tt has been a cycle of boomerang politics in which both
major parties have attempted to employ questionable
strategies that not only defied tradition (and good sense)
but brought net negative results.
What drove the parties to these self-destructive tactics
was an exceptional and bitter partisanship, especially
at the national level, that saw bipartisanship, civility
and compromise virtually vanish and see in their place
questionable pseudo-clever political gambits which led
to unexpected and embarrassing consequences.
On the Republican side, a very small clique of members
of the House of Representatives took advantage of an
ill-conceived rule made following the GOP narrow new
majority won in the 2022 mid-term elections. That rule
enabled a tiny faction pf caucus members to make a
motion to vacate the position of speaker of the House,
and Kevin McCarthy agreed to it to gain the speakership
in 2023. If he thought the small number of dissident
members of his GOP caucus would not take advantage
of the rule, he was very much mistaken, and when he
tried to compromise on pending legislation, he lost his
job when a small number of fellow Republicans used
the rule to oust him. After a bitter contest, Mike Johnson
won the speakership, but left the rule in place, The
result has been a dysfunctional session, and another
attempt to use the vacate rule. Maverick Republicans
ignored the fact that Democrats controlled the U.S.
Senate and the White House, and only hurt themselves
and their party in defeating their own House speaker.
On the Democrats’ side, a bitter obsession to prevent
a Donald Trump comeback has led to results opposite
to their intentions. First, employing an obscure and
ambiguous constitutional clause, several states with
Democrat secretaries of state attempted to remove Mr.
Trump from their state presidential ballots. When
appealed to the U.S. supreme court, it was disallowed
by a unanimous 9-0 decision. But it apparently provoked
the GOP Ohio secretary of state to point out that a
non-ambiguous line in that state’s constitution required
a political party to certify their presidential nominee
90 days before election day, and that the Democrat’s
nominating convention had been scheduled 80 days
before the election. If the Democrats didn’t change
their convention date, or the GOP-controlled legislature
didn’t hange the Ohio constitution, Mr. Biden could not
appear on the 2024 state ballot.This has so far not been
resolved,, but is an embarrassing boomerang .
An even bigger attempt to derail Mr. Trump has been a
massive so-called “lawfare” strategy to indict and
convict the former president in four trials for various
alleged crimes. The intention was to ruin his standing
with voters, but so far this has had the opposite effect.
Mr. Trump, unlike Mr. Biden, had several serious
rivals for the GOP nomination at the outset of the
2024 campaign. But the indictments had the effect of
reviving Mr, Trump not only with his voter base, but
with many Republicans who wanted a different
choice this November. The nakedly political nature of
the indictments not only produced sympathy for what
seemed by many as persecution, but also gave the
former president a free daily soapbox to air his views.
His GOP opponents could not, faced with this, ignite
their campaigns, and Trump easily won the primaries.
Despite polls which indicate a large number of voters
would not vote for Mr. Trump in November if he were
convicted of any charges, tt now seems such an
outcome might not happen. Putting him in jail would
more likely make him a political martyr, and might
guarantee his election in November.
The Democrats’ establishment also made it virtually
impossible for any serious figures in their party to
challenge Mr. Biden in the party’s primaries. One
member of Congress, Dean Phillips, who did run was
quickly isolated, did poorly, and ultimately had his
promising political career ruined. Mr. Biden has won
enough delegates to win his party’s nomination in
August, but has continued to decline in the polls —
now alarming many down-ballot campaigns that his
possible landslide loss in November could doom their
races.
Both major parties have indulged in self-defeating
tactics which have produced unwelcome results. How
these will impact the final results in November is
unclear, but it has made predicting what voters will
decide even more difficult than ever,
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Copyright (c) 2024 by Barry Casselman. All rights reserved.
