My 2024 forecast


Fig. 1. “Handmaids protest abortion restrictions at a recent rally,” undated photograph by John O’Connor for the Associated Press, via The Well,[1] fair use.

See updates through March 24, 2023, at end of post.


It is generally unwise, in fact, foolish, to forecast elections so far in advance as I am the 2024 general election in this post. And there is, in fact, only one reason I’m going public with this at this time.

I gather, okay, from my mother, that folks in more progressive parts of the world might doubt Donald Trump’s continued hold on the Republican Party and infer doubt from this about his prospects in 2024. After all, a certain Trump-loving segment of the Party has been expressing, um, outlandish views on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that ought to be repugnant to any sane person.[2]

I wish I’d gotten photographs of two sights I saw today, driving around Pittsburgh. But when I see these things, I’m rushing around, trying to make what money I can, so it’s hard for me to stop, even long enough to grab a quick snap on my smartphone.

The first was a Donald Trump campaign flag. These are common enough around Pittsburgh, but the old ones from 2020 are being replaced with new ones anticipating his likely run in 2024.[3] This one said, in three lines: “Trump/I’ll Be Back/2024.” (By the way, Arnold Schwarzenegger[4] would be a hard “no” on Trump.[5])

The second was a wacko on a bicycle. He was dressed in garb meant to recall U.S. Revolutionary War-era “patriots.” He was carrying two large flags on a pole. The first said, “Let’s Go Brandon,” code for “Fuck Biden,”[6] and the second was a campaign flag, also for 2024. These are large, highly visible flags; I saw him striking a pose, but it would take quite some effort to manage carrying this while also riding a bicycle, particularly if any wind came up.

All this is apparently perfectly respectable in Pittsburgh, although my passenger audibly groaned at the second, and my extrapolation of what I see around Pittsburgh to the rest of the country, with a conservative-leaning electoral college and a likelihood that Trump can manage to stall any pending legal actions against him, is one reason why—the other is the absolutely inexcusably pathetic failure calling itself the Democratic Party[7]—I think Donald Trump is likely to win the presidency back in 2024.

At this point, the Republicans having already won control of Congress in the 2022 elections, the ongoing Republican project to undermine voting rights and non-white representation will be unopposed in any branch of government, will rapidly reach culmination, and we will have a right-wing dictatorship like those in Russia, Poland, Brazil, the Philippines, Turkey, and a number of other places that I’m just not remembering off the top of my head.

Sorry, that’s just how it plays. You are certainly more than welcome to hope I’m wrong—I hope I’m wrong—but there’s just no reason whatsoever at this point to see it playing any other way.


Update, May 19, 2022: Ishaan Tharoor documents a threat that I have frankly underestimated, that ties Viktor Orbán’s regime in Hungary to the U.S. Trumpist right[8] and even to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine;[9] if you want to know what the forthcoming right-wing dictatorship in the U.S.[10] might look like, a lot of that answer might be found in Hungary: essential components include the war on abortion, which may very well go beyond the overturning of Roe v. Wade to outright bans on birth control, abortion, and gay and interracial marriage.[11]

Some will doubt that a majority of conservatives are prepared to go this far. But Trumpism, as a movement which is not very much under Donald Trump’s control,[12] has already merged[13] the authoritarian populist, paleoconservative, and social conservative tendencies I identified in my dissertation,[14] and with Rod Dreher,[15] seems to now include traditionalist conservatism, which has always been closely aligned on most issues with social conservatism.[16] As the Republican establishment has embraced Trumpism, we must now as well include functionalist conservatism. That’s five out of the seven tendencies I had identified, omitting only neoconservatism and capitalist libertarianism,[17] neither of which have been prepared on the whole to oppose Trumpism (as distinct from Donald Trump himself[18]); we are clearly looking at a unifying ideology within conservatism. It is an extremely powerful movement that, like Viktor Orbán’s in Hungary, aims to consolidate control over the electoral process[19] while the Democrats fail to do a damn thing about it.[20]


May 23, 2022: There is an unstoppable white Christian nationalist segment to the Pennsylvania electorate that anyone on the ground has to see:

The 58-year-old, arch-conservative state senator and retired Army colonel won 44% of the vote Tuesday, according to unofficial results, defying the last-minute efforts of top consultants and party bigwigs to cast him as unelectable against Democratic nominee Josh Shapiro.

On the issues, [Doug] Mastriano gave full-throated endorsements of the conservative agenda, including the repeal of Pennsylvania’s no-excuse mail-in ballot law, an abortion ban, and former President Donald Trump’s baseless claims of voter fraud.

These positions were echoed by many in the nine-person primary field. But what made him stand out was his unapologetic embrace of those positions’ extremes — such as allowing no exceptions for rape, incest, or the life of the parent on the former, or sharing patently false information on the number of mail-in ballots requested in 2020.[21]

White Christian nationalism, which I have also called ‘Trumpism,’ very clearly dominates both houses of the Pennsylvania legislature,[22] suggesting widespread support across the state. What is less clear to me is its relative strength against other factions, both in absolute numbers and in numbers sufficiently motivated to vote. I think there is a chance that Pennsylvania results this November may diverge from national results, where in the latter, I fully expect white Christian nationalists to prevail,[23] largely because Democrats have performed so abominably, even failing to pass voting rights reform that would keep them in the game,[24] that there is simply nothing to vote for in that party, which is so plainly more comfortable in opposition where it can complain about the Republicans without being expected to accomplish a single damned thing.[25]

Widespread and highly visible support for Donald Trump still does not, yet anyway, seem visibly to translate into support for Mehmet Oz, whom Trump endorsed against David McCormick[26] in the still undecided U.S. Senate race for the Republican nomination that’s almost certainly headed for an automatic recount.[27] The question in my mind is whether either candidate can attract sufficient enthusiasm to prevail against the wildcard John Fetterman,[28] who has just been discharged from the hospital[29] following a stroke.[30]

And it is similarly certainly possible in my mind that the Republican Party establishment had it right when they opposed Doug Mastriano, calling him too extreme,[31] before they threw their support behind him when he won the Republican primary for governor.[32] The trouble in my mind here is that Josh Shapiro, a far more conventional candidate than Fetterman, may be dragged down by national Democratic Party flaccidity,[33] which is why I’m still inclined to think that Mastriano will win.

If Fetterman wins, he might make a difference in the U.S. Senate, but if I’m right about Mastriano, Pennsylvania will inescapably be under white Christian nationalist rule and there will be nothing stopping white Christian nationalists from seizing control of the electoral machinery of the state[34] to ensure they never again lose a statewide election here, that they will never lose control of the state legislature, and that Fetterman will be limited to a single term.


