Category Archives: Republican Messaging

Trump vs. Biden

President Joe Biden

After Super Tuesday‘s results this week in both the Republican and Democratic presidential primaries, it is clear that Donald Trump and Joe Biden will have a 2024 rematch of their 2020 presidential election. Trump and Biden each won almost all of their Super Tuesday contests, with Trump losing only Vermont to Nikki Haley and Biden losing just American Samoa to someone named Jason Palmer. In the delegate count, Trump and Biden again are very well on their way to securing their respective party’s presidential nominations, with Trump thus far gaining 1,004 of the necessary 1,215 Republican delegates, and Biden getting 1,516 out of the required 1,968 delegates on the Democratic side. Haley has announced that she is abandoning her presidential campaign, but she refused to endorse Trump at this time.

Accordingly, as the nomination process now shifts to an early general election campaign between Trump and Biden, a key question is going to be: what is the 2024 presidential election about? The answer to that question may well determine who becomes our next president. For example, Trump and the Republicans will likely keep talking about trans bathroom use, and caravans of “migrants” (an apparent change from “immigrants” or “illegals”), because they either have the wrong policies or no policies at all on truly important issues such as the economy, climate change, healthcare, gun violence, etc. President Biden and the Democrats, in addition to running on their strong record of economic recovery and growth, have made “freedom” a centerpiece of their 2024 campaign thus far, which includes freedom from Republican government intrusion into women’s health decisions (i.e., abortion), freedom to vote, preserving our democracy and elections against Republican dictatorship, etc.

Nikki Haley is losing to Trump but helping Democrats

Nimrata “Nikki” Haley, taking on Trump

Nimrata “Nikki” Haley lags far behind Donald Trump for the 2024 Republican Party presidential nomination. In terms of state primaries and caucuses, while it’s still very early, Trump has won both the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary, the first time that a Republican candidate has swept both contests since these states began leading the election calendar in 1976. In Nevada, things got weird with both a primary (pursuant to state law) and a caucus, because state Republicans wanted one just for Trump. There, Haley ran only in the primary and lost to “None of these Candidates.” Trump ran only in the caucus and won all the Nevada delegates, bringing his total thus far to 63 delegates compared to Haley’s 17.

As for the polls, Haley now trails Trump by as much as 60 points in the aggregate. Even in Haley’s home state of South Carolina, where the primary is being held tomorrow (February 24), she is approximately 30 points behind Trump in the polls. It seems that today’s Republican Party is indeed a Trump cult.

It appears, therefore, that Haley has only one slim chance to defeat Trump: he would have to withdraw either for legal or medical reasons. However, Haley says that, even after a likely defeat in South Carolina tomorrow, she has no plans to quit the presidential race, and wants to fight on at least through Super Tuesday, March 5, when some 15 states (plus American Samoa) hold their Republican presidential nomination contests. For that, Democrats should be very grateful, because Haley has been hammering Trump on the campaign trail. Check out some of Haley’s attacks on Trump after the page jump:

It’s Super Bowl Sunday, and Republicans are terrified of Taylor Swift

Latest Republican obsession Taylor Swift

Of all the bizarre, circus-like political outbursts from Republicans in the past eight years or more, one of the silliest has to be the GOP’s explosion of fear over pop music star Taylor Swift. That Republican terror is set to peak this Sunday during the Super Bowl, which features the Kansas City Chiefs versus the San Francisco 49ers, and which is being played, appropriately, in Las Vegas.

For those few who haven’t been exposed to this latest circus, Taylor Swift is a singer-songwriter who has millions of fans, has won multiple Grammy awards, has sold approximately 200 million records worldwide (near the top of the all-time list for musical artists), and encourages her fans to register to vote. Swift also dates Kansas City Chiefs football player Travis Kelce. Swift often attends Kelce’s games, during which the broadcast network airing such games invariably turns the cameras on Swift, wearing a Chiefs jersey and cheering from the skybox, for a few fleeting seconds here and there.

The last two parts are what terrify Republicans, including those at Fox “News.” They have lashed out at Swift, the National Football League (NFL), and even President Joe Biden‘s administration. These Republicans first charged that Swift is part of a Biden administration “Pentagon psy-ops” effort. Okay, that doesn’t even make sense. Now Republicans also say that the NFL rigged the entire 2023-24 season in order to put the Chiefs into the Super Bowl so that Taylor Swift can be featured prominently for political reasons. Okay, that also doesn’t even … you get the idea.

