Trump: The Sequel
A Note on President Biden's 2024 Campaign Messaging
The sequel is almost always worse than the original, and a second Trump Administration would be no different. In fact, a New York Times article just recently came out entitled “If Trump Wins, His Allies Want Lawyers Who Will Bless a More Radical Agenda.”
If you thought that Trump’s agenda the last time was radical enough for you, then you ought to take a close look at that article. Apparently, people like Stephen Miller want to create a new Trump Administration complete with a new breed of laywers. A breed that thinks that “squishy” Federalist Society laywers were “too quick to tell Trump that his ideas were unachievable and illegal.” A breed that will try to help Trump gain “greater personal control over the Justice Department.” And a breed that has already begun its recruting efforts in earnest (for all of the above, see “If Trump Wins, His Allies Want Lawyers Who Will Bless a More Radical Agenda,” November 1, 2023, Jonathan Swan, Charlie Savage, and Maggie Haberman; emphasis mine).
Let us be clear: when anyone votes for Trump in 2024, they are not voting for the Trump of 2016. They are not even voting for the Trump of 2020. They are voting for a new Trump and a new kind of Trumpism. And this new Trump is waging a “final battle” against his supposed Deep State enemies. Who are these enemies? Who knows. Trump is not one to get into specifics. But we do know this: there will be no Federalist Society lawyers to get in the way of his campaign of American Carnage.
I repeat: this is not 2020. You may have voted for Trump because you had concerns about Biden’s mental fitness. If you did, then how can you not be taken aback when a 77-year-old Donald Trump claimed to have defeated Barack Obama in 2016 (see New York Times, Michael C. Bender and Michael Gold, “How Trump’s Verbal Slips Could Weaken His Attacks on Biden’s Age, October 30, 2023)? How he would have ever forgotten that he campaigned against Hillary Clinton—and most certainly not Barack Obama—is a mystery to me.
Or you may have voted for Trump because of “the economy.” But its his Republican allies in the House that have downgraded our credit rating. It is his Republican allies that have primarily stood in the way of popular policies like the child tax credit. Finally, it is Trump’s Republican allies that have consistently refused to take on the many price-gouging big corporations that have contributed to inflation. So what are the economic benefits of Trumpism again?
Let’s be clear: Trump 2024 is a trainwreck of a Trump 2020 sequel. It has none of the supposed benefits and ten times the crazy. Is that the kind of sequel that the American people want to see? I doubt it, regardless of what any poll a year before the election might say.
But the Biden campaign has to get that message out, and get it out quick. Or else Trump: The Sequel might soon come out in theaters near you.
P.S. Still no news on the future of Mt. Pleasant High School. For those of you who have not read my blog posts on the Mt. Pleasant High School issue—and why you should care—please feel free to check them out.