Tag Archives: #USElections

This election is a referendum on American democracy

This op-ed was published by The National on October 16, 2024

IIn a mere three weeks, the American constitutional system will face its greatest test since the Civil War. The depressions of the late 19th century and 1930s, the two world wars, and the Watergate scandal never put the constitutional order on the ballot. But on November 5, American voters are being asked for what amounts to a yes or no verdict on a democratic future.

What the Republican Party is offering under Donald Trump – but hardly restricted to him – effectively pits a party that remains committed to the constitutional system versus one whose leader is on record as planning to dispense with it. The once Grand Old Party has become so extreme it is promoting candidates far beyond what would ever have been considered remotely acceptable.

Mr Trump is the most obvious and threatening, because he stands a good chance of being reelected president. But he is not the man he was in 2016 or even 2020. He is showing marked signs of decline, increasingly resembling US President Joe Biden in lapsing into incoherence and senior moments. He recently spent almost 40 minutes at a rally swaying silently to golden oldies instead of continuing to answer questions.

In 2016, most voters regarded Mr Trump as a successful businessman (mainly because of his stint on the hit TV show The Apprentice) given to eccentric, politically incorrect outbursts many considered refreshing. In 2024, most voters know that Mr Trump’s presidency was a chaotic mess and that he is now promising the very kind of autocratic misrule the Constitution was designed to prevent.

He has spoken of “ending” crime, which is on the decline in most areas, by unleashing the police without any restrictions or restraints for “one rough hour”.

He is still vilifying migrants, claiming they are killers and “animals” who are “destroying” the country and is threatening an unprecedented mass deportation of millions that he admits will be “bloody.” Mr Trump justifies this with absurd fabrications such as legal Haitian immigrants eating pet cats and dogs, and vows to therefore remove their protected status.

But, he says, these millions of murderous migrants are hardly the biggest problem. That would be “the enemy within,” which he identifies as “crazy leftists,” which he says should be dealt with “by the National Guard or even the military.” As an example of who he is talking about, he specifies the liberal California representative Adam Schiff and has vowed to prosecute, along others, members of the House select committee that held hearings into the January 6 riot that he instigated to try to stay in power despite losing the 2020 election.

Reports reveal that on January 6, when Mr Trump was told that his vice president, Mike Pence, was in mortal danger from a mob chanting that he should be hanged and had erected a gallows outside of Congress, the former president replied blandly: “So what?” He has repeatedly promised to pardon all those convicted of attacking Congress and police officers in that unprecedented insurrection.

His attitude towards elections is summed up in another recently revealed statement: “it doesn’t matter if you lose an election, you still have to fight like hell” presumably to stay in power. And he has been laying the groundwork to reject another election defeat.

Many Trump voters don’t take these threats seriously, and are more afraid of the “woke Democrats” than Mr Trump’s promised violent authoritarianism. But there is no reason to think that he’s playacting. After his 2016 victory, he did his best to live up to campaign promises, including a “Muslim travel ban,” restricting entry from a series of largely Muslim-majority countries. Of course he has promised to reinstate that policy immediately.

Voters also know that he is now a convicted felon, and civilly liable for sexual abuse, defamation and serial tax fraud. None of it seems to matter.

Republican extremism is hardly restricted to Mr Trump. Its worst example is the candidate for North Carolina governor, current Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson.

Mr. Robinson has been revealed – although he extremely unconvincingly denies this – of having made numerous bizarre and incendiary postings on a pornographic website. He described himself as “a black Nazi,” recommended Adolf Hitler’s memoir Mein Kampf as excellent reading material, and expressed a profound keenness for transgender pornography despite his bitterly homophobic and anti-trans pronouncements. He expressed strong support for the long-abolished American slavery system and the especially brutal transatlantic slave trade, lamented its passing, and expressed a keen desire to buy and own slaves in the present day.

Mr Trump lauded Mr Robinson, one of the most prominent black Republicans, as “Martin Luther King Jr on steroids”. He expressed astonishment at the nauseated look on Mr Robinson’s face. We now know that Mr Robinson regards the civil rights icon as “a commie” and derided him as “Martin Lucifer Coon,” the last being an incredibly offensive epithet for African Americans.

Mr Robinson was already on the record with a series of staggeringly vulgar extreme positions, including musing in a church sermon that “some folks just need killing.”

The Republican Party has stopped lauding Mr Robinson and Mr Trump failed to mention him at a recent North Carolina rally. But the party has done nothing to repudiate him. Apparently this iteration of the Republican Party is content to field such candidates if they stand a chance of possibly winning. Democrats do not tolerate anything analogous and they replaced the visibly aging Mr Biden.

Mr Robinson is the most extreme example, and Mr Trump is the most threatening, but around the country the Republican Party is being represented by candidates fully in tune with both of them. Meanwhile, traditional conservatives like former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney find themselves politically exiled by Mr Trump, while stalwarts like Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz have endorsed the democratic candidate, Kamala Harris.

Americans are being offered a chance to either reaffirm or repudiate the fundamental political ethos of the country. It is terrifying that so many of them are either supportive of Mr Trump’s overt promises of an experiment in American fascism or are so naively confident that he doesn’t mean what he says, or won’t be allowed by others to exercise his authority if he wins, that they will probably either return him to the White House or deliver him a narrow defeat.

Either way, the American system is facing its most severe threat since the Civil War. The Republican Party may never regain its constitutional or even fundamentally rational character. Win or lose in November, its shocking decline into extremism, with litmus tests of ritual dishonesty and the willingness to embrace the likes of a self-described “black Nazi,” could well mean the venerable Republican Party is in its final stages, at least as a respectable or even viable, American political institution.

Trump’s flip-flop on a woman’s right to choose is an electoral liability for him

This op-ed was published by The National on September 6, 2024

In US presidential elections, early September initiates a typically combative, fluctuating last two months. Vice President Kamala Harris has a small lead over former president Donald Trump, but the race remains a toss-up, ripe for daily intensification.

This campaign stage typically features accusations of flip-flopping, interrogating how and why candidates have altered their previous positions.

Ms. Harris has clear exposure but also some protective padding. Most of her independent positions predate becoming President Joe Biden’s running mate in 2020. She has shifted on several important issues, such as petroleum extraction through fracking (which she now supports), single-payer public health care (now opposes), and immigration (now much tougher).