President Biden scores decisive New Hampshire Democratic primary write-in victory

President Joe Biden, on a primary roll

With some votes still left to be counted, President Joe Biden won the New Hampshire 2024 Democratic presidential primary this past Tuesday without even having his name on the ballot. Biden captured 64 percent of the vote, with a margin of victory of approximately 45 percent over the second-place finisher. What is really remarkable is that all of President Biden’s votes were write-ins. That’s because, as we indicated a few weeks ago, at the urging of President Biden and his campaign, the Democratic National Committee (DNCvoted to request New Hampshire and Iowa to move their primary and caucus, respectively, to a later date, after that of South Carolina (which holds its Democratic primary on February 3), in order to “increase diversity” early in the process. However, while Iowa agreed to move its Democratic caucus to March 5, New Hampshire refused to do so. As a result, President Biden did not place his name on the ballot for the New Hampshire primary, thus only write-in votes would count for Biden.

Normally, there would have been approximately 33 Democratic delegates at stake in New Hampshire. However, due to the dispute with the DNC, no Democratic delegates will be allocated to any candidate in this year’s Granite State primary. As for the remaining states, it will take roughly 1,965-1,970 delegates (different sources give slightly different numbers) to win the Democratic presidential nomination this year.

Two ways to spin Trump’s Iowa caucus win

The media’s dream for the Republican primaries

Last Monday night, as expected Donald Trump won the 2024 Iowa Republican presidential caucus. Trump’s win, with 51 percent of the vote, ahead of Ron DeSantis (21.2 percent) and Nimarata Nikki Haley (19.1 percent), was the largest margin of victory in Iowa Republican presidential caucus history. Indeed, the Associated Press called the contest for Trump just 30 minutes after the polls had closed, and other news outlets quickly followed suit.

At the same time, however, some Democrats, such as Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, said that the Iowa results showed “the weakness of Donald Trump.” According to Pritzker, “Almost half of the base of the Republican Party showing up for this caucus tonight voted against Donald Trump.” Pritzker added that the Iowa results were therefore a good sign for President Joe Biden, who is running for re-election.

The 2024 presidential primaries are coming up fast, with controversy

Vermin Supreme, 2024 New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary candidate

It’s hard to believe, but the first 2024 presidential primary contest is just 11 days away. Specifically, on January 15, Iowa will hold its Republican presidential caucus. In advance of the Iowa GOP caucus, CNN is holding another Republican presidential debate just five days beforehand, on January 10. However, only three candidates qualified for the CNN debate: Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis and Nimarata Nikki Haley. Since Trump previously announced that he was skipping these debates, it will be just DeSantis and Haley, who are dead even in the Republican polls (though both are way behind Trump), flinging mud at each other. Both DeSantis and Haley are spending millions of dollars (either directly or via supportive PACs) to attack the other.

Eight days after the Iowa caucus, on January 23, comes the New Hampshire primaries, both on the Democratic and Republican side. Here’s where the controversy begins, and it’s with the Democrats. At the urging of President Joe Biden and his campaign, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) voted in favor of asking New Hampshire and Iowa to move their primary and caucus, respectively, to a later date, after that of South Carolina (which holds its 2024 Democratic primary on February 3), in order to “increase diversity” at the front end of the primary process. However, while Iowa agreed to move its Democratic caucus back to March 5, New Hampshire closely holds onto its first-in-the-nation primary status, which is written into state law, and both New Hampshire Democrats and Republicans (including Republican Governor Chris Sununu and Republican Secretary of State David Scanlan) opposed any such change.

Nikki Haley’s Civil War views demonstrate what is at stake in the 2024 elections

Nimarata Nikki Haley

This past Wednesday, Republican presidential candidate Nimarata Nikki Haley (née Randhawa) caused a political firestorm at a New Hampshire town hall event when she gave a shockingly evasive answer to a question about the U.S. Civil War. Specifically, a voter in the audience asked Haley, “What was the cause of the United States Civil War?” The following exchange then occurred:

Haley: Well, don’t come with an easy question or anything. I mean, I think the cause of the Civil War was basically how government was going to run. The freedoms and what people could and couldn’t do. What do you think the cause of the Civil War was?
Q: I’m not running for president. I wanted to hear your view on the cause of the Civil War.
Haley: I mean, I think it always comes down to the role of government. We need to have capitalism, we need to have economic freedom, we need to make sure that we do all things so that individuals have the liberties, so that they can have freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to do or be anything they want without government getting in the way.
Q: Thank you. In the year 2023, it’s astonishing to me that you’d answer that question without mentioning the word “slavery.”
Haley: What do you want me to say about slavery?
Q: You’ve answered my question. Thank you.
Haley: Next question.