Update, May 25, 2022: It would appear that Donald Trump still[35] doesn’t have the votes in Georgia,[36] with at least one voter—I’m phrasing it this way on purpose because I’m not seeing a real analysis of why Georgia voters voted the way they did—saying Trump shouldn’t meddle in Georgia politics.[37]

I have previously observed that Trump does not control Trumpism,[38] which is now more generally called white Christian nationalism, so this isn’t really necessarily a setback for the latter. That would be if Democrats do well in November.

It’s important to not confound questions that I think often get muddled: How much support can Trump’s admirers claim for the man himself, his endless claims of a ‘stolen election,’ and even potentially for a ‘civil war?’[39] How much support can white Christian nationalists claim for their agenda? What we might be seeing in Georgia—this has yet to be determined—is a broader support for the agenda than for Trump. And again, as with Pennsylvania,[40] my question is about how much support this agenda will claim in the general election against an abysmally performing Democratic Party.[41]


Update, May 28, 2022: Here is an example of why, instead of seeing conservatism as diverse, as I did in my dissertation,[42] I am increasingly seeing it as monolithic in the form of white Christian nationalism:

Here, amid acres of guns and tactical gear inside a cavernous [National Rifle Association] convention hall, the proximate cause of the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, was not a rifle, but mental illness, shadowy forces of evil or, as one man in a “Let’s Go Brandon” T-shirt put it, the “destruction of our children” by the teachings of the left.[43]

“[T]he ‘destruction of our children’ by the teachings of the left”[44] mirrors current bigotry against LGBTQ+ folks.[45] It rationalizes sexual repression and censorship of pornography.[46] And here, it excuses a capitalist libertarian attitude toward constitutional rights, including alleged gun rights.[47]

I had excluded capitalist libertarianism and neoconservatism from this conservative monolith[48] but on further consideration, I realize that the white Christian nationalist embrace of capitalist libertarian positions on gun control and COVID-19 mitigation measures compromises[49] the distinction considerably: Capitalist libertarians—call them the irresponsible hedonist capitalist libertarians—often hold socially liberal positions directly contradicting social and traditionalist conservative sexual repression, but a tension was also present between those capitalist libertarians who advocated socially liberal positions and those—call them socially conservative capitalist libertarians—who felt that individuals, if in their light “free,” would make an individual moral choice for “virtue.”[50]

I believe a similar tension exists within neoconservatism, between those who strongly advocate social and traditionalist conservative views, and the last-minute “never Trump” movement that failed to stop Donald Trump from winning the Republican nomination for president in 2016.

In Uvalde, a makeshift memorial of white wooden crosses had gone up for the 19 children and two adults slain [at Robb Elementary School]. But at the NRA meeting in Houston, less than 300 miles away, the shooting had been reduced to a sling stone in the broader culture wars. The slaughter, it was universally agreed, was a tragedy. But gun owners saw themselves as set upon, too.[51]

This sense of aggrievement—some National Rifle Association convention attendees even accuse “the Left’ of pushing the Uvalde shooter to kill, so as to advance an argument for gun control[52]—mirrors that of paleoconservatives, one of the tendencies making up this conservative monolith, who see whites as victims of a conspiracy among “Blacks and browns.” It mirrors the aggrievement of social conservatives, another of those tendencies,[53] who are seizing upon what they see as their last chance to assert control over the country.[54] It mirrors that of authoritarian populists, Trump’s original base,[55] who have, for a thousand years, seen themselves as exploited by a wide-ranging political, economic, and academic ‘elite’ they identify with ‘liberalism.’[56]

Here, finally, is what links white Christian nationalism with support for police white supremacist gangs[57] that I have seen together with the white supremacist militarism and gun nuttery so prevalent around Pittsburgh:[58]

John Thomas, a Republican strategist [who] works on House campaigns across the country . . . said he could envision cutting an ad featuring a Republican’s remarks at the conference: “When times were tough, and the weaker RINOs [Republicans In Name Only] and liberals wanted to take your guns, you know, such and such stood up for your right to protect yourself and your family.”[59]

White Christian nationalist aggrievement is rationalized as protecting their families[60]—their children.

So, with portions of capitalist libertarian and neoconservative tendencies, call it roughly six of the seven tendencies I had identified in my dissertation,[61] now forming a monolith, the resulting typology appears as:

The consequence is an extraordinarily powerful movement, encompassing nearly all conservatives as white Christian nationalists, that I believe Democrats are helpless[62] to stop in the elections of 2022 and 2024[63] allowing Republicans, as white Christian nationalists, to complete their longstanding project to subvert voting rights and establish a permanent right-wing dictatorship in the United States.


Update, May 31, 2022: Julia Ioffe is unlikely to have read my last blog post[64] on Ukraine. But she shares my fear that Donald Trump will win in 2024[65] and my concern[66] that the white Christian nationalist isolationists will undermine support for Ukraine’s defense against Russia.[67]

Moreover, it’s not just apple-pie American isolationism, not after Trump’s victory in 2016. Trump showed that there is a genuine ideological affinity for Putin in America. He is an aspirational leader for many on the right, including Carlson and Trump. Putin is unapologetically white, Christian, and traditional. He hates gay people and feminists and effete, urban intellectuals. He is a nationalist who doesn’t care about democratic niceties. He does what he wants and he takes what he wants, like a real man. If this wing of the G.O.P. is again ascendant in 2024, then Ukraine better hope it has won the war by then.[68]

As I wrote in my 2024 forecast, I am far from fond of issuing forecasts this far in advance. But it is very, very, very hard to see what stops the Republicans from seizing control of Congress in this November’s election and what stops Trump from winning back the presidency in 2024.[69] Frankly, this forecast right now looks nearly safe enough to take to the bank.


Update, June 11, 2022: Attorney General Merrick Garland really, really, really does not want to prosecute Donald Trump. Inevitably—he’s right about this—such a prosecution will be seen as partisan and political.[70] The trouble is that it is every bit as clear that if, as I expect, Donald Trump indeed regains the presidency in the 2024 election, we will have a white Christian nationalist regime that effectively cannot be voted out, as there will be nothing left to prevent the culmination of a longstanding Republican project to disenfranchise opposing minority and inner city voters.[71]

The most likely avenue to preventing this outcome is if Trump is physically unable to assume the presidency, perhaps because he is in prison. There are a couple ways this could happen. There was a criminal investigation of his finances that is now in doubt.[72] The other is as a consequence of investigations into his January 6 coup attempt. It looks like the January 6 committee has this evidence.[73]

But time is not on the side of a slow-moving court system that is clearly highly susceptible to Trump’s chronic sort of abuse. And the Republicans already have a history of obstructing budgets. What will happen if a Republican House of Representatives refuses any and all funding for the Department of Justice, perhaps refusing to pass any budget at all, until all investigations or prosecutions of Trump are ended? Do you really believe they will not be so loony as to threaten this?