Ms. Harris and the Democratic Party in general have shifted significantly to the center. On immigration, in particular, it was stunning to watch her convention pledge to sign the “Langford bill” – a virtual wish list for Republicans on border issues – greeted with thunderous cheers by a Democratic crowd. And she is using Mr. Trump’s cynical opposition to the bill as a powerful rebuttal on border-related criticism.

Confronted with such so-called flip-flops in a recent interview, she acknowledged some of her views have changed, but insisted her values haven’t. She suggested that she’s learnt a great deal after almost four years in the White House, and developed a keener appreciation of the need to “build consensus”, a clear nod to lessons from Mr. Biden who has championed bipartisanship. Spending the past four years perforce supporting Mr Biden’s positions allows her to insist that his popular policies will continue but his unpopular ones won’t.

Mr. Trump’s relationship with political, or other, consistency is far more tenuous. Despite decades as a public gadfly in New York and almost 10 years in national politics, it’s much easier to list the few issues on which he’s held firm: opposition to immigration and free trade, plus a long track record of racist and misogynistic words and deeds.

But on most policy issues, he’s highly flexible. He began as a liberal Democrat (except on racial matters), dabbled with libertarian and independent platforms, and is now a conservative Republican. But the public and the media have largely given him a pass on his pre-2015 stances.

It’s pointless to look for such consistency because Mr. Trump doesn’t “do policy”. He does politics, and he appears mainly guided by how he thinks his base will react to developments in a 12-hour news cycle. In 2020, the Republican Party dispensed with issuing a platform altogether, simply affirming support for any of his positions – apparently because they couldn’t anticipate what he might come to favor.

This free-form flip-flopping is virtually priced into his political persona. For instance, few voters are likely to learn or care that he now supports decriminalization of marijuana in his home state of Florida, though he was a hardline anti-drug president.

Nonetheless, he’s having extreme difficulty with the policy surely most associated with his presidency: prohibiting abortion.

Evangelical and other conservative Christians were initially skeptical, but in 2016 he persuaded them that he was serious about appointing Supreme Court justices who would prioritize ending almost 50 years of constitutionally protected access to early-term abortions. They eventually became the rock-solid cornerstone of his adoring base.

Through good fortune and cynical Senate chicanery, he appointed three of the nine current justices, and in 2022 that court indeed overturned the constitutional right to choice for American women. Mr. Trump then spent years boasting that he was personally, if not single-handedly, responsible.

But in 2024, that’s all become a liability.

The court ruling, and widespread pushback against abortion access (and other vital women’s healthcare provisions) in conservative states is so unpopular that, ever since, in every competitive election in which reproductive health care has been a major issue, liberals have won (even in hyper-conservative states such as Alabama). Yet the new Republican party platform suggests that embryos do, or should, have unspecified constitutional rights, signaling a nationwide total abortion ban.

Mr. Trump is clearly nervous, and with good reason.

Eyebrows were raised when he insisted that another Trump term would be “great for women and their reproductive rights”. But his implication that he might vote for a referendum in Florida overturning the state’s highly restrictive six-week limit (when women often have no idea that they’ve become pregnant) made many of his anti-abortion supporters livid.

Inundated with criticism, he “clarified” that he would vote no, falsely claiming that the referendum would allow abortions through the ninth month. Such hyperbole is nothing new, since he has been wrongly insisting for years that Democrats support and allow for “after-birth abortions”, which is murder and unlawful everywhere.

Just as Mr. Trump has failed to develop an effective counter to Ms. Harris – his latest nickname for her, “Comrade Kamala”, unsurprisingly isn’t catching on – he hasn’t found a stance that accommodates his existing and possibly epoch-shaping anti-abortion policies while attenuating the price at the ballot box.

His main strategy in recent weeks has been to advocate leaving the matter to each state. That hasn’t appeased anyone, and it’s annoyed many on his side.

He even recently suggested universal coverage for in vitro fertilization, which is considered murderous by much of his base. But it’s likely to prove one of his offhanded trial balloons, like his recent suggestion that graduating international students at US universities be given green cards, that end up on history’s cutting room floor.

The Harris campaign is so invested in reproductive rights that it’s highlighting them through a 50-stop national bus tour, beginning near Mr. Trump’s home in Florida.

The candidates are bound to vigorously confront each other at the upcoming debate. Mr. Trump would be wise not to again accuse Ms. Harris of flip-flopping on her mixed racial identity by suddenly “turning black”. And she’s best advised to foreground women’s health care and force Mr. Trump to either stand by or backtrack further from his strong restrictionist track record. His instincts for throwing red meat to his strongest supporters could help her task, although he’s likely to stick to his “leave it to each state” formula.

Flip-flopping accusations are largely ineffective political cliches. But Mr. Trump’s close association with one of the most unpopular socio-political upheavals in recent history is almost certainly the biggest liability facing either candidate this year.

Facing the prospect of losing the election, Trump seems lost

This op-ed was published by The National on August 29, 2024

With less than 70 days to go for the US presidential election, Republican candidate, former president and convicted felon Donald Trump is struggling in the polls. He has yet to find an effective messaging strategy against his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris. And he’s persisting with an ongoing series of highly damaging unforced errors.

The initial data to emerge since the end of the recent Democratic National Convention shows Ms. Harris opening a four-point national lead. That’s not quite large enough to calm Democrats, because their voters are “inefficiently” clustered in high-population areas like cities and coastal states, whereas Republican voters are more “efficiently” spread out across rural states and districts. While it now seems certain that Mr. Trump will yet again lose the popular vote, if the percentage difference is three or less, he could still eke out a narrow electoral college victory.

However, Ms. Harris enjoys four of the most important presidential campaign advantages: momentum, vibes, likeability and enthusiasm.

Her momentum is obvious. She inherited a six-point deficit against Mr. Trump from President Joe Biden. She has regained it all and established a significant lead that might well soon expand.

Atmospherics are more important than policies. Much of the electorate are “low information voters”, who may know which policies they prefer, but aren’t clear what the two parties advocate. They typically vote based on campaign imagery and vibes, and on that score, Ms. Harris is strongly prevailing.

Her atmospherics radiate joy, optimism and upbeat humor, plus a relatable, down-to-earth, common touch, bolstered by her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. Moreover, the unity and intense patriotism seen at the Democratic convention, and surge into the political center – Ms. Harris’s crowd even cheered a very conservative immigration bill – should effectively counteract Mr. Trump’s efforts to label her ultra-left and even a “communist”.

Along with Mr. Walz, she has created a slightly offbeat, goofy, jovial campaign that seems relatable and likable. Mr. Trump’s efforts to “other” her, by falsely claiming that she spent her career presenting herself as Indian until she suddenly “turned black”, appear to have failed miserably.

