I am please to share a blog post from, Dr. Leroy Seat from Missouri, a perceptive colleague whom I just reconnected with almost forty years after my Fulbright year in Japan 1985-86. Dr. Seat, whose credentials are listed at the bottom of this “guest post”, has a fine blog written from the perspective of a Christian scholar with insights on a variety of subjects, including politics. Leroy, a former Chancellor of Seinan Gakuin University in Fukuoka, Kyushu, Japan. His keen intellect and generous assistance to our young family was so welcome after many conversations and assistance “settling in” to my one year sabbatical in Japan. Here is the Link to his entire blog, “From This Seat.” Link: https://theviewfromthisseat.blogspot.com/2024
Expressing Sympathy (and Congratulations) to VP Harris
This is not the article I planned to write for this month’s first blog post. “Expressing Congratulations (and Sincere Sympathy) to Pres. Harris” was the title of the post I anticipated making. But the sad news I read upon arising early Wednesday clearly indicated that I would have to write a different article.
VP Harris making concession speech (11/6)VP Harris making concession speech (11/6)
Kamala Harris campaigned well, but both the popular and the electoral votes were decisive. Nevertheless, I congratulate her for her valiant efforts, determination, and forward-looking spirit. In her concession speech on Wednesday afternoon, she said,
… while I concede this election, I do not concede the fight that fueled this campaign—the fight: the fight for freedom, for opportunity, for fairness, and the dignity of all people. A fight for the ideals at the heart of our nation, the ideals that reflect America at our best. That is a fight I will never give up.
Of course, no politician likes to lose, but for VP Harris herself, losing may have been good for her. Because of current and lurking problems in the U.S. and the world, she could have well ended up with a failed presidency. (For some of the same reasons, the same may happen to Trump).
If Harris had won, she would have had to contend with debilitating Senate opposition and continual opposition by the NAR (which I wrote about here a month ago) and other MAGA adherents, including the growing number of White Christian nationalists.
In addition, Kamala would have had to—and now Trump will have to—deal with the warfare in the Near East, which will likely grow worse before it gets much better. We don’t know how she would have handled that incendiary situation, but she would likely have faced considerable criticism no matter what she did.
Perhaps more serious than anything else is the worsening of climate change and the urgency of dealing with the ecological predicament. This crucial matter will quite surely get markedly worse in the new Trump administration, but Harris would not have been able to forestall the coming crisis.
Consider why Trump “should” have won the election. In addition to the large block of White Christians voting for Trump and the residual racism and sexism still lingering in the land (as I wrote about in last Saturday’s “extra” blog post (see here)**, consider the following:
* The unpopularity of President Biden. According to a highly reliable poll taken on Nov. 1-2, Biden’s approval rating was 40% and 56% disapproving. It is rare for the Party in power to win a presidential election with the sitting president’s rating 16% more negative than positive.
* The perception that the country is on the wrong track. As indicated here, 63% of the U.S. public think the country is headed in the wrong direction (on the wrong track), and only 26% that it is headed in the right direction. That makes it very hard for the incumbent Party to win a presidential election.
* Continuing high prices because of inflation and corporate greed. This 11/6 Washington Post piece doesn’t deal with corporate greed as I think it should, but it does suggest that the widely held perception that the economy is “not good” or “poor” impelled many to cast their vote for Trump.
* The unaddressed problem of classism. This issue is addressed well by a 11/6 New York Times opinion article by the eminent journalist David Brooks (see here). Another source indicates that while voters with graduate degrees vote Democratic overwhelmingly, this year more than ever before, those with no college education voted overwhelmingly for Trump.
Where do we go from here? On Wednesday, the editorial board of the New York Times wrote, “Benjamin Franklin famously admonished the American people that the nation was ‘a republic, if you can keep it’.” They go on to say,
Mr. Trump’s election poses a grave threat to that republic, but he will not determine the long-term fate of American democracy. That outcome remains in the hands of the American people. It is the work of the next four years.”
So, I conclude by again congratulating VP Harris for her valiant campaign and expressing sympathy to her for losing the election to a far less worthy candidate. And I trust that she will, indeed, continue to lead in the struggle for implementing “the ideals at the heart of our nation.”
