Donald Trump gave a doomsday assessment of the state of the country in his Super Tuesday victory speech late last night and provided a preview of what he plans for a second term. Speaking before an audience of the MAGA faithful in a gaudy Mar-a-Lago ballroom, Trump declared that the U.S. “is dying.”
The twice-impeached serial womanizer—a con man facing 91 criminal counts, most of them for inciting, aiding, and abetting the Jan. 6, 2021, attempted coup d’état at the U.S. Capitol—won 15 of 16 Republican primaries.
In his remarks, Trump accused President Joe Biden of “destroying the middle class” while perversely taking credit himself for the positive economic data that’s been reported lately. Trump acknowledged that inflation was going down, job numbers are up, and the stock market is performing well—but only because workers, employers, and investors are optimistic about his return to the White House.
Turning to the issue of immigration, Trump said, “We’ve watched our country take a great beating…we’re a third-world country at our borders.” He vowed, “We’re going to deport a lot of people” and end what, without evidence, he labeled “Biden migrant crime.”
He slammed Biden’s withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Afghanistan and lamented all the “brand-new beautiful” weapons supposedly left behind that could have been used for other wars elsewhere —“Jets and tanks and everything you can think of.”
He also said that if he’d been president, Russia would not have invaded Ukraine and Hamas would not have attacked Israel. “My personality is going to keep us out of wars,” he predicted.
As for what’s next if he wins again, Trump said to expect more of the same: “The largest tax cuts in history…the largest regulation cuts in history” and a major increase in spending on the Pentagon.
While that kind of message excited his hardcore base in most of Tuesday’s contests, it didn’t resonate in Vermont, where Trump lost by four percentage points to former Gov. Nikki Haley, R-S.C., another right-winger, 49.9% to 45.9%. Haley scored in double digits everywhere else, even in supposed Trump strongholds such as Oklahoma, Texas, and Arkansas. She ended her campaign Wednesday morning.
While he is now guaranteed the GOP nomination, Trump has a problem: There are significant shares of Republicans still opposed to him: 35% in swing state Virginia, 23% in swing state North Carolina, 29% in swing state Minnesota, and 34% in mostly blue Colorado. It tried unsuccessfully to throw Trump off its primary ballot. The day before Super Tuesday, the Supreme Court quashed that idea, nullifying the U.S. Constitution’s ban on former rebels holding the two top federal offices.
If he is already having trouble cementing GOP voters into his column, securing the high Republican and independent turnout he’ll need in the general election could prove to be even more difficult.
Biden’s Minnesota woes
As for Democratic President Joe Biden, if he didn’t know he was in political trouble over his unstinting support of Israel’s unlimited war on Gaza, he probably knows it now, thanks to Minnesota.
In a notable result of the slew of presidential primaries on Super Tuesday, a literally last-minute, only one-week campaign by war foes convinced 46,171 Minnesotans—almost 20%—to vote Uncommitted. That included 25% in Hennepin County (Minneapolis). Rep. Dean Phillips, DFL-Minn., running as a “centrist” to Biden’s right, garnered another 8%. Biden got 70% overall, a surprisingly low total for a sitting president.
“Our goal is to get the president’s attention, and we are doing that,” Asma Mohammed, an organizer of the Minnesota Uncommitted campaign, which spent only $20,000, said at a watch party. The campaign got the idea, and a boost, from the Uncommitted showing in the prior Michigan primary.
“Thank you, Michigan, for inspiring Minnesota Democrats to vote for a ceasefire and protest the administration’s continued support for a Netanyahu strategy of endless war. Never too late to change course, Mr. President,” Minneapolis progressive political strategist Javier Murillo tweeted.
Minnesota has the largest U.S. concentration of Somali-Americans, at 64,354, the Census Bureau calculates. It also has a large and active progressive community, many of whose members are livid at Biden’s backing of Israel’s war on Gaza and its right-wing nationalist government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In Michigan, organizers, in three weeks, and campaigning in the largest Arab-American community in the U.S., spent $200,000 and got about 14% of the vote. They also won two delegates.
Biden campaign spokeswoman Lauren Hitt tried to spin the Minnesota outcome, saying, “The president believes making your voice heard and participating in our democracy is fundamental to who we are as Americans. He shares the goal for an end to the violence and a just, lasting peace in the Middle East. He’s working tirelessly to that end.”
Left unsaid: Biden’s deeds don’t match his recent words. The Minnesota voters, like those in Michigan, protested his unstinting support, via military dollars, planes, bombs, and ammo, for Israel.
Minnesotans weren’t the only protest voters against Biden and the war, just the largest contingent. In North Carolina, 13% voted “no preference,” as did 9% in Massachusetts. Uncommitted drew 8% in deep-red Tennessee and 6% in deeper-red Alabama.
North Carolina is a swing state among that second group, even more so after Republican voters selected Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, a Holocaust denier—among other things—as their gubernatorial nominee.
The Holocaust, he says, was hogwash
Robinson has called the idea that Hitler murdered millions of Jews “hogwash.” In 2018, he dismissed the action hero movie Black Panther as a “Marxist production” made by “agnostic Jews,” trying to take “shekels” (money) away from “the Schwartz,” a Yiddish language slur for Black people. He has called Beyonce “satanic.”
Trump has praised Robinson, calling him “Martin Luther King on steroids” and has extended his “complete and total endorsement.”
Robinson also called LGBTQ people “filth,” teachers “wicked people,” and derided the civil rights campaign of the 1950s and 1960s as “crap.” Robinson, who is Black, faces Attorney General Josh Stein who won the Democratic primary in the gubernatorial race. Prognosticators currently rate the gubernatorial race in purple North Carolina as “lean Democratic.”