Approximately 12 hours later, after sharp criticism from many quarters, including from President Joe Biden, Haley’s campaign tried to correct her blunder, releasing a Thursday morning radio interview in which Haley said, “Of course the Civil War was about slavery,” further calling the war “a stain on America.” Haley went on to reiterate that “freedom matters. And individual rights and liberties matter for all people.” However, the damage was done. Now Haley either looks like a racist, or just another mealy-mouthed politician saying different things depending on the audience and their reaction, rather than based on her own principles. In deciding which is the true Haley, the following quote from poet Maya Angelou comes to mind:

When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.

Republicans still playing defense by shoring up MAGA base

Republicans’ greatest fear

While the mainstream media once again are trying to influence the 2024 elections by inflating false concerns over President Joe Biden and the Democrats, a telltale sign is coming from the Republicans that they are worried about their own chances next year. This Republican concern has appeared in recent attempts to shore up the Republican MAGA base, rather than expand the GOP’s appeal well beyond their narrow base in order to win the presidency and other big elections in 2024. Most notably over the past week:

–New Republican U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson caved to the MAGAs and reversed course by backing an evidence-free impeachment inquiry by House Republicans against President Biden. Just a few weeks ago, Johnson said there was “insufficient evidence” to proceed with this charade, and no such evidence has come to light since then. However, Johnson angered extremist Republicans recently when he worked with House Democrats to avoid a federal government shutdown. Supporting the phony impeachment inquiry now is a way to throw red meat at these right wingers. Likewise, in a TV appearance, disgraced former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said that House Republicans who do not support Biden’s impeachment will face primary challenges in their own party, again meaning that Republicans should be deathly afraid of their irrational MAGA base.

Why comments about Matthew Perry’s death give us hope

Matthew Perry

Since 54 year-old actor Matthew Perry died in his hot tub last Saturday, the medical examiner in charge has not yet released a specific cause of death. As usual, however, that has not stopped online commenters from coming up with their own theories, some of them qualifying as conspiracies. The most boneheaded such theory thus far, which can be seen on various social media platforms, is that Perry died because he previously received the COVID vaccination. One such example found on Reddit (which appears to have been reposted from Twitter/X), was phrased like this:

I wanna ignore it but I can’t, Matthew Perry was vaccinated. Is it a coincidence?

Note that the theory was posed in the form of “I’m just asking the question.” Jon Stewart once made fun of the frequent use of this technique by Neil Cavuto and others at Fox “News.” Such a qualifier lets folks raise any crazy, groundless theory they want, e.g., “Was Matthew Perry abducted by space aliens, then returned to his hot tub to die?”

The twist here, however, is that commenters who replied to this online theory about Matthew Perry and the COVID vaccination almost uniformly slammed the people who put it forth. Here are just some of those reply comments:

Senator Robert Menendez must resign, but not for the reason you think

U.S. Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ)

By now, many people know that U.S. Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, is in big legal trouble, again. This time, the allegations leading to the latest corruption charges against Menendez look bad, including bribery payments to the Senator in cash and gold in return for his interfering with criminal cases and giving illegal special favors, even to the government of Egypt. As a result, there have been widespread calls for Menendez to resign, including from many Democrats. Indeed, about half of Menendez’ Democratic U.S. Senate colleagues, as well as New Jersey County Chairs and others, have now called for him to step down. It’s fair to say that such calls have grown louder and are gaining momentum.

At the same time, it’s true that in America, everyone accused of a crime is deemed under the law to be innocent until proven guilty. Moreover, it is not illegal to keep cash and even gold in one’s home; plenty of people do it. Thus, an argument can be made (and Sen. Menendez is making it forcefully, while pleading not guilty to the charges) that it’s unfair for him to have to resign unless and until he is found guilty of the crimes of which he has been accused. Unfortunately, however, neither the court of public opinion nor the U.S. Senate is a court of law, and there are powerful reasons why Menendez must resign right away.