Michael Ramirez: Baggage 04-02-23
From America's Premier Editorial Cartoonist
Trump's antics, baggage and growing legal problems continue to be a drag on the Republican party. —Michael
Excerpt from today’s essay for paid subscribers:
Baseball bats, political persecution…
Do the math.
The last Gallup poll I looked at before the election in August last year showed 43% Independents and 30% Democrats. Republicans had shrunk to just 24% of the electorate. The majority of those Independents were former Republicans, lean Republican or conservative Democrats.
About a third of Republicans are hardcore “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters” Donald Trump supporters.
If enough GOP candidates split the vote, there is a sufficient amount of those hardcore supporters for Trump to win the nomination with just a plurality of the vote.
But you can’t win the general election with just 8% of the vote.
You need independents.
The question is electability…
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FROM MICHAEL:
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Baseball bats, political persecution…
Do the math.
The last Gallup poll I looked at before the election in August last year showed 43% Independents and 30% Democrats. Republicans had shrunk to just 24% of the electorate. The majority of those Independents were former Republicans, lean Republican or conservative Democrats.
About a third of Republicans are hardcore “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters” Donald Trump supporters.
If enough GOP candidates split the vote, there is a sufficient amount of those hardcore supporters for Trump to win the nomination with just a plurality of the vote.
But you can’t win the general election with just 8% of the vote.
You need independents.
The question is electability.
History has shown that independents no longer support Trump’s antics or believe the crazy conspiratorial nonsense peddled on social media by nutty right-wing pundits. The 2020 election, the 2021 Senate Special Election in Georgia, the 2022 election and the Georgia Warnock/Walker runoff proved it… over and over again.
They say elephants never forget…
Remember that massive red tidal wave that Trump-endorsed unelectable conspiratorial candidates quickly converted to a red trickle? I think former Obama supporter, Kari Lake (Speaking of April Fools), who has become her own “worst frickin’ nightmare,” is still out there chasing unicorns and the limelight.
The saddest part is, Americans are more than ready for another Reagan Revolution. They have been ready for the past 12 years, but the GOP is too focused on the past, and this unanchored populism, and conspiracy theories to win the future.
Republicans need to learn from their mistakes.
Reagan would not recognize the Republican party today. His, was a party built on a foundation of fundamental conservative principles.
Reagan believed in the principles our founding fathers championed in our Constitution and in their writings, what I characterize as Constitutional Conservatism. The belief in God, freedom, fidelity to the Constitution, adherence to the law, individual liberty, individual responsibility, less government, a strong national defense, fiscal responsibility, free market economics, America as a beacon of liberty to the world, knowing the difference between right and wrong, and the means are as important as the ends.
There used to be a difference between the parties.
I doubt Reagan would adhere to the tit-for-tat sophomoric rationalization and the “other side has done it” justifications from the spineless, dimwitted political leaders of today.
Reagan united America under a clear vision of conservatism.
While Trump claimed a “massive landslide victory” in 2016 and characterized it as “one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history,” it was Reagan who was elected by a real landslide… twice.
In 1980, Reagan was elected with 489 electoral votes, winning 44 states and 50.7% of the popular vote. He had an even bigger victory in 1984 with 525 electoral votes, winning 49 states and 59% of the popular vote.
Reagan wasn’t the only landslide victory for a modern Republican president in recent history. President Nixon won reelection in 1972 with 520 electoral votes, carried 49 states and 60.7% of the popular vote.
Trump was elected in 2016 with 304 electoral votes. He won 30 states and lost the popular vote.
To put that in perspective, Obama won in 2008 with 365 electoral votes and 52.9% of the popular vote. He was reelected in 2012 with 332 electoral votes and 51.1% of the popular vote.
Both Obama election victories were larger than Trump.
In fact, Barak Obama got more votes than either Trump or Clinton did in 2016, even with an annual population growth of .87% in the 8 years in between their election and a 21.5 million increase in population from 2008 to 2016.
President Teddy Roosevelt characterized the office of the presidency as the power of the bully pulpit. In order for it to be effective, you have to be persuasive, convincing, and believable…. And electable.
The latest antics by candidate Trump calling for protests and “death and destruction” and tweeting pictures of himself wielding a baseball bat next to a photo of DA Bragg are a repetition of mistakes that transpired before Jan 6th. It is another example of the rocky road and heavy load of baggage that will accompany a Trump campaign. It follows a history of impulsive behavior undermining his own agenda.
This may not be a felony case. On its face, it seems to be politically driven.
We won’t know until the exact charges are made public. But here’s where honesty counts, where credibility is more valuable than bluntness.
Campaigns are won or lost on perception.
Having a candidate that is believable would be a foil to combat any charges. Having a legal defense that “he may be a sleazebag, a liar and a tax cheat but he’s no felon” or it is “bad political precedent” only adds to the baggage already piled on top of the campaign bus. A call to arms may serve your base but you need more than just your base to win a general election.
These distractions turn away independent voters.
Americans see the failure of progressive governance. They have seen what the soft on crime, defund police movements and identity politics have reaped. They are living with the high cost of failed economic policies, the burden of large government, uncontrolled spending, high taxes, and soaring inflation. Biden energy policies undermine U.S. sovereignty and increase dependence on authoritarian regimes. The Biden defense posture projects weakness abroad that has only increased global insecurity and endangered America.
America wants a Reagan revolution.
But Republicans are being sold self-destructive conspiratorial delusions by hucksters who have exchanged their principles and integrity for popularity. 8% of the electorate may get you good ratings on cable TV or a popular podcast, but it doesn’t win elections.
A majority of voters do not like Joe Biden or his policies. In the 2020 election, 43% of Democrats did not vote for Biden, they voted against Donald Trump. 56% of America disapproves of his job performance today.
America was 45% Democrats, and 29% Independents according to Gallup in 1980. Republicans were only 23% of the electorate. Reagan won 85% of Republicans, 27% of Democrats, 56% of the Independents and the election.
Independents matter.
You don’t have to be hit with a baseball bat to understand that.
Have a great week.
-m
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I'm an independent now, but I would be considered closer to Libertarian than Democrat. They are 100% anti-Christian/anti-God and Socialist. I have less in common with them than Trump does. I'm not a Trump supporter, although I did vote for him 2x because the alternative was unimaginable as President. I have urged Trump and the Republicans to go another direction because I think Trump lost the last election because of Dems crawling out from under rocks and from the grave to vote against him. The cheating was real..that is not a conspiracy. When you have states with no verification voting and ballot harvesting, you have cheating. Texas learned that lesson the hard way back in the LBJ senatorial days. Without verification, the rest of us legal voters might as well stay home. Our vote my be cancelled out by an illegal vote and no one seems to want to think about that or care to audit beyond a simple recount. I'm about to call it all quits and let this country die by hands of the Dems. Then, and maybe only then, this country will wake the hell up and say enough is enough.