Super Tuesday has come and gone, and – surprise, surprise – Joe Biden and Donald Trump are clearly in the driver’s seats for their respective parties. It seems like, now, we’re finally going to get the last movie in the Grumpy Old Men Trilogy: Grumpy Old Men Go To Washington.
Fun Fact: Donald Trump at 77 is older than Jack Lemon when he died, and Joe Biden at 81 is older than Walter Mathau was when he died, so this could technically be “Extremely Old Grumpy Men Who Are Lucky To Be Alive and (mostly) Ambulatory Convince People There Really Are No Better Options.” But I imagine that one would be hard to fit on a marquee. At some point, I’d like the opportunity to vote for a candidate who wasn’t eligible for the Senior Citizen discount at Denny’s when Nixon was president. Until then, we will do our best with what we have.
My good friend, Jamie Greening, has asked that I address FIVE BURNING QUESTIONS about Super Tuesday, specifically, and the election in general. He’s doing the same on his blog (which you can read here). So here we go.
HOW BIG OF A WIN WAS THIS FOR MAGA?
I guess that depends on what you mean by MAGA. For some, MAGA is synonymous with white supremacy, racism, sexism, and all the other bad -isms you can imagine. For others, MAGA is simply “the Trump faction of the Republican Party.” For others, still, it’s something like “an American, nationalistic approach to conservatism, currently spearheaded by Donald Trump.
There are almost as many definitions for MAGA as there are for genders now, except that people don’t ask what your MAGA pronouns are when you speak it. They just make decisions about your moral turpitude based on THEIR interpretation about what MAGA means, and respond accordingly. Much like the Fashion industry, current TikTok trends, and anything Kanye West has tweeted in the last year or so, it’s all very confusing and likely has no basis in Reality.
So, when I think about whether this was a Big Win for MAGA, I have to think about what it means for Trump in this election, what it means for the Republican Party and conservatism overall.
For Trump, this was an obvious huge win. It was a big, massive, but, but it was an expected, massive win. The only place Nikki Haley won was Vermont, which is not exactly a Republican stronghold. You have to be somewhere left of Stalin to carry that state in the general election, so there’s a good chance this was more “Socialists Behaving Badly,” than an actual groundswell for a Trump alternative.
For the Republican Party, it means they’ve clearly and decisively selected Trump as the standard bearer, but I don’t think it means they’ve solidified Trumpism as the prevailing party philosophy. I haven’t seen a lot of articles from Republicans or conservatives discussing what Trump’s policies mean for America post-election and into the future. It’s mainly just “Trump can beat Biden! Yay Trump!” And I think this stems from a pre-2016 election mantra I heard often. “We need to elect Trump so we can keep Hillary out of office and define who will be on the SCOTUS bench,” people said. No one was saying “Trump’s economic and foreign affairs acumen is sublime.” Whatever happens from here on out, this is Trump’s last rodeo. The Republican Party specifically and Conservatism in general need to work out their respective identities. Trump is many things, but he is not an ideological leader. The Republicans haven’t had that since Reagan, and it’s not been morning in America for a long time.
At present, the Republican Party is whatever Trump says it is. Once Trump is gone, they will need to figure out who they are again.
WHAT ABOUT HALEY NOW?
First off: props to Haley for sticking around so long. She had the only true and possible path to victory out of any of the candidates. If the Republicans are going to start figuring out who they are post-Trump, they need a diverse set of ideologies to choose from. Haley was that for this election cycle. Unfortunately for Haley, all she succeeded in was proving that, in response to the question of whatever the Republicans will become, “Not Nikki Haley” seems to be the first and easiest answer.
If there can be unity between her supporters and Trump’s supporters, Trump might gain some ground with moderates, but I don’t see him going that way. One of the biggest criticisms of Trump I’ve seen from conservatives is that he wasn’t strong enough in response to Fauci with COVID and with members of his administration that undermined his efforts. To reach toward the middle with a selection fo Haley for VP would be to make that same mistake, at least in the eyes of his most rabid supporters.
I expect Haley to drop out of the race and become an answer to some of the more obscure questions in Trivial Pursuit 2025 edition
IS JOE BIDEN IN TROUBLE ?
TLDR: Yes. Very much so.
Longer: Joe Biden is in trouble, but it’s trouble of his own making. The economy. The border. Foreign affairs snafus. That creeping feeling that he’s in decline. He has a lot to answer for this time around. Both candidates do, but Joe’s questions are more pressing. It will be interesting to see what happens.
WILL EITHER CANDIDATE MAKE IT TO NOVEMBER?
For the longest time, I’ve been expecting Joe Biden to drop out. When Jon Steward came back to the Daily Show and, right out of the gate, attacked Biden due to his age and declining mental faculties, I thought, “Well, now that Jon Steward has said it, it’s cool to say it, and all the Democratic news outlets will start pushing for him to step down.”
That largely hasn’t happened. Jon Stewart isn’t young and hip anymore (he’s 60), and the news outlets have, instead, chosen to focus on Trump’s alleged decline. So who knows?
I could see someone convincing Biden to step down. His declining state is clearly the most egregious, but I don’t see that happening. Absent Obama finding a loophole and running for a third term, I don’t see anyone in the Democrat Party with enough OOMPH to seriously challenge Trump in the general.
Trump is in it for the long haul. No one will tear him out of that role. He’d have to have a heart attack and actually die from it and, even then, I think he’d find a way to run.
VP PICKS?
Biden sticks with Kamala. If there’s going to be a change, it will be at the top.
Trump, I think, will go with someone like Kristi Noem or Tim Scott. Personally, I’d like to see him pick J.D. Vance. But only because JD Vance is from Ohio. I’m from Ohio and I like it when hometown folks do well.
Alright. That’s it. Go check out Jamie’s post on these same questions. Have yourselves a great week and, as always, don’t break anything.