It contrasts dramatically with the angry, grim and catastrophizing atmosphere surrounding Mr. Trump and his shockingly inept running mate, Senator JD Vance. Asked “what makes you happy”, Mr. Vance snapped: “I smile at a lot of things including bogus questions from the media.” He then reiterated how angry he is.

Mr. Trump’s flat-footed attempt at kitchen table populism backfired when he held a news conference on the price of groceries that largely ignored the topic and was bizarrely held at one of his membership hotels that costs $500,000 to join.

Ms. Harris even has the most coveted campaign advantage of all: enthusiasm. Republicans, like their dear leader, appear wrongfooted by the sudden rise of Ms Harris. Mr. Trump and many Republicans seem dejected by the reversal of fortunes, whereas Democrats evince enthusiasm bordering on elation. Their biggest problem isn’t enthusiasm but overconfidence in a race that will inevitably be very close. Yet this belongs squarely in the “problems you want to have” category.

Mr. Trump faces a daunting uphill struggle, but he doesn’t seem to know what to do next.

His latest gambit, staging a campaign event at Arlington National Cemetery, the premier burial ground for US veterans, appears to have only made matters worse. Mr. Trump apparently intended to embarrass the Biden administration by focusing on a Taliban suicide bomb attack that killed 13 US troops on August 26, 2021. But such campaign events are strictly prohibited there.

A long-serving cemetery staff member sought to enforce these rules on Mr. Trump’s photographers seeking a campaign photo op. She was reportedly berated and shoved aside by Trump staff, who ignored her warnings about the rules and then violated them.

Mr. Trump’s spokesman accused her of having “a mental health episode”, and campaign co-chair Chris LaCivita defamed her as “a despicable individual”.

This blunder reopened longstanding concerns that Mr. Trump, despite his jingoism, does not understand a military that he avoided serving in during the Vietnam War due to a dubious diagnosis of bone spurs. He has reportedly described fallen US soldiers as “suckers and losers”, and once marveled, when visiting a US military cemetery, that: “I just don’t get it. What was in it for them?”

Yet the US news media persists in allowing Mr. Trump impunity to make public comments, especially on social media, that would be treated as alarming and newsworthy outbursts if they were made by other career politicians, including Mr. Biden or Ms. Harris.

On Wednesday alone, on his bespoke social media platform, Mr. Trump unleashed a series of re-posts that ought to raise serious concerns about his intentions and stability.

He repeatedly threatened to prosecute and “lock up” numerous perceived enemies, including many Democrats, several Republicans, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and top epidemiologist Anthony Fauci. He reiterated his groundless claim that then president Barack Obama wiretapped his phones during the 2016 election campaign.

There was more besides, but nary a peep from major American news organizations. They have created a “new normal” that grants Mr. Trump alone a virtual carte blanche to blast such outrageous plans and accusations into the cultural-political ether without raising the obvious and appropriate concerns about his mental or emotional condition.

Reporters and editors might claim such misbehavior is “priced in” to Mr. Trump’s political persona. But, if so, that’s largely because the media, and not the public, is bored with reporting his endless eccentricities and daily excesses. It amounts to journalistic malpractice.

The coming weeks include Mr. Trump’s sentencing on the adult film actress hush money case, in which he could get some jail time, and a scheduled debate with Ms. Harris on September 10, which might be his last chance of significantly shifting the race again before it’s too late. It could also finish his election chances off decisively.

With just eight weeks to go, Mr. Trump needs to find some way of changing the current trajectory. If not, he faces not just another electoral defeat, this time to a mixed-race woman, but also the great likelihood of significant prison sentences at pending trials. No wonder he appears so dejected, low-energy and lost.

In picking Tim Walz as her running mate, Kamala Harris is signaling confidence

This op-ed was published by The National on August 7, 2024

In selecting Minnesota governor Tim Walz as her running mate, US Vice President Kamala Harris is strongly signaling confidence and a broad, rather than region-specific, campaign strategy aimed at the whole country. It reportedly came down to Mr. Walz or Pennsylvania governor Joshua Shapiro. Apparently she went with personal chemistry and midwestern homespun rhetorical power over the mathematics of a potentially narrow victory.

If Ms. Harris were primarily focused on clawing her way to a winning 270 votes in the electoral college, she surely would have selected Mr. Shapiro. He’s the extremely popular governor of Pennsylvania, a state she cannot afford to lose. Polls show Pennsylvania currently running as a dead heat between Ms. Harris and her Republican opponent, former president and convicted felon Donald Trump. Picking Mr. Shapiro would have been a sounder choice if Ms. Harris were nervous about the outcome.

Her decision suggests she’s not.

Arguments against Mr. Shapiro included his outspoken condemnation of anti-Gaza war protesters and unwavering support of Israel (although not Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu). Alarm about this on the left was overblown, because, as vice president, he would have no policy role on Israel and the Palestinians, and would perforce support Ms. Harris’s policies.

But foregoing the potential advantage he might supply in Pennsylvania also avoids reopening now largely healed wounds over US President Joe Biden’s strong support for Israel’s brutal Gaza war, especially in its first few months. Within their administration, Ms. Harris took the lead in calling for ceasefires and expressing concern about the desperate plight of Palestinian civilians facing Israel’s terrible vengeance. Selecting Mr. Shapiro might have unduly reopened an internal Democratic controversy best postponed until after November at the earliest.

She could come to regret the choice. Mr. Shapiro is known for his polished public speaking, strikingly reminiscent in tone and style to former president Barack Obama.

Nonetheless, Mr. Walz was also almost certainly selected for his own, very different, messaging ability. After a long career in the military and education, the House of Representatives, and two terms as Minnesota governor, he has perfected a traditional but now rare brand of distinctly liberal “prairie populism”.

He often looks like he just climbed down from a tractor, and employs a plainspoken, unadorned yet powerful verbiage honed in farmhouses, diners and truck stops across the American Midwest. If he can’t get through to winnable heartland independents and Republicans, maybe no one can.

Although long-favored by Democratic center-leftists and progressives, Mr. Walz shot to national prominence in recent weeks by pioneering a novel yet effective Democratic attack on Mr. Trump and his followers. He recently began branding Maga movement leaders, particularly Mr. Trump and his running mate, senator JD Vance, as just “weird”.

In one simple word, he managed to distill the gut feeling most Democrats and many other Americans have towards Trump-inflected Republican extremists (a reaction not provoked by traditional Republicans): that they are downright strange folk whose conduct, values, and apparent mental landscape often seem inexplicable.