_____
** In that post, I wrote, “If VP Harris loses the election, … it will be because of the votes of White Christians more than any other chosen demographic (that is, other than non-chosen demographics such as gender, race, or ‘class.’)” Thursday morning there was this post on Religious News Service’s website: “White Christians made Donald Trump president — again.”
LKSeat* Born in Grant City, Mo., on 8/15/1938 * Graduated from Southwest Baptist College (Bolivar, Mo.) in 1957 (A.A.) * Graduated from William Jewell College (Liberty, Mo.) in 1959 (A.B.) * Graduated from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (Louisville, Ken.) in 1962 (B.D., equivalent of M.Div.) * Received the Doctor of Philosophy degree in theology from SBTS. * Baptist missionary to Japan from 1966 to 2004. * Full-time faculty member at Seinan Gakuin University (Fukuoka, Japan) from 1968 to 2004. * Chancellor of Seinan Gakuin from 1996 to 2004
What I like about this guy’s work is: he doesn’t deal in illusions, or rationalizations. To call him cynical just proves his point. To do so requires “whistling a happy tune” ~ FL SHIELS EDITOR
I remember when Trump would win because Joe Biden was old.
I remember when Kamala Harris’s joy would overpower Trump’s fearmongering.
Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox.
I remember when Trump was weird.
I remember when Trump was not who we are.
There have been so many attempts to explain away Trump’s hold on the nation’s politics and cultural imagination, to reinterpret him as aberrant and temporary. “Normalizing” Trump became an affront to good taste, to norms, to the American experiment.
We can now let go of such illusions. Trump is very much part of who we are. Nearly 63 million Americans voted for him in 2016. Seventy-four million did in 2020. And now, once again, enough voters in enough places have cast their lot with him to return him to the White House. Trump is no fluke, and Trumpism is no fad.
After all, what is more normal than a thing that keeps happening?
In recent years, I’ve often wondered if Trump has changed America or revealed it. I decided that it was both — that he changed the country by revealing it. After Election Day 2024, I’m considering an addendum: Trump has changed us by revealing how normal, how truly American, he is.
Throughout Trump’s life, he has embodied every national fascination: money and greed in the 1980s, sex scandals in the 1990s, reality television in the 2000s, social media in the 2010s. Why wouldn’t we deserve him now?
At first, it seemed hard to grasp that we’d really done it. Not even Trump seemed to believe his victory that November night in 2016. We had plenty of excuses, some exculpatory, some damning. The hangover of the Great Recession. Exhaustion with forever wars. A racist backlash against the first Black president. A populist surge in America and beyond. Deaths of despair. If not for this potent mix, surely no one like Trump would ever have come to power.
If only the Clinton campaign had focused more on Wisconsin. If only African American turnout had been stronger in Michigan. If only WikiLeaks and private servers and “deplorables” and so much more. If only.
Now we’ll come up with more, no matter how contradictory or consistent they may be. If only Harris had been more attuned to the suffering in Gaza, or more supportive of Israel. If only she’d picked Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania, as her running mate. If only the lingering fury over Covid had landed at Trump’s feet. If only Harris hadn’t been so centrist, or if only she weren’t such a California progressive, hiding all those positions she’d let slip in her 2019 campaign. If only Biden hadn’t waited so long to withdraw from the race, or if only he hadn’t mumbled stuff about garbage.
Harris decried Trump as a fascist, a petty tyrant. She called him divisive, angry, aggrieved. And that was a smart case to make if, deep down, most voters held democracy dear (except maybe they didn’t) and if so many of them weren’t already angry (except they were). If all America needed was an articulate case for why Trump was bad, then Harris was the right candidate with the right message at the right moment. The prosecutor who would defeat the felon.
But the voters heard her case, and they still found for the defendant. A politician who admires dictators and says he’ll be one for a day, whom former top aides regard as a threat to the Constitution — a document he believes can be “terminated” when it doesn’t suit him — has won power not for one day but for nearly 1,500 more. What was considered abnormal, even un-American, has been redefined as acceptable and reaffirmed as preferable.