Better hope Trump dies.


Update, June 17, 2022:

[Pippa] Norris was pointing to the visible “structural” flaws in the country’s politics that enable the Republicans to secure outsize power for their vote share, including the composition of the Senate, which skews disproportionately to rural America. At a time when the party’s base appears to be drifting toward what some scholars of comparative politics have dubbed a form of “authoritarian far-right” politics, it’s especially concerning.[74]

The Senate and Electoral College have been this way from the beginning. I’ve understood the intention as to ensure that rural areas were not effectively disenfranchised, like Republicans are in California. The trouble is that this system relies on balance: It’s one thing to ensure rural areas have a voice. It’s another when that voice comes to drown out urban areas.[75] And that’s what’s happening:

Though its overall score per the [governance] index remains quite high, the United States’ assessed decline over the past two decades was one of the largest, on par with countries like Haiti and Hungary in that period of time. The think tank measured significant drops in U.S. “state capacity” and “democratic accountability” — the first measure could be defined roughly as the country’s ability to implement collective reforms and the latter a measure of the health of checks and balances, from electoral integrity to the efficacy of civil society and the media.

“The U.S. drop in state capacity and democratic accountability is not unique, but it is rare among advanced economies,” researchers Markus Lang and Edward Knudsen wrote me in an email.[76]

It hasn’t happened yet, but it appears Republicans have pushed us[77] past a tipping point,[78] which culminates in a white Christian nationalist authoritarian regime, as I wrote yesterday,

in part because [Democrats are] incredibly unpopular about now,[79] and in part because of conservative efforts to effectively disenfranchise likely Democratic voters.[80]

It’s not like this is a shocking new development. It has been a work in progress and no politician has an excuse for not observing it, which is why I view a persistent Democratic Party complacency on the issue as treasonous[81] and as further evidence of their preference to be in the opposition, where they can complain about the Republicans, but no one can expect them to actually accomplish a damn thing.[82] Whatever their rhetoric, the Democrats effectively refuse to oppose the establishment of a white Christian nationalist regime in the U.S., which is why I think that’s what we’re going to get, in very short order.[83]


Update, June 20, 2022:

The crux of any prosecution of [Donald] Trump would hinge heavily on convincing a jury that Trump knew he lost the election and acted with criminal intent to overturn the valid election results. The hearings have focused heavily on testimony that Trump fully knew he had lost and went full steam ahead to concoct schemes to stay in power. . . .

But experts caution any decision to charge Trump will be up to the current attorney general, Merrick Garland, who has been careful not to discuss details of his department’s January 6 investigations, which so far have led to charges against more than 800 individuals, including some Proud Boys and Oath Keepers charged with seditious conspiracy. . . .

Barbara McQuade added that [Bill] Barr’s testimony was “devastating for Trump. He and other Trump insiders who testified about their conversations with Trump established that Trump knew he had lost the election and continued to make public claims of fraud anyway. That knowledge can help establish the fraudulent intent necessary to prove criminal offenses against Trump.”[84]

It appears the evidence is there, even to overcome[85] a defense that Donald Trump was so detached from reality that he lacked criminal intent.[86] But if a district attorney can convince a grand jury not to indict a ham sandwich, then Merrick Garland, who quite reasonably worries that such a trial might lead to civil unrest[87] (although violence may be likely in any event[88]), can convince the Department of Justice not to indict Trump. And I’m pretty damn sure that’s just what will happen. I also think that even if Trump were to be charged, he would manage to prolong proceedings beyond a January 2025 inaugural, at which point there will be no one left to tell him he can’t pardon himself.[89]


Update, June 20, 2022: When I was defending my dissertation, sensing the rage of authoritarian populism, I predicted that Donald Trump would win the White House in 2016.

As Trump kept spiraling ever downwards in his rhetoric, being offensive toward more and more people, I walked back that prediction. When he won anyway, I figured that some way, somehow, he wouldn’t finish his term. He did and I came to understand him as a sort of black hole, sucking the country ever deeper towards a bottomless gravity well of grievance and hatred.

We know now that, far from feeling ignominy in his 2020 defeat, he claims fraud, that his backers are preparing to ensure they never again lose an election, and that if Trump is able, he will surely run to resume the presidency in 2024.[90]

And if you want a sense of what is now a white Christian nationalist[91] rage, take a look at the Texas Republican platform.[92] Even as they are about to win control of the entire country,[93] and to impose white Christian nationalism on all of us,[94] they’re talking about secession[95] from a country that, in large swaths, mostly shares their values, but mostly in urban areas, often does not.

This is madness. It is also fury. Fury that remains undiminished as it has been for a thousand years.[96]


Update, July 22, 2022: I was going to write that Jon Allsop’s optimism that the January 6 committee had changed minds seemed a bit much. If you read down in his column, what emerges is that Republican voters are more willing to consider alternatives to Donald Trump but their admiration for him remains largely undimmed. That’s a lot more nuanced than Allsop conveyed as he took note of pundits admitting they were wrong.[97]

But no, it appears that the hearings have hurt Trump with moderate Republicans and independents.[98]

That doesn’t necessarily translate to a defeat for white Christian nationalism. As David Lauter notes, “Moving on from Trump doesn’t necessarily mean repudiating Trumpism.”[99] This is a terribly crucial point: I’ve previously noted that Trump doesn’t control Trumpism,[100] which I now call white Christian nationalism, and which I continue, at least for now, to think will, as the culmination of a longstanding project, soon be in effectively permanent control of the country.[101] I’m really tired as I write this, but I’m thinking that conceivably, the movement, though certainly not the country, might be better off without Trump’s financial and coup-related legal sagas.