Why did Mr. Trump go to a convention of black journalists and aggressively launch a sustained barrage of obviously racist attacks on the moderators, and against Ms. Harris’s ethnicity, apparently unable to comprehend that someone can be both black and Indian due to mixed parentage?

For a candidate professedly seeking greater support from African Americans, the performance, yet again, struck most Democrats as simply weird. So do his incoherent stories about sharks and electricity, self-indicting poems about treacherous snakes, and many other greatest hits.

Why did Mr. Trump then, in his own must-win state of Georgia, unleash a tirade of abuse against popular governor Brian Kemp and even his wife? And why does Mr. Vance refuse to moderate or amend his offensive and misogynistic charge that the US is being brought to ruin because it’s run by “childless cat ladies”?

The whole cult of personality surrounding Mr. Trump in the Republican Party is unprecedented in modern American history and, to Democrats, certainly appears very “weird”.

Mr. Walz is, in part, being rewarded for pioneering this extremely effective attack. However, Democrats must be careful. Many within their own ranks could be plausibly cast as “weird” to a broad swathe of American voters, including the ultra-left, extreme environmentalist and radical transgender activists, anti-police fanatics and other fringes. They have to be scrupulously specific about what, exactly, is “weird” about Maga Republicans to avoid a boomerang effect.

But the Minnesota Governor wasn’t selected for stumbling upon this bon mot. Ms. Harris is calculating he can help her launch a lightning-strike appeal to a huge swath of “middle America” where Democrats once held sway by appealing to middle class economic interests and appearing to champion “the little guy”. This may prove impossible, but it’s a commendably bold and gutsy strategy.

Ms. Harris is, like Mr. Trump, appealing to her base with her vice presidential selection, deciding to try to maintain her striking momentum – in some national polls she suddenly holds a slight lead over Mr. Trump – by presenting an apparently all-progressive ticket. Yet both Ms. Harris and Mr. Walz will surely continue to tack to the political center despite their strong liberal credentials.

At the black journalists convention, Mr. Trump was asked if Mr. Vance would be “ready on day one”. Rather than affirming this, as any normal presidential candidate would about his running mate, Mr. Trump simply averred that vice presidential candidates don’t matter. Apparently he couldn’t bear admitting that anyone else, even his running mate, is a plausible president.

Apart from the appalling slight to Mr. Vance, no doubt a small foretaste of the callous disrespect he can expect to come, Mr. Trump wasn’t entirely wrong: most Americans vote for the top of the ticket.

The past six weeks have, at a dizzying pace, reshaped American politics as Ms. Harris displayed unexpected poise, charisma and mass appeal. She’s gambling Mr. Walz can hold the party together and speak in their own language to a large segment of the American people that the Bay Area prosecutor, Ms. Harris, can’t. That’s arguably a long shot given his staunchly liberal record, but it could be a winning formula.

Still, Ms. Harris has all the momentum, with just three months to go. Mr. Trump appears justified in his evident panic.

Joe Biden will be remembered as a great American president

This op-ed was published by The National on July 22, 2024

Political heroism is typically framed in terms of the acquisition and retention of power. But the US has a long tradition of celebrating, even venerating, those who have voluntarily given up power to promote the general welfare.

President Joe Biden – who announced on Sunday that, in the interests of the party and the country, he is surrendering the Democratic presidential nomination, which he has earned in the primaries and fully controls – is the latest heir to that noble tradition.

From the founding of the Republic, stepping aside and knowing when to say goodbye has been the quintessence of American political virtue.

Towards the end of the American rebellion, King George III reportedly asked a royal artist who was painting him what George Washington would do if the colonists achieved independence. The artist, a subject from the American colonies, replied that, upon victory, Washington would probably retire to a private situation. His Majesty replied: “If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.”

 

On December 23, 1783, Washington did just that. He resigned his commission to the Continental Congress and returned to his plantation (and slaves) at Mount Vernon.

He repeated this gesture in 1796, when he declined to run for president a third time, establishing the two-term, eight-year, norm that was later written into the Constitution. In 1800, his successor, John Adams, fully routinised and normalized the peaceful transfer of power by accepting his defeat at the hands of Thomas Jefferson and stepping aside.

These ethic-establishing acts drew heavily on the almost-entirely classical education of the American founders, with Roman general Cincinnatus (who, legend holds, gave up power to return to his farm) regarded as one of the greatest exemplars of political virtue.

Mr. Biden’s genuinely grand gesture of stepping back from power resonates with many aspects of the founding and central tropes of American politics and civic religion. Both Mr. Biden and the Democrats have salvaged their reputations, and even carved out a monumental set of distinctions with former US president and convicted felon Donald Trump and his cult-like Republican Party.

It will be said that Mr. Biden was hounded off the ticket by Democratic elites, but that’s false. Many party leaders told him bluntly that he probably couldn’t win and might even do damage to Democratic chances for the House and Senate. Still, they could do nothing but try to convince him to go willingly.

Not easy. The President had earned his delegates through the primaries, and he was not going to simply relinquish them because other people at that moment thought he should.

If he cared only about himself, Mr. Biden would have remained the Democratic nominee. Instead, he was rationally convinced by his friends, and possibly family, that no matter how painful stepping aside might be, it was essential to maximize the chances of beating Mr. Trump in November.

They might as well have asked him to chop off his left hand with a dull and rusty cleaver.

For a scrappy fighter like Mr. Biden, who has been counted out throughout his career only to bounce back with unexpected potency – eventually leading to a historically significant first presidential term – stepping aside is anathema. But his intermittent frailty is deteriorating too quickly and publicly to sustain electoral viability at this exceptional, historically significant political crossroads.

It’s extremely unlikely that Mr. Biden was mainly seeking to proactively defend his own legacy and reputation, although that would be a typical argument for embracing acts of courageous political virtue. It’s much more likely that he primarily responded to patriotism and arguments that the last, best and most imperative opportunity to defeat Mr. Trump and everything he represents cannot be the subject of an experiment regarding ageing during presidential campaigns.

Over the past few weeks, Mr. Biden was no doubt reassuring himself that, of course, there was no reason to think he was going to lose badly to Mr. Trump. The Democrats had many advantages. He been written off before and generally bounced back. Stepping down went against everything else he believes in, but polling and anecdotal data ultimately painted a grim enough picture that he was willing to swallow his pride, ambitions, ego, hopes and dreams in the national interest.

