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There’s a growing new media narrative grounded in a grain of truth: Donald Trump is losing his grip on the Republican base after seven long years. But like all media-created narratives, it’s more complicated than that.
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So what’s the grain of truth?. The movement away from the disgraced former president, such as there’s been any, is largely about electability. Remember, “We’re gonna win so much you may even get tired of winning”? Yeah, that didn’t exactly work out after 2020. Trump’s favorability among Republicans has fallen pretty steadily since he lost to President Biden, and it’s only gotten worse since his hand-picked candidates almost universally got blown out of the water in the 2022 midterms.
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But nearly all of those Republicans would happily vote for Trump if he happens to win the nomination, and he’s still popular enough among Republicans to scare GOP presidential candidates from, you know, actually trying to beat him. According to a new NPR/PBS/Marist poll, Trump is still viewed the most favorably by evangelical Christians, rural voters, people with household incomes below $50,000 and White Americans who don’t have a college degree. That's a lot of Republicans! Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), Trump’s heir apparent, praises Trump in his forthcoming book (kill me) and thanks him for his 2018 gubernatorial endorsement that helped DeSantis become governor of Florida. DeSantis has distanced himself from the former president, but smartly, has not engaged in sparring with him thus far, and hopes to clinch the nomination by presenting himself as a younger, more-electable Trump.
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That’s because the Republican Party of post-Obama America has largely been remade in Trump’s image. Anyone on the right who didn’t climb aboard the MAGA train was quickly discarded as a RINO, and none of them will even bother running for president (except maybe Liz Cheney in a kamikaze mission). It’s still the highest sin in Republican politics to admit that Trump is a gross, corrupt, incompetent, cruel person who barely made it through a failed one-term presidency. What’s changed is that Trump, once seen as the party’s golden goose, is now increasingly viewed as a political liability, or at least less electable than the mini-Trumps lining up behind him.
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So what’s the latest with ol’ Don?
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The special counsel investigating Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election has filed a motion to compel testimony from former Vice President Mike Pence to testify to a federal grand jury. That motion seeks to preempt an effort by Trump’s attorneys to block Pence’s appearance on cooked-up executive privilege grounds. Also today, a federal judge ordered that Trump himself and FBI Director Christopher Wray may be questioned under oath by attorneys for two former senior FBI employees who allege in separate lawsuits that they were illegally targeted for retribution after the FBI investigated Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.
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In the Fulton County, GA, special grand jury investigation, the jury’s foreman may have complicated the case by speaking with the press about the jury’s findings last week. The grand juror in question, Atlanta resident Emily Kohrs, went on a bizarre and highly unusual media tour this week. Her remarks didn’t go unnoticed by Trump-aligned witnesses, who say they’ll try to use Kohrs’s comments to get any charges they ultimately face dismissed. That’s all pure bluster, and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis should ignore it. But prosecutors always seem to be looking for reasons not to hold Donald Trump accountable, so, thanks Atlanta resident Emily Kohrs.
One thing is clear: four criminal inquiries of varying size and scope have not yet deterred the former president. The American media wants to believe the country is better than Trump, still clinging to that old refrain of “This is not who we are.” But as we’ve seen time and again, plenty of Americans are thrilled by not only Trump’s political and personal style, but his poisonous policy as well. Which is why even if Trump goes down, more like him will spring up in his place. And why the left should aim not solely to eliminate Trump from the American political sphere, but to render his bankrupt ideology toxic nationwide.
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Dare We Say merch has entered the chat, and for their first merch drop they wanted to do something that literally everyone needs: a hat that says “Tough Titties”. As that old saying goes “tough titties said the kitty, when the milk went dry”, you know it right? It’s a vibe, it’s a motto and now it’s a hat. They made them just for you and think you’ll love them.
Check them out now at crooked.com/store.
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In a truly horrific sequence of events, a 24-year-old Florida reporter named Dylan Lyons was killed while he was covering a fatal shooting just outside of Orlando that had occurred hours earlier. Authorities are still trying to decipher the circumstances that led to the fatal shooting. On Wednesday at around 11 a.m., a man later identified as 19-year-old Kieth Moses fatally shot 38-year-old Nathacha Augustin. Hours later, detectives had interviewed witnesses and “cleared the scene” but local journalists remained on hand to prepare news reports. Moses then allegedly returned to the scene and shot Lyons and his videographer Jesse Waldon as they sat in a car together. Then he walked to a nearby house and fatally shot a 9-year-old girl named T’yonna Major and wounded her mother. Moses was arrested thereafter, but his motive remains unclear.
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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg visited East Palestine, OH, after the train derailment and resulting toxic chemical spill, but it struck many of his critics as too little, too late. The communications void Buttigieg left after the derailment was a serious misstep, not least because Buttigieg is one of the Biden administration’s most effective communicators (have you seen him when he goes on Fox News? He’s good when he wants to be). And it’s lost on no one that Buttigieg’s visit came one day after disgraced former president Trump held an event there to blame the Biden administration for the whole thing and flamed the narrative that Democrats “don’t care about the White working class.” Buttigieg and the rest of the Biden administration missed the opportunity to strike first with the truth: that the Trump administration did away with the regulation that might have prevented this and other derailments. Buttigieg vowed that his department will work with Congress to prevent similar disasters, adding that DOT has laid out steps that the federal government wants Congress and the rail industry to take. He also promised to hold Norfolk Southern accountable, and admitted that he should have publicly responded to the disaster sooner. The National Transportation Safety Board’s initial report was released today, detailing that the East Palestine derailment was traced to an overheated wheel bearing that was 253 degrees hotter than air temperature. The NTSB said it will hold a rare “investigative field hearing” near the derailment site and call witnesses.
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