Update, July 28, 2022:

This fall’s election will test whether there are political consequences for the Pennsylvania Republicans who played significant roles on Jan. 6 — or if they’ll grow more empowered ahead of the next presidential race, when Donald Trump could again be on the ballot and Pennsylvania will again be a pivotal battleground in deciding who wins the presidency.[102]

I can’t tell you how much I hope I’m wrong about this. But there’s a reason these white Christian nationalists are so bold and that is simply that they enjoy broad and enthusiastic support across Pennsylvania. I can’t tell you how many Confederate flags I saw prior to the January 6 coup attempt and I can’t tell you how many Donald Trump campaign flags, both still up from the 2020 election and and anticipating his 2024, I’ve seen, especially in southwestern Pennsylvania.

There might be moderate Republicans in Pennsylvania[103] but they most certainly did not prevail in the primary;[104] Josh Shapiro will need their votes when “[p]olls suggest the election will mainly be a referendum on a deeply unpopular [Joe] Biden, his Democratic allies, and the state of the U.S. economy.”[105]

Y’all know I don’t trust surveys when response rates are in the single digits[106] (for the methodology to be valid, the response rate should be at least ninety percent and with the response rates pollsters are actually seeing, there is absolutely no validity whatsoever in extrapolating from respondents to non-respondents). In this case, however, I suspect the pollsters are right.

There is certainly revulsion at the events of January 6, 2021. But it is limited to people who care about politics and, frankly, around Pennsylvania, people would much rather talk about sports.

Republican control of the U.S. House, meanwhile, hinges on a handful of swing districts, including several in Pennsylvania. A GOP majority could make the 2024 election more vulnerable if there’s another push to subvert the will of the voters. Most of the chamber’s Republicans — including 8 of Pennsylvania’s 9 GOP House members — voted to throw out Pennsylvania’s 2020 results, but were overruled by the chamber’s Democratic majority. (Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, of Bucks County, was the lone Republican exception from Pennsylvania).[107]

This is how Gilead happens.[108]


Update, August 17, 2022: It appears I erred in a citation for my claim that Merrick Garland fears violent repercussions from a potential prosecution of Donald Trump and I have been unable to locate where I saw it. But I did find this in connection with deliberations within the Department of Justice:

Filing criminal charges against [Donald] Trump in connection with his efforts to overturn the election “will very likely spark civil unrest, and maybe even civil war,” said Barbara McQuade, an NBC legal analyst and a former U.S. attorney.[109]

I have modified my earlier citation.


Update, August 30, 2022:

“What we’re seeing now is either the beginning or the death knell of an extreme MAGA philosophy,” [Joe] Biden said, referring to [Donald] Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan. “It’s not just Trump, it’s the entire philosophy that underpins the — I’m going to say something — it’s like semi-fascism.”[110]

But what have the Democrats actually done about it? Nothing. Even when it would keep them in the electoral game.[111]

It will take actual action, not mere performance, to make my 2024 forecast[112] wrong,[113] but what we keep seeing is that the Democrats do not actually stand in opposition to white Christian nationalism or to the longstanding Republican project to establish a competitive authoritarian regime. They enable white Christian nationalism and they enable the competitive authoritarian regime.

Such action, rather, comes from the Republicans themselves, overreaching in their support for Donald Trump, overreaching in their opposition to abortion rights.[114] It’s all the Democrats ever ask for: That you vote against the Republicans. And the infuriating part is that it just might be working.[115]


Update, September 10, 2022: With regard to Sarah Palin’s loss in a special election in Alaska, this is the factor I find most salient:

Sure, it’s possible that Alaskans are just sick of Sarah Palin. She abandoned them, leaving her governorship with a year left on her term under a cloud of ethics complaints. She bought a house in Arizona and had middling success at becoming a reality-television star. None of this seemed to work in Palin’s favor; in July, an Alaska Survey Research poll found her to have a positive–negative rating of 31–61 among the state’s registered voters. Maybe Alaska didn’t want its prodigal daughter to return.[116]

But that’s an incomplete explanation for Mary Peltola’s victory because, well, Alaskans had a Republican alternative, Nick Begich, III. They didn’t choose him either. At the very least, in Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system, voters preferred the Democrat to Palin and there weren’t enough who chose Begich.

Molly Jong-Fast believes the ranked-choice system should have worked in favor of Republicans.[117] I would question that, given Palin’s strong negatives. Everything I heard from Alaska is that Alaskans were really, really unhappy with Palin, pretty much for the reasons Jong-Fast states.

Are Alaskans really holding a grudge this long? I’ve never even been to Alaska but I’m thinking that, yes, they most definitely are. I am absolutely not, certainly not without visiting the state, ready to discount the Republican complaint that ranked-choice worked against them.[118]

Jong-Fast also points to two other factors that might have influenced the vote:

  • First, abortion rights.[119] Jong-Fast writes that

    Since Friday, June 24, when the Supreme Court overturned Roe with the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, there have been five congressional special elections. In every single one of these, the Republican candidate has underperformed against the partisan lean of his or her district.”[120]

  • Second, Jong-Fast suspects that anti-intellectualism, which has propelled the political careers not only of Palin, but of Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor-Greene, Donald Trump, and countless other Republicans, may have backfired.[121] This would be quite a turn. U.S. anti-intellectualism dates back at least a thousand years and to another continent.[122]

We’ll see it all play out again this November, as all three candidates in Alaska will vie for a new term following the one that Peltola will now complete.[123] But I gotta tell you, as the scandal over Trump’s mishandling of classified documents develops[124] and another scandal about his fundraising fraud resurfaces,[125] Trump flags and yard signs seem to be disappearing in southwest Pennsylvania where previously they were ubiquitous. I’ll continue looking, but their sudden absence seems as striking as that of Confederate flags following the January 6 coup attempt.[126]

There’s no small risk in attributing a statewide result to national factors—this applies to Jong-Fast’s consideration of abortion rights and Trump[127]—particularly in a state as remote as Alaska, yet such factors may be compelling here as it’s looking more and more like Democrats may do far better than expected in November,[128] like white Christian nationalism has overstepped, and like Trump is now dead politically.

I am very much wishing I could be on the ground in more places, especially including Alaska right now. I might have more insight to offer.


Update #2, September 10, 2022: I was in Westmoreland County much of this afternoon and evening (Saturday). I saw campaign yard signs in the style of Donald Trump campaign signs, but supporting local candidates, where I would expect to additionally see signs of various sorts supporting Trump. I saw “Let’s Go Brandon” (code for “Fuck Joe Biden[129]) signs. But I only saw two actual signs supporting Trump. I wasn’t counting bumper stickers, but these also seemed much less common.