What a staggering contrast to Mr. Trump. Rather than accepting his decisive defeat in the superbly run and entirely clean 2020 election, he sought by numerous extra-constitutional and allegedly unlawful schemes to overturn the result. When none of that worked, he incited and unleashed an angry, violent mob on the Capitol building in an effort to stop ratification of the election results and intimidate members of Congress and, especially, the vice president.

Mr. Biden’s position starkly contrasts with Mr. Trump’s remarks to his then-chief of staff, Gen John Kelly, that fallen US soldiers were “suckers and losers”. “I don’t understand it,” he reportedly muttered, shaking his head, “what was in it for them?”

Similarly, the Democratic Party has, after a few alarming weeks, re-established itself as firmly rooted in objective reality and disinclined, ultimately, to attempt a colossal gaslighting campaign to obscure and deny the established and objectively verified flaws of their candidate.

In short, Mr. Biden did what Mr. Trump never would: put others – the party and country – above his own interests. And the Democratic Party did what the Republican Party has organized itself to passionately avoid and reject: acknowledge the flaws of their beloved presumptive nominee, prevail upon him to act with the utmost selflessness and not run for president, and just tell the truth.

Whoever the Democrats nominate, this election will be about more than traditional American democracy versus populist illiberalism. It will also be between a politics based on the real world versus last week’s Republican national convention.

Far beyond the most extreme precedent, the RNC was steeped in phoniness, humbug and an undisguised, unabashed spectacle of simulacra – including a “professional wrestler” pretending in detail to be a champion of legitimate sporting contests.

Mr. Biden overwhelmingly won the Democratic primaries. The nomination legitimately belongs to him. But he’s stepping aside because it’s the right thing to do. That is among the most noble and patriotic acts in American history.

Mr. Biden will be remembered as a truly great president and great American.

With Trump riding new momentum, Biden will need to move quickly

This op-ed was published by The National on July 16, 2024

The only good news for the Democrats is that this year’s presidential election is being held in November and not tomorrow. US President Joe Biden is stubbornly pressing forward with his candidacy despite continuing doubts about his acuity and vigour. Meanwhile, the presumptive Republican nominee, former president and convicted felon Donald Trump, has pocketed a set of shocking and largely unanticipated victories.

The US Supreme Court ruled that, contrary to all precedent, the plain language of the Constitution and stated intentions of its framers, plus simple common sense, both current and former presidents are broadly shielded from criminal prosecution, or even investigation, for any act that falls within the “outer perimeters” of their official duties. That’s not everything, but it’s awfully close.

The appalling ruling jeopardises much, though not all, of the federal case regarding Mr Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election result. But it seems more designed to free his hand in a potential second term.

No president before Mr. Trump, with the exception of Richard Nixon, required or sought extensive executive criminal immunity, because they didn’t commit egregious, self-serving crimes. This ruling seems designed to protect an exceptionally lawless president because it anticipates the return of just such a figure from their own Republican partisan camp.

If effectively freeing Mr. Trump from the rule of law in preparation for a second term wasn’t bad enough, Florida federal judge Aileen Cannon invalidated the entire case wherein he has no plausible defence for having purloined hundreds of top-secret government documents, refused to return them, and hid them from the FBI and even his own lawyers.

She ruled that special prosecutor Jack Smith was unconstitutionally appointed, a baffling claim already essentially rejected by many courts, including the Supreme Court. She will almost certainly be yet again roundly and derisively overturned by appellate courts, but long after the election. If Mr Trump wins, the case goes away. If not, she will probably be overruled and replaced on the grounds of palpable bias and gross incompetence.

Mr Trump even narrowly survived an appalling assassination attempt, which left him slightly bloodied but also framed one of the most potent political photographs in US history.

It depicts him bleeding for his people and cause, punching his fist into the air in defiance. Amid an array of red, white and blue, waving US flags, and security officials, he effectively signalled bravery, power and authority. It is his core appeal to his supporters concentrated with astonishing graphic precision in a single arresting image.

That photo alone won’t return him to power. But Mr. Trump isn’t just incredibly lucky to have survived the heinous attack. Instead of being badly wounded or killed, he emerged as the central figure in one of the most potentially inspiring and impressive images in recent memory.

Mr. Biden by contrast continues to struggle in the polls, in which Mr. Trump seems to have developed a small national lead that’s more pronounced in some key swing states. Many Democrats fear it’s going to be very difficult, if not impossible, for Mr. Biden to demonstrate his own vigor and valor, avoid further senior meltdowns as during last month’s debate, and eventually win.

All this has left the Democrats petrified of the next shoe to drop. Mr. Trump is getting unexpected and largely unearned great news from all directions, although being shot by a crazed assassin is surely a horrible experience.

Even the most cynical legal observers thought the two recent rulings beyond implausible. And as Mr Trump boasts about divine intervention, and seems even more messianic to the faithful now gathered at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, many Democrats see little hope and are bracing for the next brutal blow.

Mr. Trump has selected Ohio Senator JD Vance as his running mate. This decision could prove a mistake, as it doubles down on the Trump-inflected extremism that Mr. Vance used to denounce and ridicule but now passionately promotes.

Mr Trump might have better strengthened his hand by choosing a woman or a more traditional Republican such as Florida Senator Marco Rubio. But he can rest assured that Mr Vance, unlike former vice president Mike Pence, would have tried to use non-existent vice-presidential powers on January 6, 2021 to try to overturn the election results – because Mr Vance has repeatedly said so.

With several months to go, the Democrats still have time to reverse the momentum, especially since polling still shows a close race.

But they have little to work with. They’re more anxious about another pronounced senior moment from Mr Biden than excited by him. He must do something highly significant to change the emerging equation – or allow Vice President Kamala Harris to inherit the nomination. Theoretically, he could do this any time before the election, citing ill health. But the longer it takes, the riskier that gambit becomes.

After the shooting, both candidates called for calm and unity.

But Mr Trump, in particular, is already back on the extreme rhetorical warpath. He can benefit from surviving the attack with defiance, but risks being further associated with violence and chaos.

Mr Biden will seek to reinforce his 2020 election pitch that he is the voice of calm, regular order, non-violent and centrist politics, and the antidote to polarisation and extremism.

He can cite an extensive record of bipartisan legislative achievements, greatly overshadowing Mr Trump’s legislation, which was mainly a huge tax cut for the wealthy. But the President faces accusations that he failed to unite or calm anyone and even contributed to the polarisation that led to the shooting.

