High stakes in 2024 election are cause for anxiety
OPINION:
Anything can happen in 2024.
But right now, as the new year dawns, former President Donald Trump holds an insurmountable lead for the GOP presidential nomination, barring an unforeseen circumstance.
The former president also holds a slim but steady lead in polls over President Biden, notably in several battleground states.
Even a conviction on one or more of the many bogus charges filed in four different courts by Democratic prosecutors and being heard by Democratic judges would not derail him.
Voters know election interference when they see it. It happened in 2020 on a scale we had never seen before in this country, and it’s happening again. For instance, emulating Colorado’s lunacy, Maine’s Democratic secretary of state just kicked Mr. Trump off that state’s ballot.
The donkey party may be counting on having Mr. Trump as their foil, believing that nonstop vilification will make him unelectable, especially to female voters.
The Democrats’ fully owned subsidiary, the media, depicts Mr. Trump as a crotch-grabbing maniac who threatens world peace. Never mind that Mr. Biden, according to one credible account, grabbed the crotch of a young woman in a congressional hallway. And his weak leadership has triggered conflict all over the planet and may set off World War III.
However, I still think Democrats will figure out a way to make Mr. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris step aside for a more electable ticket. California Gov. Gavin Newsom is openly campaigning, and Michele Obama is waiting in the wings.
As for Mr. Trump, it’s true that he has been having too much fun baiting his humorless detractors. In an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity on Dec. 7, he was asked about allegations that he would abuse power if he regains the Oval Office.
“Except for day one,” he said before the live audience in Davenport, Iowa. “I want to close the border, and I want to drill, drill, drill.”
Then he reiterated it.
“We love this guy,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. Hannity. “He says, ‘You’re not going to be a dictator, are you?’ I said: ‘No, no, no, other than day one. We’re closing the border, and we’re drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I’m not a dictator.’”
People who get the joke loved it. Those who wish the former chief executive would tone it down so he won’t spook possible GOP voters were less impressed.
Weeks before the “day one” quote, left-wing journalists were already painting a picture of Mr. Trump as a coming Hitler.
“The only thing that stood between him [Donald Trump] and the destruction of American democracy was the federal judiciary. He will do, he will get away with, he will imprison, he will execute whoever he is allowed to imprison, execute, drive from the country,” emoted Joe Scarborough on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Nov. 21.
That bit of hyperbole won Mr. Scarborough the Brian Stelter Memorial Award for Worst Quote of the Year, conferred by the Media Research Center. Mr. Stelter was fired in August 2022 from his plum job as host of CNN’s low-rated “Reliable Sources” show.
Relentlessly dishonest, Mr. Stelter helped cover up the Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020, saying it was a “manufactured scandal.”
Mr. Scarborough, a former GOP congressman-turned-Democratic mouthpiece, won the Stelter award fair and square.
The Media Research Center noted that he “dismissed President Joe Biden’s many senior moments as he bragged that ‘behind closed doors’ Biden is ‘sharp’ and ‘on top of everything’ and has made ‘Europe safe for democracy.’”
“Scarborough also shamed GOP House members as a bunch of ‘weirdos, insurrectionists and freaks’ for trying to impeach the president over ‘Biden crime family nonsense.’”
The “nonsense” unearthed by House investigators is piling up to the sky. It involves millions in foreign payments to the Biden clan and uncontestable reports of Mr. Biden dealing with his son Hunter’s cronies despite the president’s many denials.
The first runner-up Stelter award went to MSNBC contributor Jason Johnson for his outburst against conservative activist Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, on “The ReidOut” on Sept. 11:
“I want this to be really clear. There has not been a more destructive force in the American jurisprudence in the last 30 years than Clarence Thomas’s wife. They’re the most destructive force in American jurisprudence. Those two together, they form like a Voltron of evil.”
For those not familiar with the reference, Voltron is a giant, animated space robot that is a force for good in the universe.
Justice Thomas and his wife have indeed been a mighty force for good in the universe. They are both trying their best to restore our self-governing republic and the rule of law by thwarting de facto Marxists on the bench, in Congress and in the White House.
The stakes in 2024 are so high that you can get an anxiety disorder thinking too much about it.
A better approach is to do whatever we can to aid the cause of liberty and to beseech God for a revival that will turn around a nation under siege from within and without.
• Robert Knight is a columnist for The Washington Times. His website is roberthknight.com.