Westmoreland County is much more conservative than Allegheny County, where Pittsburgh is and where I live. Of all the counties surrounding Allegheny, I think Westmoreland is, visibly at least, the most anti-abortion. When facemasks were required for the COVID-19 pandemic, it seemed to me that a substantial majority of the population defied the requirements. If Trump’s support has evaporated here, he’s in real trouble.


Update, September 29, 2022: I’m not sure Thomas Edsall has it quite right, but his article[130] suggests that what I identified in my dissertation as authoritarian populism, which I thought to be Donald Trump’s original base, and with its definition of ‘liberal’ as everything they’re against[131] is somehow the illiberal unifying force that now renders conservatism largely monolithic.[132]

Edsall cites a paper by Marlene Laruelle which, in his quotation, describes illiberalism as “to some degree coherent; it represents a backlash against today’s liberalism in all its varied scripts — political, economic, cultural, geopolitical, civilizational.”[133] I disagree that this is in any way “coherent.” Simply being against something does not make for a coherent ideology and what Edsall describes, citing numerous sources, remains overwhelmingly about what illiberals are against. About the only thing they are clearly for is religion, principally Christianity with a patronizing nod to other faiths.[134]

Edsall’s view[135] leaves me with a rather glaring question in that he fails to explain how seven disparate tendencies, many with their own intellectual (such as they are) traditions, that I identified in my dissertation,[136] have somehow unified under an anti-intellectual incoherent authoritarian populism that Edsall calls illiberalism,[137] a term appropriate in the international context, and what I have labeled white Christian nationalism, a term appropriate in the U.S., Hungary, and Russia.[138] Still, to the extent he’s right, I feel some vindication: My initial assessment of Trump as authoritarian populist[139] seems wholly consistent with what I see here.[140]

But if this is indeed a correct view—and I certainly cannot say that it is wrong—then this monolith will surely be unstable. The intellectual differences must at some point reemerge.


Update, October 14, 2022: Viktor Orbán lost an election in 2002 but has now been “Prime Minister [of Hungary] since 2010, is now the longest-serving head of state in the European Union, and [is] one of the most fiercely nativist and traditionalist.”[141]

“You do not have to have emergency powers or a military coup for democracy to wither,” Aziz Huq, a constitutional-law professor at the University of Chicago, told me [Andrew Marantz]. “Most recent cases of backsliding, Hungary being a classic example, have occurred through legal means.” [Viktor] Orbán runs for reëlection every four years. In theory, there is a chance that he could lose. In practice, he has so thoroughly rigged the system that his grip on power is virtually assured. The political-science term for this is “competitive authoritarianism.” Most scholarly books about democratic backsliding (“The New Despotism,” “Democracy Rules,” “How Democracies Die”) cite Hungary, along with Brazil and Turkey, as countries that were consolidated democracies, for a while, before they started turning back the clock.[142]

The parallel with Donald Trump and the reason for a competitive authoritarian regime is apparent:

Please recognize that President Donald Trump was in a unique position, better informed about the absence of widespread election fraud than almost any other American president. Trump’s own campaign experts told him that there was no evidence to support his claims. His own Justice Department appointees investigated the election fraud claims and told him — point blank — they were false. In mid-December 2020, President Trump’s senior advisers told him the time had come to concede the election. Donald Trump knew the courts had ruled against him.

He had all of this information, but still, he made the conscious choice to claim fraudulently that the election was stolen.[143]

Trump could not tolerate the reality that he had lost to Joe Biden.[144] And just as Orbán has ensured that he will never lose again, Republicans have long sought the same for themselves.

The crucial aspect here is that electoral results take second place to a particular self-righteousness. In Trump’s case, it is likely simply his narcissistic ego.[145] For illiberals generally, it is a right-wing ideology, often white Christian nationalism. The epistemological foundation is not popularity, as reflected in election results, or empirical, but rather the way things should be, according to some morality, be it a selective reading (always selective) of religious scripture, be it capitalism, be it “tradition,” be it anything else.[146]


Update, November 13, 2022:

Pennsylvania will send two Democrats to the U.S. Senate for the first time since the mid-1940s. The Congressional delegation will be majority-Democrat for the first time since 2010. Republicans are on the cusp of losing their state House majority for the first time in more than a decade. And the GOP lost an open-seat governor’s race by the largest margin in 70 years.[147]

While the GOP made gains in states such as New York and Florida and still has a shot at winning the U.S. House, that’s no thanks to Pennsylvania. Here, they lost a marquee Senate race, a critical governor’s contest, and all three of the competitive congressional campaigns. The GOP may have also lost control of the state House for the first time in more than a decade.[148]

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is notorious for its conservative leanings, so it’s no surprise that following a 2022 Republican electoral meltdown,[149] we’re supposed to sympathize[150] with the “fuck your feelings” crowd, you know, just like we were following the 2020 election.[151]

Mostly, as I said earlier, it seems there’s an upper limit to the crazy in Pennsylvania, but also:

Abortion turned out to be the top issue driving voters in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, with more than one in three ranking it above every other factor, according to exit polling reported by ABC News.

Dig into those numbers, and the picture gets even worse for Republicans.

Mr. [Doug] Mastriano’s belief that abortion should be illegal, with no exceptions for rape, incest or the life of the mother, put him well outside the mainstream. A mere 8% of voters shared his position, exit polls showed.

Nearly 60% of Pennsylvania voters disagreed with the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade, with 40% going so far as to say they were angry about it, according to exit polls. On the other side, just 7% said the decision excited them.[152]

The Pennsylvania white Christian nationalist legislature is in the middle of a two-year project to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot denying that there is a right to abortion in the state constitution.[153] The amendment would be similar to[154] one rejected by Kansas voters following the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade.[155]

For all the signs I’ve seen in Westmoreland County praying for an an end to legal abortion, for all the white crosses local Roman Catholic parishes put on their lawns mourning aborted zygotes, it turns out that, in the taxonomy of conservative tendencies from my dissertation,[156] Pennsylvania is more capitalist libertarian, as with opposition to COVID-19 mitigation and gun control, than it is social or traditionalist conservative. And with this, a fault line in white Christian nationalism appears that I had not recognized since perceiving an increasingly monolithic conservatism.[157]

“What is the most significant force in American political history? It’s liberty. No question. And you, as candidate, must never forget that. Any infringement on liberty, whether it’s taking someone’s gun or taking someone’s right to end perhaps a very problematic pregnancy” will cause a backlash, Mr. [Joseph] DiSarro said.[158]

This is something to watch.