The Harris campaign labored under the misapprehension, as did the Biden campaign before it, that more exposure to Trump would repel voters. They must simply have forgotten the mayhem of his presidency, the distaste that the former president surely inspired. “I know Donald Trump’s type,” Harris reminded us, likening him to the crooks and predators she’d battled as a California prosecutor. She even urged voters to watch Trump’s rallies — to witness his line-crossing, norm-obliterating moments — as if doing so would inoculate the electorate against him.
It didn’t. America knew his type, too, and it liked it. Trump’s disinhibition spoke to and for his voters. He won because of it, not despite it. His critics have long argued that he is just conning his voters — making them feel that he’s fighting for them when he’s just in it for himself and his wealthy allies — but part of Trump’s appeal is that his supporters recognize the con, that they feel that they’re in on it.
Trump has long conflated himself with America, with the ambitions of its people. “When you mess with the American dream, you’re on the fighting side of Trump,” he wrote in “The America We Deserve,” published in 2000.
The Democrats tried hard to puncture those fantasies in this latest campaign. They raised absurd amounts of cash. They pushed the incumbent president, the standard-bearer of their party, out of the race, once it became clear he would not win. They replaced him with a younger, more dynamic candidate who proceeded to trounce Trump in their lone presidential debate.
None of it was enough. America had voted early, long before any mail-in ballots were available, and it has given Trump the “powerful mandate” he claimed in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
This time, that choice came with full knowledge of who Trump is, how he behaves in office and what he’ll do to stay there. He hasn’t just shifted the political consensus on a set of policy positions, though by moving both parties on trade and immigration, he certainly has done that. The rationalization of 2016 — that Trump was a protest vote by desperate Americans trying to send a message to the establishment of both parties — is no longer operative. The grotesque rally at Madison Square Garden, that carnival of insults against everyone that the speakers do not want in their America, was not an anomaly but a summation. It was Trumpism’s closing argument, and it landed.
The irony of one of the more common critiques of Harris — that her “word salad” moments and default platitudes in extended interviews made it hard to know what she believed — is that Trump manages to seem real even when his positions shift and his words weave. Authenticity does not require consistency or clarity when it is grounded in pitch-perfect cynicism.
We don’t call this period “the Trump era” just because the once and future president won lots of votes and has now prevailed in two presidential contests. It remained the Trump era even when Biden exiled him to Mar-a-Lago for four years. It is the Trump era because Trump has captured not just a national party but also a national mood, or at least enough of it. And when Democrats presented the choice this year as a referendum on Trumpism more than an affirmative case for Harris, they kept their rival at the center of American politics.
Harris gave it away whenever she called on voters to “turn the page” from Trump. Didn’t we do that in 2020 when we chose Biden and Harris? Not really. Trump was still waiting in the epilogue.
For those who have long insisted that Trump is “not who we are,” that he does not represent American values, there are now two possibilities: Either America is not what they thought it was, or Trump is not as threatening as they think he is. I lean to the first conclusion, but I understand that, over time, the second will become easier to accept. A state of permanent emergency is not tenable; weariness and resignation eventually win out. As we live through a second Trump term, more of us will make our accommodations. We’ll call it illiberal democracy, or maybe self-care.
“We’re not going back,” Harris told us. The tragedy is not that this election has taken us back, but that it shows how there are parts of America’s history that we’ve never fully gotten past.
In her book “America for Americans,” Erika Lee argues that Trump’s immigration policies and statements are part of a long tradition of xenophobia — against Southern Europeans, against newcomers from Asia, Latin America and the Middle East — a tradition that has lived alongside our self-perception as a nation of immigrants. In his book “The End of the Myth,” Greg Grandin warned of the “nationalization of border brutalism” under Trump, whereby harsh policies at the U.S.-Mexico border would spread elsewhere, an “extremism turned inward, all-consuming and self-devouring.”
When Trump first began his ascent into presidential politics, some readers turned to Sinclair Lewis’s 1935 novel, “It Can’t Happen Here,” about homegrown authoritarianism in the United States. In the story, Doremus Jessup, a liberal-minded newspaper editor, marvels at the power of Buzz Windrip, a crudely charismatic demagogue who captivates the country and imposes totalitarian rule. The stylistic similarities between Trump and Windrip are evident, but Lewis’s real protagonists are the well-meaning, liberal-minded citizens, like Jessup, who can’t quite bring themselves to grasp what is happening.