Last week, Mr Biden started emphasising an aggressively populist economic agenda. The contrast is potentially powerful: he wants to tax the rich, Mr Trump wants to tax the poor; he wants to create more jobs, Mr Trump wants more tariffs; he wants to invest more in society and human capital, Mr Trump wants to cut social services and public investments.

The Democrats planned to ensure that the election is effectively a referendum on Mr Trump’s felonious character. It still can be.

Indeed, the news cycle is all about him. But it’s almost all good news for the former president and terrible for the paralyzed, bewildered and rudderless Democrats. They urgently need something dramatic to revive their faith and hope, and change the emerging election narrative and momentum before it’s too late.

Kamala Harris should replace Biden and take on Trump

This op-ed was published by The National on July 10, 2024

The American presidency invests a tremendous amount of decision-making power in the hands of a single person. Presidential power steadily accumulated throughout the 20th century, and has recently been supercharged by a disastrous Supreme Court ruling that has created, out of whole cloth, wide-ranging immunity from prosecution for sitting and former presidents. Now the crisis gripping the Democratic Party has revealed yet another way in which, in the US system, one person can hold all the cards.

US President Joe Biden and most Democrats were quietly confident that as Americans re-engaged with former president Donald Trump, they would remember what they deeply disliked about him. When Mr Trump was convicted on all 34 felony charges in the adult film actress hush money case, Democrats became even more convinced that they had excellent chances for the White House, the House, and even the Senate.

However, after Mr. Biden’s disastrous debate performance, their election plan appears shattered. While few elected Democrats have openly called for Mr. Biden to step aside, panic in the party is widespread.

The liberal press is virtually unanimous that Mr. Biden should make way for someone younger. Some even frame the conundrum as when and how, but not if, he will go.

The main worry is that his evident aging-related decline – which was already concerning voters before the debate – had now effectively balanced out Mr. Trump’s character as the key distinction. Swing voters will no longer be choosing between a convicted felon, adjudicated sexual abuser and serial fraudster, versus a president who has disappointed many Americans with inflation, high interest rates and similar perceived “kitchen table” policy failures. Instead, it will be between that same convicted felon and a president many Americans now fear may not be robust enough to campaign or govern effectively.

Alarmed Democrats doubt they can make the election a referendum on the conduct and character of Mr Trump, as they intended, when it may be also and even as much a referendum on Mr Biden’s perceived ability to perform for the next four years.

The US President, however, is dismissively insisting that only “God Almighty” can stop him from running and winning. He unconvincingly insists that polls are simply wrong. The voters, he says, have shown they will stand with him and want him to keep running.

Mr Biden’s jarring confidence comes from a career of being written off, only to bounce back. That certainly happened when he came from nowhere to win the South Carolina primary in 2020 and seize control of the Democratic nomination. He’s clearly relishing the opportunity to once again defy the odds and prognosticators, and create a “comeback kid” narrative of perseverance and ultimate victory in the face of daunting adversity.

Only Mr Biden’s opinion ultimately counts. In the primaries he won virtually all of the committed delegates to the upcoming Democratic convention – or an earlier vote on August 5 which has been scheduled to officially select the candidate earlier because of an election law in Ohio – and unless he releases those delegates, they are bound to him. There is nothing anyone else can do about it.

Mr Biden insists he will stay. Even if they wanted to, other Democrats cannot push him aside, no matter how alarmed they may be. So unless something dramatic happens, Mr Biden will apparently stay the course.

Biden must drop out of the race before it’s too late

This op-ed was published by The National on June 28, 2024

It was an unprecedented fiasco. US president Joe Biden‘s re-election candidacy crashed and burned spectacularly at the debate against former president and convicted felon Donald Trump. On policy, Mr. Biden had the better of the conversation, such as it was, but on style he failed miserably. He came across as bumbling and often confused.

I warned on these pages that style would outweigh substance. Mr. Trump had a far better night on style, seeming confident and controlled. He avoided outrageous outbursts. He contained himself emotionally, which was his main task. Mr. Biden, by contrast, had a meltdown on his primary assignment, which was to reassure Americans that he is capable, focused, engaged, mentally acute and ready to continue in this highly challenging job.

On substance, Mr. Trump was dreadful. He mainly relied on outrageous falsehoods, claiming credit for accomplishments, like job growth and deficit reduction, that were in fact secured by Mr. Biden.

He occasionally displayed bouts of excessive nastiness, but between the disgracefully disengaged moderators and Mr. Biden’s misguided effort to remain “presidential”, he faced remarkably few provocations.

Mystifyingly, Mr Biden barely mentioned Mr Trump’s criminal record, and no one seriously interrogated his status as an adjudicated sexual abuser and serial fraudster. He also astonishingly failed to mention strengthening NATO by adding Finland and Sweden despite Hungarian and Turkish recalcitrance.

Mr Biden had some strong moments, observing that Mr Trump has the “morals of an alley cat,” and is a “whiner” who can’t accept a legitimate defeat. Mr Trump’s performance had extremely serious flaws, including his predictable refusal to commit to respecting the election outcome and dodging questions on issues such as childcare and climate change.

The “debate” degenerated into farce during a preposterous argument about golf. But Mr Trump came closer to laying out a vision for a second term. The president’s misguided insistence on rising above Mr Trump’s sordid criminality and adjudicated abuses should at least have facilitated a laser-like focus on how he proposes to improve the lives of ordinary Americans. He wretchedly failed to do either effectively.

Mr. Biden displayed surprising and impressive vigor during March’s State of the Union address when he was robust, forceful and at his best as he sparred extemporaneously with Republican hecklers. Last night, he seemed a different person altogether.

Democrats have been insisting that behind closed doors he seems fine. Obviously, those who reported that he has “good days and bad days”, typically said of someone who’s fundamentally unwell, were telling the truth. That fact is now on full display because of the contrast between the two performances. And it’s likely catastrophic for his chances.

The administration insiders who have been insisting Mr. Biden is sharp and focused have much to answer for. What, after all, are the chances that the bumbling and confused president of the debate never exhibited those characteristics before?

I greatly admire Mr. Biden. In my assessment, he has headed the most successful presidency in my adult lifetime, despite some obvious blunders — worst of all his failure to clearly explain his administration’s wise preference for job salvation and growth over low inflation. And he adopted a badly misguided policy towards the Israeli rampage in Gaza, which for many months emphasized conflict containment. It was more an amoral rather than an immoral policy, but it has damaged American interests by implicating the country in obviously indefensible levels of killing and mayhem inflicted on Palestinian civilians.

