter. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2022/11/republican-midterm-election-performance-2024-trump/672070/

Bess Levin: Rupert Murdoch Knees Trump In The Balls While He’s Doubled Over Coughing Up Blood

The last thirty-six hours have not gone great for Donald Trump and despite being famously detached from reality, he seems to know it, if reports of him lashing out and blaming everyone around him for the midterm results are anything to go by. Yet while a sad Trump could once turn to the warm embrace of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire to make him feel better about himself, that metaphorical bosom—or, more accurately, team of professional fluffers—is no longer. In fact, it appears that an unofficial memo has gone out to Murdoch-owned properties that the ex-president is only to be referred to as a has-been loser who, at this point, couldn’t win an election for deputy director of the Mar-a-Lago Parks and Recreation Department.

Take The Wall Street Journal. On Wednesday, there were no fewer than six anti-Trump op-eds, with one of them literally headlined Trump Is the Republican Party’s Biggest Loser. That piece, written by the Journal’s notoriously conservative editorial board, noted that Trump has now flopped in 2018, 2020, 2021 and 2022, and has led Republicans into one political fiasco after another. It suggests this week’s shellacking should be a wake-up call to the GOP before 2024 (i.e., the party should oppose his much-teased third run for office).

Then there’s the New York Post. On Wednesday, Trump’s hometown tabloid ran a cover declaring his current archnemesis, Ron DeSantis, the future of the Republican Party. Apparently, though, that was just a warm-up for what they had in store today, which was a cover depicting Trump as the anthropomorphic egg Humpty Dumpty, naturally headlined Trumpty Dumpty.

The accompanying story referred to the 45th president as Toxic Trump, dubbed him perhaps the most profound vote repellent in modern American history, and told him to scram. Another piece, written by his one-time pal Piers Morgan, noted:

There’s no getting away from the cold, hard political reality that it was a surprisingly better night for the Democrats and President Biden than anyone, including them, expected. And the reason for this had little to do with anything they did, other than correctly bet that the issue of abortion rights would be a vote-energizer for them—and everything to do with Trump’s toxic stranglehold on the GOP.

It remains to be seen just how long the Murdoch empire’s new anti-Trump stance lasts. While the Journal, the Post, and Fox News all seem to have gotten behind DeSantis as the new de facto leader of the Republican Party, it’s all but certain that they‘ll line up to support Trump should he win the 2024 GOP nomination, at which point they’ll probably have a case of convenient amnesia about declaring him a radioactive loser. Opinion Trump won’t fade away. The GOP will have to get rid of him. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/11/donald-trump-midterms-fox-news-rupert-nyp-wsj-rupert-murdoch

Eugene Robinson: Trump won’t fade away. The GOP will have to get rid of him

Republicans who say the Donald Trump era is over and the Ron DeSantis era has begun are guilty of magical thinking. Trump is never, ever going to voluntarily release his grip on your party. Nor will his followers simply extricate themselves from a movement that’s more cult than political party. If you want the GOP back, you’re going to have to take it from Trump and accept that it’s going to be ugly.

Rupert Murdoch’s media empire can’t do the job for you, hard as it might try. The change in tone since Tuesday’s elections is striking. Fox News analysts have presented the results as disastrous for the GOP. Thursday’s Wall Street Journal ran one editorial blaming Trump for making the party nominate unelectable candidates, another headlined Trump Is the Republican Party’s Biggest Loser, and a column by GOP eminence grise Karl Rove titled, With No Red Wave, Trump Is Out at Sea. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/10/trump-gop-take-itself-back/

Karen Attiah: White Southern women are holding us back

NY Times Editorial Board: America Can Have Democracy or Political Violence. Not Both.

Over the past five years, incidents of political violence in the United States by right-wing extremists have soared. Few experts who track this type of violence believe things will get better anytime soon without concerted action. Domestic extremism is actually likely to worsen. The attack on Paul Pelosi, the husband of the speaker of the House of Representatives, was only the latest episode, and federal officials warn that the threat of violence could continue to escalate after the midterm elections.

The embrace of conspiratorial and violent ideology and rhetoric by many Republican politicians during and after the Trump presidency, anti-government anger related to the pandemic, disinformation, cultural polarization, the ubiquity of guns and radicalized internet culture have all led to the current moment, and none of those trends are in retreat. Donald Trump was the first American president to rouse an armed mob that stormed the Capitol and threatened lawmakers. Taken together, these factors form a social scaffolding that allows for the kind of endemic political violence that can undo a democracy. Ours would not be the first. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/03/opinion/political-violence-extremism.html

David Frum: The Midterms Message for Republicans

For the party of the president to do well in a midterm election is very rare: 2002, 1998, 1962, and 1934 are the exceptions over the past century or so. In all four of those exceptional years, the president’s party was buoyed by some affirmative factor: a rally around the flag after 9/11, the economic boom of the late 1990s, relief after the Cuban missile crisis, the beginnings of recovery from the Great Depression.

This year was one in which all the indicators seemed negative for the party of the president: right-track/wrong-track numbers, presidential approval ratings, and optimism about the future. Yet Biden’s party won and won and won again despite the negative indicators. Yes, for sure there were affirmative reasons to vote Democratic in 2022, but it’s hard to miss the strong smell here of a thorough repudiation, up and down the ballot, of the post-Trump Republican Party, of the January 6 insurrectionists, and of a cultural agenda that seems to many Americans regressive and repressive. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/11/lesson-republicans-their-midterms-maga-debacle/672108/