Jessup tells his readers that the insanity won’t last, that they can wait it out. “He simply did not believe that this comic tyranny could endure,” Lewis wrote. When it does endure, Jessup blames himself and his class for their obliviousness. “If it hadn’t been one Windrip, it’d been another. … We had it coming, we Respectables,” he laments.
For too long, today’s Respectables have insisted on Trump’s abnormality. It is a reflex, a defense mechanism, as though accepting his ordinariness is too much to bear. Because if Trump is normal, then America must be, too, and who wants to be roused from dreams of exceptionalism? It’s more comforting to think of Trumpism as a temporary ailment than a pre-existing condition.
When Hillary Clinton described half of Trump’s supporters as a “basket of deplorables” in September of 2016, she did more than dismiss a massive voting bloc and confirm her status as a Respectable in good standing. What she said about those voters moments later was even more telling: “Some of those folks, they are irredeemable. But, thankfully, they are not American.”
It’s a neat move: Rather than accept what America was becoming and who Americans could become, just write them out of the story.
Are we what we say, or what we do — are we our actions or our aspirations? From America’s earliest moments, we have lived this tension between ideals and reality. It may seem more honest to dismiss our words and focus on our deeds. But our words also matter; they reveal what we hope to do and who we want to be. That yearning remains vital, no matter in what direction our national reality points.
The way to render Trump abnormal is not to insist that he is, or to find more excuses, or to indulge in the great and inevitable second-guessing of Democratic campaign strategy. It begins by recognizing that who we are is decided not only on Election Day — whether 2024 or 2016, or 2028 for that matter — but every day. Every day that we strive to be something other than what we’ve become.
I remember when I thought Trump wasn’t normal. But now he is, no matter how fiercely I cling to that memory.
BY JAMIE BARNETT, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR – 07/02/24 9:45 AM ET
This is a tough question, BUT: Absolutely not resign. WTF? Yet an open convention might be good. If Joe has no more senior moments his nomination could be reaffirmed. But note that the conservative HILL newsletter also has an opinion piece urging BOTH major party nominees to resign for the good of the country. We have two old men, one of which is certifiably insane. And then there’s the other: Joe Biden. The mainstream press that The Trump is always denigrating has been working diligently to ease Biden out for his senior moment daily updates.
This news blog editor is not voting for the President. But that has nothing to do with doubts about his age. It has to do with being EYELESS IN GAZA: a human rights catastrophe that Biden-Blinken seem to be deaf to. So a write-in is in order: say, Micky Mouse. Biden’s opponent is the most dangerous, mentally defective individual to seek the office– Ever.
The press gave lip service to Donald’s cascade of lies at the debate and his threats if elected. But they did not do much more than tap his wrists, because the expectations were so low and it was assumed that Biden would be in “State of the Union” mode. He wasn’t when it counted, but Was when visiting North Carolina the next day. The fact that ex-President Bone-spur has avoided prison and will be kept out of jail by his pet Supreme Court, another disgrace guarantees that 2024 will continue to be a rocky year. Yes, Joe Biden should have been a highly rated 1-term president.
PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA – MAY 29: U.S. President Joe Biden and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris wave to members of the audience after speaking at a campaign rally at Girard College on May 29, 2024 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Biden and Harris are using today’s rally to launch a nationwide campaign to court black voters, a group that has traditionally come out in favor of Biden, but their support is projected lower than it was in 2020. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
President Joe Biden should not just leave the presidential race. He should resign the presidency. Now.
The New York Times editorial board and a host of other non-partisan voices have called for Biden to announce that he will no longer run for president. But in this particular race, it is not enough. Biden’s departure from the race this summer would kick-off a tumultuous, bitter fight for the nomination in an open convention that is already in jeopardy of crippling protests. The infighting would leave bruises or wounds among the likely Democratic contenders and the constituencies that have been loosely united behind the incumbent until his unfortunate debate performance. Biden’s remaining in the race would most probably ensure a return of Donald Trump to the White House.
These are not the musings of a Trump supporter. I actively campaigned for the Obama-Biden ticket twice and appeared on stage at the Democratic National Convention in 2008 and in a convention video in 2012. I served in a low-level appointive position in the first Obama administration. I campaigned for Joe Biden in 2020, and I have a picture of him on the wall of my office. I think history will remember him as an extraordinarily effective president in a time of incredible peril.