Arab and Muslim Americans should note, though, that Mr. Trump called Mr. Biden “a bad Palestinian” as an attempted insult. It was clear he didn’t mean the US president should be a better Palestinian, but rather that being Palestinian is simply a terrible thing. But Mr. Trump’s deep-seated racism is not news, and for part of his base it’s actually a selling point.

Yet, taken as a whole and on a relative basis, I assess Mr. Biden’s presidency as remarkably effective and positive. Therefore, it is extremely painful for me to confront the fact that he’s apparently no longer a plausible candidate for the job – except in contrast to his felonious and profoundly narcissistic opponent.

It’s simply unreasonable to ask the American people to choose someone who is no longer up to the task simply to avoid giving the presidency back to a thoroughly bad person.

Those of us who fear the consequences of a second Trump term must accept now that Mr. Biden should immediately retire and give his party a chance to either elevate the vice president as their standard-bearer or, more wisely, find a way to tap into the deep and talented Democratic Party bench around the country. Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan is an obvious and appealing option, but there are many other plausible alternatives.

Some pundits are insisting it’s impossible for Democrats to change their ticket at this stage. But it obviously isn’t; a candidate can suddenly retire for health-related reasons. If a presumptive candidate were to suddenly pass away, there are mechanisms for addressing that. Given that his candidacy is probably now so implausible, it amounts to the same thing politically.

Democrats are panicking, shocked to discover their leader is too old, if not in years then in focus and acuity. The US president’s main role is that of a chief executive who primarily must appoint the right people. In general, Mr. Biden has done that and could continue to. But too much individual power and decision-making is vested in the office to confidently give it to someone who suffers from so much evident, even if intermittent, mental fog.

Democrats can and should find a new candidate. It is by no means too late. But it’s up to Mr. Biden. If he truly loves his country and believes it’s imperative to stop Mr. Trump’s re-election in order to protect the US democratic and constitutional order – a very reasonable evaluation – he must face the music and step aside, not as President but as the Democratic candidate, without much delay.

If the Democrats stick with Mr. Biden, he could certainly still win, just as Mr Trump survived the disgusting 2016 Access Hollywood video, in which he boasted about grabbing women by their genitalia. But such a gamble would be unconscionable, given that Mr. Trump genuinely poses a significant threat to the US constitutional order.

Mr. Biden must get out of this race as soon as possible.

This week’s Biden-Trump presidential debate could be the most significant in US history

This op-ed was published by The National on June 25, 2024

The American commentariat is virtually unanimous that Thursday night’s first presidential election debate between US President Joe Biden and former president and convicted felon Donald Trump is potentially the most significant since the very first one held in 1960 between John F Kennedy and Richard Nixon.

While these candidates are extremely well known to the public, both require a breakthrough moment in what has been a remarkably steady and even campaign. But if neither achieves a noteworthy success, or falls into one of the pitfalls yawning before them, it’s also possible that nothing will happen to significantly shift this race.

There are several unique characteristics to this week’s debate.

It will be the first between a sitting president and a former incumbent. It’s the first in decades to be handled purely by a single news organization, CNN, rather than an independent national commission (which Trump has refused to work with). And it involves by far the oldest presumptive presidential candidates (both will be formally anointed at their party conventions next month) who are well over 75 (Mr. Biden is 81 and Trump is 78). It’s also the earliest debate in any presidential election campaign, because Mr. Biden is an essentially unchallenged incumbent and Trump was able to secure his party leadership with no effective opposition.

The campaign is now in full swing, even though the conventions lie ahead, and in the run-up, Trump held a narrow lead nationally and in crucial swing states. However, as the campaign has gained pace and, especially, after Trump’s conviction on all 34 felony counts in the Manhattan adult film star hush money trial, Mr. Biden has gained noticeable ground, and is now leading very narrowly in the most recent polls.

But the campaign remains balanced on a knife edge. Neither candidate has clearly developed a winning coalition or decisive edge over the other, and both will be looking for a breakthrough moment of some sort.

Trump, in particular, needs that. Despite his continued popularity among Republicans and gains among non-college educated African-American and Latino males, the momentum, such as it is, appears to be with the President, who also enjoys the distinct advantage of incumbency. But Trump, too, is running as a kind of incumbent, and the outcome probably boils down to which of the two unpopular and uninspiring men proves to be the dominant focus of attention.

A de facto referendum on either candidate probably secures victory for the other.

It’s no mystery that both candidates need to overcome negative assumptions about themselves. American voters are rarely moved by policy arguments, but rather respond to atmospherics, general impressions, likability and respectability. On both counts, each man must, above all, avoid pitfalls.

Republicans have painted the President, who is undoubtedly showing his age, as senile and incompetent. If Mr. Biden can repeat his performance at the State of the Union address in January, in which he looked engaged, fully competent and even sprightly, especially during rhetorical sparring with Republicans, he will probably have had a good night. It’s imperative that he does not come across as confused or bewildered, although voters may be patient with some rhetorical stumbling.

Trump, by contrast, will have to control himself. He is more given to extreme rhetorical outbursts and excesses of outrage than he already was in the past, and if he comes across as overly aggressive, boorish and obnoxious – as he did in his debates with Mr. Biden four years ago – he could sustain considerable damage.

If, on the other hand, he is able to remain calm and controlled – and especially refuses to rise to the bait that Mr. Biden certainly should be judiciously throwing at him or bristle at uncomfortable questions from the moderators – he could reassure voters that he’s not as unhinged as he often appears these days. He must also avoid the strange rambling that he appears to be increasingly given to at both public and, as widely reported, private appearances.

The President will need to goad his opponent without unduly mocking or appearing to cynically provoke him. The former president must absorb these taunts, and incontrovertible facts such as his status as a convicted criminal, without appearing to lose control of his emotions or respond with transparently crude and preposterous lies.

Trump continues to run as an outsider, even though he’s commanded a major party for almost a decade and served as president for four years. That presents him with the opportunity to continue to challenge the system, but if he appears ready to run roughshod over it or dismiss the Constitution when convenient, he will confirm many of the worst fears about his political evolution. Mr. Biden, by contrast, will have to defend the constitutional system without seeming to apologize for structures that unduly advantage the few over the many.

The debate provides a golden opportunity for the President to keep harping on a few key facts that can refute widespread misapprehensions that the economy under his leadership is in a recession (in fact, by most measures, it is exceptionally robust), or that crime is at unknown and rising highs (in the main, it isn’t).