Update, February 5, 2023: Americans For Prosperity has decided to oppose Donald Trump in the Republican primary contest and will, they say, decide on whom to support by the end of summer.[159] This is a neoliberal organization, ideologically capitalist libertarian (neoliberalism is what happens when capitalist libertarians come to power), that can influence an awful lot of campaign contributions.

Many evangelical Protestant leaders have reached a similar decision.[160] In terms of money, that pretty much leaves the gun nuts, though it’s hard to imagine they’d be any less happy with, say, Ron DeSantis.

White supremacist gang support may also be diminished by Trump’s attacks on the “deep state,” especially including the Federal Bureau of Investigation;[161] it’s certainly plausible that this accounts for the disappearance of most Trump campaign flags around southwestern Pennsylvania following the Mar-a-Lago search.[162]

Trump nearly unified conservatism as white Christian nationalism.[163] But it is very clearly no longer united behind him.

Note: A number of links to the Irregular Bullshit have changed. I tried to go through this post and update them all; hopefully, I’ve succeeded.


Update, February 24, 2023: If I had to bet on who will be the Republican presidential nominee in 2024, right now, and largely based on the Washington Post reporting,[164] I’d have to pick Ron DeSantis.

What seems less in doubt it that the contest will be between white Christian nationalism and everybody else. What the Washington Post shows, and as Molly Jong-Fast correctly (despite her headline) understands, is that the Republican Party is the white Christian nationalist party, even if no longer quite so much the party of Donald Trump,[165] just as the Democratic Party remains the neoliberal party, having co-opted Bernie Sanders, the “Squad,” and anyone claiming to be “progressive.”


Update, March 8, 2023: If you’re looking for further evidence of Donald Trump’s irrelevance, you might find it with the Conservative Political Action Conference, which was simultaneously overwhelmingly dominated by Trump’s supporters and ignored by nearly everyone else.[166] At minimum, this exposes a polarization between Trump’s supporters and other Republicans and while it isn’t like any Trump supporters are going to vote for Democrats if Trump doesn’t win the nomination, at some point in the primaries, a leading candidate will have to confront his loyalists. When that happens, well . . . it ain’t like Trump or his supporters are notorious for gentility—and that’s only gonna turn more folks off.

I cannot now see how Republicans win in 2024. As we saw in the midterms, there’s a large segment of the electorate that’s turned off by Trumpist antics.[167] And as Ron DeSantis goes on his merry way in Florida, Republicans are playing right into a Democratic theme that Republicans are too extreme.


Update, March 23, 2023 (added here March 24):

Figures from [the Anti-Defamation League] showed sharp rises in antisemitic activity nationwide last year. Pennsylvania saw a 65% increase.

The report, released Thursday, details how Pennsylvania and New Jersey broke records when it came to vandalism and harassment targeting Jewish people. With 114 reported incidents in Pennsylvania alone, the amount of activity was the highest in the ADL’s four-plus decades of collecting data.[168]

Increases in anti-Semitic activity are a nationwide trend,[169] and I’m inclined to associate it with an increasing radicalization of white Christian nationalist supporters of Doug Mastriano, who ran for Pennsylvania governor last year, and of Donald Trump.

Both candidates have hewn to an extreme paleoconservative and social conservative agenda,[170] even as it became increasingly apparent that this agenda would—and did—alienate voters in the general election.[171] It’s not a tilt that makes obvious sense.[172]

It’s reasonable to think these extreme views will not be a deal-breaker for white Christian nationalists. But given the 2022 results,[173] I just don’t see how this wins the 2024 general election.