Joe Biden does not get anywhere near the credit he deserves for his performance. He came into the presidency with the economy wrecked by Donald Trump’s malfeasance in handling the COVID-19 pandemic. Biden was able to overcome embittered partisanship to deliver the infrastructure bill with $1.2 trillion in investments to bridges, roads, waterways, broadband and energy. The infrastructure bill also paved the way to record-breaking job growth.
The CHIPS Act bolstered strong jobs with an industrial policy that ensures national security and a reliable supply chain. His Inflation Reduction Act has actually helped reduce the inflation caused by Trump’s mishandling of the pandemic and the Trump tariffs, which drove up prices for Americans. There are many other examples. At this time in history, no one else could have achieved this except Joe Biden. Whatever mistakes Biden has made, these achievements shine brightly.
But his greatest achievement was his first one, the one that caused him to run in 2020: saving the nation and the world from the disaster of another Trump term.
Biden has the judgment and the character to be president again, two things that Donald Trump does not have and never will. But judgment and character will not defeat Donald Trump. If President Biden stays in the race, I will vote for him, but we may look back at this moment and wonder whether Biden’s judgment and character should have led him to leave the race and the presidency.
If the goal is once again for Joe Biden to save the nation and the world from the disaster of another Trump term, there is no dishonor if Biden passes the baton, of his own accord, having run the good race. If he resigns the presidency now, he will give the Democratic Party a fighting chance to beat Trump. He will create the first female president, the first African American female, the first multi-racial female president in history. In one fell swoop, he will have enlivened many of the constituencies that the media have claimed are disaffected. Kamala Harris will have the first first gentleman in history, one who is Jewish. She will be able to unite the party with a strong running mate.
This will not keep the Democratic National Convention from being a chaotic, open convention, but it will be a strong move that could lead to unity and victory. It will be Joe Biden that provides that victory.
There are drawbacks, there are counterarguments to such a bold move. One is that Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) would be second in line to the presidency, and the minority-controlled Senate would be unlikely to confirm a new vice president before the election. Biden would be criticized for choosing his successor, but he already did in choosing Harris as his vice president.
Biden is no quitter. He has overcome many, many tragedies and challenges. But despite his weakened presentation as a campaigner, he is a truth teller, and he has good judgment and good character. He has said over and over: This is not about him.
It’s about the country. It’s about the democracy. It’s about the people.
Jamie Barnett is a retired rear admiral in the U.S. Navy, serving 32 years in the Navy and Navy Reserve. After he retired, he served as the chief of the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau of the Federal Communications Commission during the Obama administration.
Biden should not just drop out of the race. He should resign.
BY JAMIE BARNETT, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR – 07/02/24 9:45 AM ET
PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA – MAY 29: U.S. President Joe Biden and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris wave to members of the audience after speaking at a campaign rally at Girard College on May 29, 2024 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Biden and Harris are using today’s rally to launch a nationwide campaign to court black voters, a group that has traditionally come out in favor of Biden, but their support is projected lower than it was in 2020. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
President Joe Biden should not just leave the presidential race. He should resign the presidency. Now.
The New York Times editorial board and a host of other non-partisan voices have called for Biden to announce that he will no longer run for president. But in this particular race, it is not enough. Biden’s departure from the race this summer would kick-off a tumultuous, bitter fight for the nomination in an open convention that is already in jeopardy of crippling protests. The infighting would leave bruises or wounds among the likely Democratic contenders and the constituencies that have been loosely united behind the incumbent until his unfortunate debate performance. Biden’s remaining in the race would most probably ensure a return of Donald Trump to the White House.
These are not the musings of a Trump supporter. I actively campaigned for the Obama-Biden ticket twice and appeared on stage at the Democratic National Convention in 2008 and in a convention video in 2012. I served in a low-level appointive position in the first Obama administration. I campaigned for Joe Biden in 2020, and I have a picture of him on the wall of my office. I think history will remember him as an extraordinarily effective president in a time of incredible peril.