“Instead of waging job-killing culture wars, let’s grow the North Carolina economy,” Stein said.
In the marquee Senate primary on Super Tuesday, California Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, a pro-Israel and Ukraine war hawk from Burbank, spent $45 million on TV ads. Of that sum, $10 million boosted his weakest foe among the top contenders for the Senate seat this fall: Republican right-winger and former baseball star Steve Garvey. California is heavily blue and its Republicans are in disarray. The ads hung Trump around Garvey’s neck, which only increased his appeal to the Golden State’s GOP.
Schiff’s financial support of the Republican was described by MSNBC as a “smart” move that would save the Democratic Senatorial campaign apparatus money by avoiding a bitter fight between two Democrats. In this case, were it not for the Republican coming in second, that place would have gone to progressive Democrat Katie Porter.
Schiff’s promotion of the Republican can bring out Republican voters and endanger Democrats down ballot in close races. What MSNBC called a “smart” move could well end up helping Republicans maintain control of the House next year.
Raytheon, one of Schiff’s biggest donors, is already happy with him because of all the money they are making as a weapons supplier for the Ukraine war trumpeted by Schiff. They will be even happier if his move in this primary increases the number of pro-military spending people in Congress, which it could very well do. Even without Republicans who won in California last time winning again, the House will have two fewer progressives next year with the absence of Porter and Barbara Lee, the two Democrats who ran against Schiff in the California primary.
The rest of Schiff’s advertising emphasized his leadership of the first impeachment trial of Trump.
Schiff and Garvey virtually tied for first in California’s all-comers “jungle primary,” beating out progressive Democratic Reps. Katie Porter of Los Angeles and Barbara Lee of Oakland, the only lawmaker to vote against George H.W. Bush’s Iraq War and other wars since.
Had Porter or Lee finished in the top two, they would have faced Schiff in an all-Democratic general election and provided a sharp contrast on the war. Schiff is a down-the-line Israel supporter. Porter is more skeptical and Lee was among the first lawmakers to demand a ceasefire in the conflict.
Two other races of note
There were two other Senate race developments of note. In Arizona, which did not have a primary, incumbent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, Ind., trailing badly in opinion polls, dropped out of the race. Sinema was censured by her own Democratic Party—before she left it—for siding with Republicans and protecting filibusters, thus killing voting rights legislation. Even with millions in the bank, her re-election campaign never got off the ground.
She is set for life, however, with tons of lucrative offers for high-paying gigs coming in as rewards for her loyal service to corporate interests while she was in Congress. Her status as a millionaire for life is assured.
Sinema’s withdrawal left the Senate race a two-person faceoff between devoted Trumpite and continuing 2020 election denier Kari Lake, a former television newscaster who lost a gubernatorial race two years ago, and Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego, a progressive who has been moving to the center as he emerged as the party’s consensus nominee.
And in Texas, Democratic Rep. Colin Allred, another centrist, easily won the party nomination to face controversial Republican incumbent Ted Cruz this fall. Allred beat progressive State Sen. Roland Gutierrez by a three-to-one ratio in the party primary. The Senate Democrats’ campaign arm views Cruz as vulnerable and has already pumped money into the race there.
Allred would be Texas’s first African-American senator if he wins. Former civil rights lawyer and NFL player—a key credential in the football-loving state—Allred quoted Dr. Martin Luther King in addressing his victory party.
“King said that the ultimate measure of a leader isn’t where they stand in moments of comfort and convenience, where they stand in the most challenging moments. We know where Ted Cruz stands when those moments come. When 30 million Texans are freezing in the dark. He decided to go to Cancun. When our democracy was under attack”—by the Trumpites who pillaged the U.S. Capitol and endangered people’s lives, killing five police officers—“he was hiding in the supply closet.”
One of the biggest losers on Super Tuesday, however, was the cable TV networks, particularly the allegedly progressive MSNBC. Their pundits talked endlessly about the recent Times-Siena poll that showed people concerned about Biden’s old age.
Those talks trumped any discussion of issues. There was no discussion at all about economic issues that are of concern to U.S. voters, particularly the high costs of rent and mortgages and food in the supermarkets or where the candidates stand on these issues. The main talk about the economy was that they found it hard to understand why Americans don’t realize how great it is.
MSNBC commentator Joe Scarborough did say that after an hour-long interview with Biden, he did indeed see that the president was slowing down but that his intellect was “all there” and comparable to the powerful intellect of Zbigniew Brezinski (major cold warrior) who served under President Carter. “Who knows,” Scarborough asked, “Biden may end up being the man who saves the world and democracy from Putin.”
It is sad indeed that that is the kind of analysis coming from the major Cable News alternative to the racist and fascistic Fox News network. It’s hard to imagine that kind of thinking will contribute much to defeating the fascist Trump later this year.
On the matter of the Uncommitted vote in various states, MSNBC also fell down on the job. Rachel Maddow derisively referred to it as “Mr. Uncommitted” every time she reported totals for that vote and in the states where the vote was larger, including Minnesota, they were not discussed in any meaningful way.
It is obvious that part of their problem was the lack of drama in many of the races. After all, they need drama to be able to rake in advertising dollars. It was already known before the voters went to the polls that Biden would win all his races and Trump would win almost all of his. Nevertheless, they had to play their dramatic election coverage music and herald an announcement from the “NBC projection desk” every time the polls closed in a state, with an announcement of the obvious, i.e., “NBC is now able to Project Donald Trump the winner in the Republican primary in Tennessee.” They did that at least 26 times throughout the night. Thanks to MSNBC for shedding so much light on the meaning of the 2024 elections underway in our country.
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