Do We Deserve To Win?
When you're in a dogfight, there better be some fight in the dog.
I sometimes wonder if we deserve to win.
When I look at the race, I can usually explain what shapes the field, the numbers, and the political landscape. Trump is ahead in many polls—not as much as people think—but this race shouldn’t be close.
Joe Biden is a good man and a good President. His campaign is mechanically competent. His record of COVID recovery and economic reboot is praiseworthy. He’s not insane. He’s not a criminal. He’s not a rapist. He’s old, but coherent.
This should be a blowout.
After so many of his sins and failures, Trump should have been driven from American political life. Yet something keeps him ahead. It's been troubling me for days, a haunting idea I couldn’t pinpoint.
It’s not just Fox News. It’s not just his celebrity. It’s not just three generations raised on the madhouse potion of talk radio, weaponized social media, and conspiracy garbage. It’s not just the intensity of the MAGA cult.
They want it more.
They want the win.
They crave power and have a vision for how to use it: revolution and transformation. They want a political reset, an end to changes that make them unhappy and uncomfortable—a world remade in Donald Trump’s image. It’s apocalyptic madness, but it’s real and powerful.
The Biden campaign and the pro-democracy movement feel defensive, not assertive. It seems like Democrats aren’t celebrating America's greatness or reveling in its accomplishments and glory. Instead, the other side makes grandiose, revanchist promises and, in the minds of too many, owns the ideas of the flag, patriotism, and national pride.
The way the MAGA masterminds behind Trump have given their voters the green light to hate this nation is a powerful political tool.
Make no mistake: they hate America.
They want the iconography but none of the responsibility. They want the logos but not the rule of law. They want big parades but not the big idea of a Constitution. They want the eagles and fireworks, monster-truck America, not an America shaped by pain, sacrifice, and an endless quest for justice and equality for every citizen in a constitutional Republic.
They want an uglier, darker, crueler, and less free America.
But by God, they want to win. That’s the difference between the MAGA Party and the Democrats that screams out like a banshee in the night: they want it, and they’ll do anything to get it.
Consider the Devil’s Bargain the Establishment GOP made with Trump as far back as 2015. When the hapless, helpless Reince Priebus slithered up to Trump Tower with a cheesy certificate for Trump to sign a pointless pledge to support the GOP nominee, it was out of fear that Trump would run as an independent and bleed off vital GOP voters.
When Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell sold their souls to Trump, it was always with the idea that with Trump, they might lose power, but without him, it was a certainty.
Over and over again, men and women who knew better—and know better, even now—made the wrong choice morally and ethically to grab some illusory political advantage from Trump’s activation of the seething, hideous MAGA maniac base voters cast in his image.
If you think, after everything you’ve seen, that the GOP is going to do anything less than the full fascist play, you’ve been asleep. If you think Trump is playing games when he says he wants a three-term (or more) presidency, stop imagining he’s just trolling you.
Whatever one calls it, it’s not conservative. Trump and his political allies are utterly amoral, deeply committed to overthrowing America as we know it and remaking the United States into an isolationist, regional power defined by authoritarian statism, populism, white nationalism, and Christian extremism.
It’s not a secret.
They tell us what they want daily, from Project 2025 down to the lowest tier of Republican officials in local offices.
And yet, today, they’re winning.
They’re winning because they want it.
They’re winning because they’ve excised shame from their characters and desire only victory.
They’re winning because they know the media will treat their lies and deceptions not as lies and deceptions but as clever political tactics. They’re winning because deep in the hearts of too many in the press, Trump’s evil may be an issue, but his novelty and entertainment value make their lives more interesting and keep the clicks flowing.
They’re winning because America’s markets aren’t free, and the people in Wall Street and the Money World who have made them the closest thing to a Russian-style kleptocratic oligarchy don’t want capitalism and competition. They’re flooding the zone for Trump financially because they want the lowest tax regime, government protection when they crash and burn the markets and their companies, full regulatory capture, and the socialization of risk.
A well-meaning ally told me last week that Lincoln’s ads must transform into “we’re better than this” pablum. He meant well. He doesn’t like the rough stuff and the hard hits. He suggested we talk about character, honesty, decency, and justice.
God, I wish we lived in that world. I wish the soft stuff worked and moved hearts and minds with the same efficacy that revenge, fear, and lust for power move MAGA voters.
We don’t, and I suspect we never will again.
I spent 35 years in politics, and it was a hard business for tough people. I spent the last 10 years fighting this tide of amoral, lavishly funded, brilliantly run authoritarian movement. Trump is just its monkey, a short-term fix for a long-term need to crush out individual liberty and elevate the power of the state for their political ends. It will never be easier than this; the successors to Trump will be more dangerous, more polished, more presentable, and more committed to the dark, authoritarian populism that departs from America’s founding principles and history.
There are days I fear we lack the will and the courage to defeat the men around and behind Trump.
When people are watching a dogfight, they’d better see some fight in the damn dog.
I think the Republicans just came to the conclusion that there was a good chance they could never win another election under the old rules. There are just aren't enough of them and their policies are not in the majority view of most Americans. Take abortion, the majority of the country is in favour of abortion and yet they are imposing their views and not following the will of the people. Even in the States who are making restrictive laws on this, the majority is not with them, but they don't care. It is not surprising either that many wealthy people are supporting Trump. They will not be affected adversely by any of his policies and given his penchant for tax breaks, they will do quite well and that's all they really care about. There is never enough money, you can never be too rich. One only needs to look at Russia, the oligarchs are doing quite well and are pretty much unaffected by anything Putin does. All that is required is they keep supporting him.
One interesting fact that the common people supporting Trump should look at is gun ownership laws in any country that is currently run by a dictator or authoritarian. Should probably give them pause if they think that's the kind of leadership they'd like to live under. I personally think it would be some type of karma if Trump went full dictator and it was the Republicans who started taking their guns away. By then it would be too late for them to fight back. And you know the party would fully support him.
I still believe it's up to the women to come out in numbers that the Republicans have no chance of matching. They have the power. They just really need to use it. It's time they told men, it's our fucking country now.
Ok what is the solution? LP and the Union can only go so far. What do we use? What is happening in Texas with a failing power grid—gift of the Governor? What about Arkansas and how it has taken a nose dive under Gov Sanders? Florida with runaway insurance costs and another Governor who is more interested in pulling climate change out of textbooks than worrying about protecting the citizens?
Who does the fighting? Is it Biden and the strong D governors of CA, MI, WI, IL, NY? Who else pulls the weight and power to fight?
Yes we need to fight and fight hard. But we also need more of the strategy of how to fight proactive not reactive. Where is the MAGA soft underbelly we need to attack. Welcoming thoughts and strategies
Ps hope you feel better