Joe Biden does not get anywhere near the credit he deserves for his performance. He came into the presidency with the economy wrecked by Donald Trump’s malfeasance in handling the COVID-19 pandemic. Biden was able to overcome embittered partisanship to deliver the infrastructure bill with $1.2 trillion in investments to bridges, roads, waterways, broadband and energy. The infrastructure bill also paved the way to record-breaking job growth.
The CHIPS Act bolstered strong jobs with an industrial policy that ensures national security and a reliable supply chain. His Inflation Reduction Act has actually helped reduce the inflation caused by Trump’s mishandling of the pandemic and the Trump tariffs, which drove up prices for Americans. There are many other examples. At this time in history, no one else could have achieved this except Joe Biden. Whatever mistakes Biden has made, these achievements shine brightly.
But his greatest achievement was his first one, the one that caused him to run in 2020: saving the nation and the world from the disaster of another Trump term.
Biden has the judgment and the character to be president again, two things that Donald Trump does not have and never will. But judgment and character will not defeat Donald Trump. If President Biden stays in the race, I will vote for him, but we may look back at this moment and wonder whether Biden’s judgment and character should have led him to leave the race and the presidency.
If the goal is once again for Joe Biden to save the nation and the world from the disaster of another Trump term, there is no dishonor if Biden passes the baton, of his own accord, having run the good race. If he resigns the presidency now, he will give the Democratic Party a fighting chance to beat Trump. He will create the first female president, the first African American female, the first multi-racial female president in history. In one fell swoop, he will have enlivened many of the constituencies that the media have claimed are disaffected. Kamala Harris will have the first first gentleman in history, one who is Jewish. She will be able to unite the party with a strong running mate.
This will not keep the Democratic National Convention from being a chaotic, open convention, but it will be a strong move that could lead to unity and victory. It will be Joe Biden that provides that victory.
There are drawbacks, there are counterarguments to such a bold move. One is that Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) would be second in line to the presidency, and the minority-controlled Senate would be unlikely to confirm a new vice president before the election. Biden would be criticized for choosing his successor, but he already did in choosing Harris as his vice president.
Biden is no quitter. He has overcome many, many tragedies and challenges. But despite his weakened presentation as a campaigner, he is a truth teller, and he has good judgment and good character. He has said over and over: This is not about him.
It’s about the country. It’s about the democracy. It’s about the people.
Jamie Barnett is a retired rear admiral in the U.S. Navy, serving 32 years in the Navy and Navy Reserve. After he retired, he served as the chief of the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau of the Federal Communications Commission during the Obama administration.
OK, then the question becomes: How long are the media going to fill their copy with obsession with the aging candidate? Or candidate’s? Or as a neurologist on NPR interview suggests: age Can be a a factor increasing cognitive issues. BUT age is not a disease, you have to judge the older person on a specific basis. Biden’s sharpness on policy speaks for itself.
By Kayla Epstein,BBC NewsShare
Getty ImagesViewers watch a 2020 presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. The two will likely face off again this year
US President Joe Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump have both passed the delegate thresholds to clinch their parties’ nominations.
They each won several states in primary elections on Tuesday to propel them over the finish line.
The two 2020 contenders will provide the US with its first rematch in a presidential election for 70 years.
Polling suggests it will be a tight race that will come down to narrow margins in a few key states.
The nominations will be made official at party conventions this summer.
The 81-year-old president said on Tuesday evening that he was “honoured” voters had backed his re-election bid “in a moment when the threat Trump poses is greater than ever”.
Citing positive economic trends, he asserted the US was “in the middle of a comeback”, but faced challenges to its future as a democracy, as well as from those seeking to pass abortion restrictions and cut social programmes.
“I believe that the American people will choose to keep us moving into the future,” Mr Biden said in a statement from his campaign.
Incumbency gave Mr Biden a natural advantage and he faced no serious challengers for the Democratic nomination.
Despite persistent concerns from voters that his age limits his ability to perform the duties of the presidency, the party apparatus rallied around him.
Meanwhile, Mr Trump, 77, remains very popular with the Republican voter base, which has propelled him to victory in primary after primary over well-funded rivals.
His campaign for a second term in the White House has zeroed in on stricter immigration laws, including a pledge to “seal the border” and implement “record-setting” deportations.