  1. [1]Kate Michael, “Attorneys General Heat Up as Reproductive Rights Cases Take Center Stage,” The Well, February 24, 2022, https://www.thewellnews.com/in-the-states/attorneys-general-heat-up-as-reproductive-rights-cases-take-center-stage/
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  21. [21]Stephen Caruso and Ethan Edward Coston, “How Doug Mastriano built a grassroots movement in Pa. on election denial, Christianity, and Facebook,” Spotlight PA, May 23, 2022, https://www.spotlightpa.org/news/2022/05/doug-mastriano-pa-governor-pennsylvania-shapiro/
  22. [22]Holly Otterbein, “Pennsylvania GOP pledges full allegiance to Trump,” Politico, January 26, 2021, https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/26/pennsylvania-republican-party-trump-support-462843
  23. [23]David Benfell, “My 2024 forecast,” Not Housebroken, May 19, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/03/10/my-2024-forecast/
  24. [24]Mike DeBonis, “Senate Republicans block debate on a third major voting rights bill,” Washington Post, November 3, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/senate-voting-john-lewis/2021/11/03/de00974e-3cc5-11ec-bfad-8283439871ec_story.html; Mike DeBonis, “Senate Republicans block voting rights bill, dealing blow to Democrats’ effort to overhaul election laws,” Washington Post, January 19, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/democrats-brace-for-likely-defeat-of-voting-rights-push-due-to-gop-filibuster/2022/01/19/2f9a734c-792d-11ec-bf97-6eac6f77fba2_story.html; Matt Ford, “The Democrats’ Voting Rights Bill Is Dead,” New Republic, July 13, 2021, https://newrepublic.com/article/162974/democrats-voting-rights-bill-dead; Carrie Levine, “Why there’s even more pressure now on Congress to pass a voting rights bill,” Center for Public Integrity, July 9, 2021, https://publicintegrity.org/inside-publici/newsletters/watchdog-newsletter/why-theres-even-more-pressure-now-on-congress-to-pass-a-voting-rights-bill/; Sam Levine, “Voting rights advocates frustrated by ‘same-old, same-old’ meeting with White House,” Guardian, December 3, 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/03/voting-rights-advocates-frustrated-meeting-white-house; Lawrence Lessig, “Why the US Is a Failed Democratic State,” New York Review of Books, December 10, 2021, https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2021/12/10/why-the-us-is-a-failed-democratic-state/; Greg Sargent, “The damage done by Joe Manchin is likely to get much worse,” Washington Post, December 10, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/12/10/manchin-filibuster-protecting-our-democracy-act/
  25. [25]David Benfell, “Democrats and contradiction,” Not Housebroken, January 20, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2021/11/18/democrats-and-contradiction/
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  33. [33]Benjamin Hart, “The Democratic Party Is Extremely Unpopular Right Now,” New York, May 16, 2022, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/05/the-democratic-party-is-extremely-unpopular-right-now.html
  34. [34]Greg Sargent, “Say it clearly: Republicans just nominated a pro-Trump insurrectionist,” Washington Post, May 18, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/05/18/doug-mastriano-insurrectionist/
  35. [35]Colby Itkowitz and David Weigel, “Kemp, Raffensperger win in blow to Trump and his false election claims,” Washington Post, May 25, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/24/trump-georgia-kemp-perdue/
  36. [36]Amy Gardner, “‘I just want to find 11,780 votes’: In extraordinary hour-long call, Trump pressures Georgia secretary of state to recalculate the vote in his favor,” Washington Post, January 3, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-raffensperger-call-georgia-vote/2021/01/03/d45acb92-4dc4-11eb-bda4-615aaefd0555_story.html; Kristen Holmes and Veronica Stracqualursi, “Trump pressured Georgia governor in call to help overturn Biden’s win in state,” CNN, December 5, 2020, https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/05/politics/trump-georgia-brian-kemp-phone-call/index.html
  37. [37]Colby Itkowitz and David Weigel, “Kemp, Raffensperger win in blow to Trump and his false election claims,” Washington Post, May 25, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/24/trump-georgia-kemp-perdue/
  38. [38]David Benfell, “Trumpism, Donald Trump, the January 6 coup attempt, and a smoking gun that may never be found,” Not Housebroken, January 28, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2021/12/14/trumpism-donald-trump-the-january-6-coup-attempt-and-a-smoking-gun-that-may-never-be-found/
  39. [39]Igor Derysh, “‘Any Republicans wanna speak out now?’: Alarm after Trump shares ‘civil war’ post,” Salon, May 23, 2022, https://www.salon.com/2022/05/23/any-wanna-speak-out-now-alarm-after-shares-civil-war-post/; Dana Milbank, “As Trump loses kingmaker status, he becomes more dangerous,” Washington Post, May 24, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/05/24/trump-picks-primaries-perdue-lose-dangerous/
  40. [40]David Benfell, “My 2024 forecast,” Not Housebroken, May 23, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/03/10/my-2024-forecast/
  41. [41]David Benfell, “Democrats and contradiction,” Not Housebroken, January 20, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2021/11/18/democrats-and-contradiction/; Benjamin Hart, “The Democratic Party Is Extremely Unpopular Right Now,” New York, May 16, 2022, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/05/the-democratic-party-is-extremely-unpopular-right-now.html
  42. [42]David Benfell, “Conservative Views on Undocumented Migration” (doctoral dissertation, Saybrook, 2016). ProQuest (1765416126).
  43. [43]David Siders, “‘It’s straight out of a playbook’: At NRA convention, conspiracy theories abound,” Politico, May 27, 2022, https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/27/nra-convention-uvalde-shooting-00035842
  44. [44]David Siders, “‘It’s straight out of a playbook’: At NRA convention, conspiracy theories abound,” Politico, May 27, 2022, https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/27/nra-convention-uvalde-shooting-00035842
  45. [45]Sneha Dey and Karen Brooks Harper, “Transgender Texas kids are terrified after governor orders that parents be investigated for child abuse,” Texas Tribune, February 28, 2022, https://www.texastribune.org/2022/02/28/texas-transgender-child-abuse/
  46. [46]Marjorie Heins, Not in Front of the Children (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University, 2007).
  47. [47]David Benfell, “Deconstructing the second amendment,” Not Housebroken, November 30, 2021, https://disunitedstates.org/2020/10/04/deconstructing-the-second-amendment/
  48. [48]See update for May 19, 2022: David Benfell, “My 2024 forecast,” Not Housebroken, May 25, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/03/10/my-2024-forecast/
  49. [49]David Benfell, “What we owe anti-vaxxers in a life-threatening pandemic,” Not Housebroken, December 18, 2021, https://disunitedstates.org/2021/09/28/what-we-owe-anti-vaxxers-in-a-life-threatening-pandemic/
  50. [50]David Benfell, “Conservative Views on Undocumented Migration” (doctoral dissertation, Saybrook, 2016). ProQuest (1765416126).
  51. [51]David Siders, “‘It’s straight out of a playbook’: At NRA convention, conspiracy theories abound,” Politico, May 27, 2022, https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/27/nra-convention-uvalde-shooting-00035842
  52. [52]David Siders, “‘It’s straight out of a playbook’: At NRA convention, conspiracy theories abound,” Politico, May 27, 2022, https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/27/nra-convention-uvalde-shooting-00035842
  53. [53]David Benfell, “Conservative Views on Undocumented Migration” (doctoral dissertation, Saybrook, 2016). ProQuest (1765416126).
  54. [54]See update for December 10, 2020: David Benfell, “When it’s over but it isn’t,” Not Housebroken, December 21, 2020, https://disunitedstates.org/2020/11/27/when-its-over-but-it-isnt/
  55. [55]David Benfell, “Conservative Views on Undocumented Migration” (doctoral dissertation, Saybrook, 2016). ProQuest (1765416126).
  56. [56]David Benfell, “Barack Obama asks, ‘Why is it that the folks that won the last election are so mad all the time?’” Not Housebroken, November 4, 2018, https://disunitedstates.org/2018/11/04/barack-obama-asks-why-is-it-that-the-folks-that-won-the-last-election-are-so-mad-all-the-time/