Trump has the opportunity to reinforce the nostalgia many voters appear to feel about his presidency and avoid being stung by reminders of the failures, particularly during the worst year of the Covid-19 pandemic, that contributed heavily to his defeat four years ago. And he’s certainly going to have to resist relitigating the 2020 election or harping on conspiracy theories that few swing voters believe and fewer still consider relevant to the next four years.

But most of all, both men must avoid significantly reinforcing the stereotypes that haunt them: that Mr. Biden is a virtually senile servant of an unjust status quo, and that Trump is a mentally unstable would-be authoritarian.

Atmospherics and general impressions will be key. If either man strongly reinforces these impressions, it could be disastrous. But if both avoid the pitfalls, little may change. Nonetheless, this has all the makings of one of the most consequential presidential debates in US history.

Anyone interested in US politics must watch it carefully. But remember: style will prevail over substance, and general impressions or breakthrough moments will, as always, carry the day.

The dishonest spectacle of Trump being interviewed by Dr. Phil

This op-ed was published by The National on June 14, 2024

Former president and convicted felon Donald Trump got a surprise boost in a strange and fawning interview with TV psychologist Phillip McGraw. Dr Phil had a very popular and long-running network TV show that recently moved to his own fledgling channel. He did his best to help Mr. Trump spread conspiracy theories to soften the blow of his recent 34 felony count conviction in New York and promote distrust of the judicial system.

The TV psychologist sagely shook his head as the former president vented against the endless conspiracies that “they” have launched against him from the beginning of his political career. Dr McGraw never challenged Mr. Trump’s falsehoods. Indeed, he endorsed many of the worst of them either through obvious body language or open agreement.

Dr McGraw floated a bizarre legal theory that it was improper for Mr. Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen to testify because he had taken a plea deal in a prosecution on separate charges arising from the same payoff to adult film star Stormy Daniels. He suggested that there was something unusual about those who have already pled guilty testifying against those who allegedly caused them to break the law.

Such testimonies, are however, a cornerstone of American law enforcement against unlawful conspiracies, particularly organized crime, and above all the Mafia. It’s normal and typical. Yet Dr McGraw claimed such testimony is unduly prejudicial to the defendant. In so doing, he’s condemning many hundreds of the most important organized crime and racketeering prosecutions over the past century.

Even more telling was what Dr McGraw didn’t ask Mr. Trump. He developed a reputation as a no-nonsense TV host who would not allow guests to obfuscate by denying the written record of a case, such as police reports and, especially, jury verdicts, with vapid and groundless conspiratorial denials.

But that’s exactly what he allowed Mr. Trump to do, and encouraged his viewers to accept the former president’s baseless claims that US President Joe Biden and the Justice Department secretly control state-level prosecutions like the one in Manhattan in which Mr. Trump was recently convicted.

In fact, there is no evidence whatsoever that Mr. Biden, attorney general Merrick Garland, or anybody else in Washington played any role in the Manhattan case, or had any communication with the prosecutors. Instead, district attorney Alvin Bragg was authorized to bring the case forward by a grand jury, and Mr. Trump was found guilty by a jury of his peers on all 34 counts in less than two days of deliberations.

Clearly, the jury believed that Mr. Trump had a sexual encounter with Ms. Daniels, as she testified. Dr McGraw asked Mr. Trump how he felt about being persecuted, but never asked him how he felt about having cheated on his wife when she was pregnant with their child, or whether he had any regrets about the affair or the hush money payoff. Apparently that was of no interest, psychologically or socially.

Worse, he allowed Mr. Trump to insist that he had “never met” E Jean Carroll, even though two separate juries decided in civil suits that he was culpable of abuse against her, which a federal judge later ruled constituted “rape” in the commonly understood definition of the term, and that he had twice defamed her. None of that seems to have been relevant to Dr McGraw, who nodded sympathetically when Mr. Trump insisted he had “never met this woman,” despite at least one photograph of the two of them together, not to mention the outcome of the two civil suits.

In his now-defunct TV show, Dr McGraw never tired of boasting that he had spent most of his career working within the legal system as a “forensic psychologist,” specializing in jury selection. So he knows better than to pretend that these convictions and civil rulings don’t matter or are extraordinarily tainted.

And the recent conviction of Mr. Biden’s son, Hunter, on paperwork-related charges regarding a gun purchase, demonstrated the absurdity of claiming that the Biden Justice Department or the courts are instruments of the President’s will. Instead it shows that prosecutions and convictions are proceeding according to law, and not personal or political corruption.

In his transition away from his TV show, Dr. McGraw began to spread his media wings by starting a podcast that began with a multi-part series on pathological narcissism. Much, and arguably most, of what he described appears precisely illustrated by Mr. Trump’s public behavior, and Dr McGraw is no doubt aware of that. Ignoring this and instead allowing his audience to buy into Mr. Trump’s self-serving lies and distortions about his political travails (including demonstrably false claims about a “stolen election” in 2020) and legal crises does a cynical disservice to his audience.

But Dr. McGraw is familiar with strategic dissembling. One of the hallmarks of his show was the constant and adoring presence of his wife, Robin, and never-ending references to their decades of wedded bliss. His show would routinely reserve the last quarter hour to infomercials about her latest skincare or other products aimed at his largely female audience.

Unmentioned to the point of deception was that Robin is Dr Phil’s second wife, and that his first marriage to Debbie Higgins McCall ended with her divorcing him for alleged infidelity. But, to his largely female TV fanbase, he was the ideal husband of the adoring Robin, with the couple typically walking offstage hand-in-hand at the end of each episode.

Dr McGraw didn’t afford quite that level of affection to Mr. Trump, but he not only never challenged him with the facts adjudicated in several recent cases that the former president had an affair with an adult movie star while his wife was pregnant, that he sexually abused and defamed a noted columnist, and has been a serial fraudster and tax evader.

Instead, Dr McGraw endorsed, either overtly or implicitly, Mr. Trump’s baseless and paranoid conspiracy theories about being unfairly persecuted, and buttressed that with misinterpretations of the rules of evidence and standards of prejudicial material in order to suggest that Mr. Trump’s recent conviction was somehow tainted.

The two former television celebrities bonded so tightly over conspiratorial and legally unsound theories that it’s likely to be one of Mr. Trump’s most supportive media appearances between now and the election. But recent polls show Mr. Biden already drawing even with him, rather sooner than I would’ve expected, and it’s hard to see momentum shifting back to the former president. To win, Mr. Trump is going to need a lot more than this kind of intellectually and psychologically dishonest boost from the likes of Dr Phil.