Mr Trump has also vowed to fight crime, boost domestic energy production, tax foreign imports, end the war in Ukraine and resume an “America first” approach to global affairs.
Tuesday night’s results do not come as a shock, as both men have dominated their races so far.
The Democrats and the Republicans have slightly different rules for their primaries, but the process is essentially the same.
Each state is allocated a certain share of party delegates, which are awarded either as a whole to the winning candidate or proportionally, based on the results.
A Republican candidate must secure at least 1,215 of their party’s delegates during the primary season to win their presidential nomination, while a Democrat must secure 1,968.
On Tuesday, Republicans held primaries in Mississippi, Georgia and Washington State, as well as a caucus in Hawaii.
Democrats, meanwhile, held primaries in the states of Georgia, Washington and Mississippi, as well as in the Northern Mariana Islands and for Democrats living abroad.
Mr Biden and Mr Trump’s main competitors had dropped out before Tuesday’s primary contests, so the results had been all but certain.
Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, Mr Trump’s last remaining rival, dropped out earlier this month after losing 14 states to Mr Trump on Super Tuesday.
Although several more states have yet to hold their primary contests, with Mr Trump and Mr Biden over the delegate threshold, the 2024 general election is now in effect under way.
The US presidential election will be held on 5 November 2024.
Guaranteed to stir up a hornets’ nest on the Right. Is Trump still a happy camper? Doubt it. But a man on a mission. America’s women will Take Him out. There are 100 men in their ’80s who are highly functional. Biden is one. He may be forgetful and occasionally stumble.
But the incumbent will be re-elected because he is not diagnosibly a narcissistic grandiose sociopath like his opponent. In better shape than Trump, Just look at DT’s belly for starters. And that haircut! You can see the baldness when the wind blows over it. Nothing wrong with bald, Just don’t hide it with a $500 gel comb-over.
A District of Columbia nonprofit that has filed numerous ethics complaints and launched in-depth investigations into former President Trump was a key player in the case that got him kicked off the Colorado ballot.
In a stunning decision, Colorado’s highest court ruled this week that Trump was disqualified from running for president in the state for his role in inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol that left five people dead, more than 100 Capitol Police officers injured and a nation divided.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) was part of a bipartisan legal team that brought the case on behalf of six Republican and unaffiliated Colorado voters including Norma Anderson, the former Republican majority leader of the state House and Senate.
“My fellow plaintiffs and I brought this case to continue to protect the right to free and fair elections enshrined in our Constitution and to ensure Colorado Republican primary voters are only voting for eligible candidates. Today’s win does just that,” Anderson said in a statement issued by CREW.
CREW President Noah Bookbinder told The Hill that “we have drifted back towards normalizing what happened after the 2020 election, particularly on Jan. 6,” and he hopes the Colorado court’s decision will help ensure the “unprecedented attack on democracy not be allowed to be normalized.”
The Colorado Supreme Court disqualified Trump from appearing on the state’s 2024 primary ballot under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which bars people who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” after taking the oath of office from holding certain positions.
“I think this decision shows that this is very much a living protection in the Constitution, and one that we need to use and can use and will use going forward,” Bookbinder, former chief counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee, told The Hill.
The former president lashed out at the “TRUMP DERANGED ‘CREW’” on various social media platforms following the decision.
This isn’t the first time CREW has clashed with Trump, whom the organization described in a January 2018 report as as “the most unethical president in history.”
CREW previously sued Trump for refusing to divest from his business interests when he took office and filed ethics complaints against more than a dozen key Trump officials, including top aide Kellyanne Conway.
“We’re an organization that pushes for government ethics and reducing the influence of money in politics and really, you know, protecting our democratic form of government,” Bookbinder said. “I feel entirely justified in devoting a lot of energy to combating this unique threat.”
‘Unprecedented’ decision draws criticism from both sides
Many Republicans have attacked the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision as voter suppression, and some Democrats and left-leaning groups have been wary of the decision.
Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) called the decision “extreme judicial activism that is designed to suppress the vote and voices of hundreds of thousands of Coloradans, which is absolutely unacceptable.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) argued that voters “should not be denied the right to support our former president and the individual who is the leader in every poll of the Republican primary.” Trump has consistently led in GOP presidential primary polls, clocking a 52.9 percent lead over his closest opponent, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, according to the latest The Hill/Decision Desk HQ polling average.