  57. [57]David Benfell, “Stephen Zappala’s resignation would be nowhere near enough,” Not Housebroken, January 4, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2021/06/03/stephen-zappalas-resignation-would-be-nowhere-near-enough/
  58. [58]David Benfell, “The banners and the guns: Flagrant racism in Pittsburgh,” Not Housebroken, April 6, 2021, https://disunitedstates.org/2019/09/20/the-banners-and-the-guns-flagrant-racism-in-pittsburgh/
  59. [59]David Siders, “‘It’s straight out of a playbook’: At NRA convention, conspiracy theories abound,” Politico, May 27, 2022, https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/27/nra-convention-uvalde-shooting-00035842
  60. [60]David Siders, “‘It’s straight out of a playbook’: At NRA convention, conspiracy theories abound,” Politico, May 27, 2022, https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/27/nra-convention-uvalde-shooting-00035842
  61. [61]David Benfell, “Conservative Views on Undocumented Migration” (doctoral dissertation, Saybrook, 2016). ProQuest (1765416126).
  62. [62]David Benfell, “Democrats and contradiction,” Not Housebroken, January 20, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2021/11/18/democrats-and-contradiction/; Benjamin Hart, “The Democratic Party Is Extremely Unpopular Right Now,” New York, May 16, 2022, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/05/the-democratic-party-is-extremely-unpopular-right-now.html
  63. [63]David Benfell, “My 2024 forecast,” Not Housebroken, May 25, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/03/10/my-2024-forecast/
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  171. [171]Natalie Andrews, Siobhan Hughes, and Lindsay Wise, “Frustrated Republicans Try to Explain Lack of Midterm ‘Red Wave,’” Wall Street Journal, November 9, 2022, https://www.wsj.com/articles/frustrated-republicans-try-to-explain-lack-of-midterm-red-wave-11668036382; Isaac Arnsdorf and Josh Dawsey, “One likely 2024 GOP contender triumphed on election night. It wasn’t Donald Trump,” Washington Post, November 9, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/09/desantis-trump-2024-presidential-election/; Dan Balz, “The vaunted red wave never hit the shore in midterm elections,” Washington Post, November 9, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/08/midterms-dissatisfied-voters-render-judgments-biden-republicans/; Jonathan Freedland, “The winner of the midterms is not yet clear – but the loser is Donald Trump,” Guardian, November 9, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/nov/09/the-winner-of-the-midterms-is-not-yet-clear-but-the-loser-is-donald-trump; Amy Gardner, Reis Thebault, and Robert Klemko, “Election deniers lose races for key state offices in every 2020 battleground,” Washington Post, November 13, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2022/11/13/election-deniers-defeated-state-races/; Liz Goodwin, “A red wave of criticism crashes into Donald Trump after midterm losses,” Washington Post, November 11, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/11/trump-criticism-midterms-republicans/; David Lauter, “The midterm’s big loser: Trump suffers multiple defeats,” Los Angeles Times, November 9, 2022, https://www.latimes.com/politics/newsletter/2022-11-09/the-midterms-big-loser-trump-suffers-multiple-defeats-essential-politics; Kris Maher, “Democrat Josh Shapiro Wins Pennsylvania Governor Race Over Doug Mastriano,” Wall Street Journal, November 9, 2022, https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/election-midterms-2022/card/democrat-josh-shapiro-wins-pennsylvania-governor-race-over-doug-mastriano-rdDSLqwHlckU7Q5yZYF2; Tina Nguyen, “Has Trump Already Lost ’24?” Puck News, November 30, 2022, https://puck.news/has-trump-already-lost-24/; Greg Sargent, “Republicans want Trump to take the blame. Good luck with that,” Washington Post, November 11, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/11/trump-midterm-elections-gop-abortion-rights-2024/; Marianna Sotomayor et al., “Congressional Republicans panic as they watch their lead dwindle,” Washington Post, November 11, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/11/senate-republicans-mcconnell-midterms/; Brian Slodysko, “Election takeaways: No sweep for the Republicans after all,” Associated Press, November 9, 2022, https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-takeaways-9381d3aaff26d19da95506e045fcd6e1; Jonathan Tamari and William Bender, “‘It’s time for him to retire’: Some Pa. Republicans want to push Trump aside after their election losses,” Philadelphia Inquirer, November 10, 2022, https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/pa-republicans-blame-trump-2022-losses-20221110.html; Chris Walker, “Trump Is Blaming Everyone But Himself for Midterm Losses — Including His Wife,” Truthout, November 10, 2022, https://truthout.org/articles/trump-is-blaming-everyone-but-himself-for-midterm-losses-including-his-wife/
  172. [172]David Benfell, “More questions than answers as Donald Trump flags come down,” Not Housebroken, February 28, 2023, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/08/28/more-questions-than-answers-as-donald-trump-flags-come-down/
  173. [173]Natalie Andrews, Siobhan Hughes, and Lindsay Wise, “Frustrated Republicans Try to Explain Lack of Midterm ‘Red Wave,’” Wall Street Journal, November 9, 2022, https://www.wsj.com/articles/frustrated-republicans-try-to-explain-lack-of-midterm-red-wave-11668036382; Isaac Arnsdorf and Josh Dawsey, “One likely 2024 GOP contender triumphed on election night. It wasn’t Donald Trump,” Washington Post, November 9, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/09/desantis-trump-2024-presidential-election/; Dan Balz, “The vaunted red wave never hit the shore in midterm elections,” Washington Post, November 9, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/08/midterms-dissatisfied-voters-render-judgments-biden-republicans/; Jonathan Freedland, “The winner of the midterms is not yet clear – but the loser is Donald Trump,” Guardian, November 9, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/nov/09/the-winner-of-the-midterms-is-not-yet-clear-but-the-loser-is-donald-trump; Amy Gardner, Reis Thebault, and Robert Klemko, “Election deniers lose races for key state offices in every 2020 battleground,” Washington Post, November 13, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2022/11/13/election-deniers-defeated-state-races/; Liz Goodwin, “A red wave of criticism crashes into Donald Trump after midterm losses,” Washington Post, November 11, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/11/trump-criticism-midterms-republicans/; David Lauter, “The midterm’s big loser: Trump suffers multiple defeats,” Los Angeles Times, November 9, 2022, https://www.latimes.com/politics/newsletter/2022-11-09/the-midterms-big-loser-trump-suffers-multiple-defeats-essential-politics; Kris Maher, “Democrat Josh Shapiro Wins Pennsylvania Governor Race Over Doug Mastriano,” Wall Street Journal, November 9, 2022, https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/election-midterms-2022/card/democrat-josh-shapiro-wins-pennsylvania-governor-race-over-doug-mastriano-rdDSLqwHlckU7Q5yZYF2; Tina Nguyen, “Has Trump Already Lost ’24?” Puck News, November 30, 2022, https://puck.news/has-trump-already-lost-24/; Greg Sargent, “Republicans want Trump to take the blame. Good luck with that,” Washington Post, November 11, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/11/trump-midterm-elections-gop-abortion-rights-2024/; Marianna Sotomayor et al., “Congressional Republicans panic as they watch their lead dwindle,” Washington Post, November 11, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/11/senate-republicans-mcconnell-midterms/; Brian Slodysko, “Election takeaways: No sweep for the Republicans after all,” Associated Press, November 9, 2022, https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-takeaways-9381d3aaff26d19da95506e045fcd6e1; Jonathan Tamari and William Bender, “‘It’s time for him to retire’: Some Pa. Republicans want to push Trump aside after their election losses,” Philadelphia Inquirer, November 10, 2022, https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/pa-republicans-blame-trump-2022-losses-20221110.html; Chris Walker, “Trump Is Blaming Everyone But Himself for Midterm Losses — Including His Wife,” Truthout, November 10, 2022, https://truthout.org/articles/trump-is-blaming-everyone-but-himself-for-midterm-losses-including-his-wife/

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