Even former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a GOP presidential primary candidate who has criticized the former president for his actions Jan. 6, said it would be “bad for the country” if a court kept Trump off the ballot.
Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.), who is challenging President Biden for the 2024 Democratic nomination, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, that even though he believes Trump is guilty of “inspiring an insurrection and doing nothing to stop it,” it is “absolutely” wrong to bar Trump from the Colorado ballot.
Bookbinder disagrees.
“The Constitution sets out the rules for our democracy,” Bookbinder argued, adding that not engaging in an insurrection after taking an oath is just as much a qualification as being at least 35 years old and a natural-born citizen.
“It is unprecedented,” Bookbinder said. “We’ve never seen anything like that before in this country and so it kind of makes sense that the legal responses to it are going to be things you haven’t seen very often.”
A ‘very unique threat’ to democracy
For more than two decades, CREW has leveraged legal action and investigations to hold elected officials they say use their power for personal gain or to advance special interests accountable.
CREW, which describes itself as a nonpartisan nonprofit, has gone after both Republican and Democratic officials in the past.
The organization recently called on Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) to resign after federal prosecutors accused him of a bribery scheme to use his political influence to benefit the Egyptian government, allegations the senator has denied.
The organization also filed a complaint against then-Biden White House press secretary Jen Psaki for violating the Hatch Act after she endorsed Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe from the briefing room podium, prompting an apology from Psaki.
But many of the group’s lawsuits and investigations are aimed at Republican lawmakers, officials and groups, with a particular focus on the former president’s alleged indiscretions.
Bookbinder pushed back on claims that the organization unfairly targets conservatives, saying, “I don’t think it is a partisan exercise to particularly respond to this very unique threat to our democracy.”
CREW’s board includes several former Democratic officials, including former Clinton White House counsel Beth Nolan and former Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), as well as former GOP Rep. Claudine Schneider (R.I.). Other Republicans, including former Rep. Mickey Edwards (Okla.), have sat on the board in recent years.
Bookbinder also said the organization has worked with and continues to work with Republican members of Congress on legislation.
“There are plenty of I think good, ethical, democratic, democratically minded Republicans, just as there are Democrats. But right now that party is led by somebody — or appears to be in many ways led by somebody — who is quite open about being a threat to democracy,” he added, pointing to Trump’s comments that he would only be a dictator on his first day if reelected.
Case revives ‘constitutional protection,’ regardless of outcome
The Colorado high court stayed their decision until Jan. 4, 2024, the day before the deadline to file as a candidate in the state, to allow Trump to appeal before the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Trump campaign has said it plans to “swiftly file an appeal” to the Supreme Court and request “a stay of this deeply undemocratic decision.” The case faces a 6-3 conservative majority in the nation’s highest court that includes three Trump-nominated justices.
While much has been made of the partisan makeup of the court and how it could impact the case, Bookbinder told The Hill, “We are confident that we will get a fair hearing before the Supreme Court.”
“This is, in many ways, an issue that is tailored for this court,” Bookbinder said. This Supreme Court is perceived to be an “originalist and textualist” one, he added, an ideal audience for a 14th Amendment case.
“It’s important to note that the 14th Amendment does not say, as it could, convicted of an insurrection,” David Becker, executive director of the Election Official Legal Defense Network, said during a call with reporters Wednesday. “We take the drafters of the Constitution’s language at their word when it’s in there.”
Similar cases in Michigan, Minnesota and other states have thus far failed to remove Trump from the ballot. But this case has thrown a wrench into the Republican primary race with less than a month before other states start casting their ballots.
“On behalf of the American people, it would be better for all of us if this is resolved by the United States Supreme Court sooner rather than later,” Becker said.
Regardless of what happens, Bookbinder said he hopes the case “will help to define how people think about what happened going forward.”
“I think in some ways, regardless of how it goes, this revitalizes that constitutional protection and it’s one that I hope we don’t need to use for another 150 years,” Bookbinder said. “But we know it’s there, it’s alive and it can be used if the republic needs it.”
.jpg)
Getty ImagesViewers watch a 2020 presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. The two will likely face off again this year
fshiels 
