THE FUTURE LEADER OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY IS KEN PAXTON, OR AT LEAST SOMEONE LIKE HIM

Yesterday I tried to answer a question raised by Jamelle Bouie in a video essay:

And so what does the Republican Party do when Trump is gone, when there is now a vacuum? I don't really have an answer to that. I'm mostly curious to see. But that, I think, is the dilemma the Republican Party will face. It doesn't have an identity outside of Trump, and it won't be in a position to even find one until Trump is gone.

I said that the party will organize itself around cultural (specifically, culture war) issues. But who'll lead the party?

For all we know, it could be Ken Paxton, the scandal-plagued Texas attorney general who's likely to become the GOP's Senate nominee now that he's secured Donald Trump's endorsement. It's likely to be someone who's very much like Paxton, though probably less enmeshed in scandal.

I've just read Elaine Godfrey's new story about Paxton in The Atlantic. Godfrey finds it baffling that Paxton has survived as long as he has in Texas politics, and finds it baffling that Trump would endorse him over the quite conservative incumbent, John Cornyn. Paxton has a closet full of skeletons -- mortgage fraud, securities fraud, multiple infidelities. He was impeached and nearly convicted in a Republican-dominated Texas legislature.

And surely he'll be much easier for the Democratic Senate candidate, James Talarico, to beat, right? All the smart people seem to think so, Godfrey tells us.

But many Texas political observers and strategists believe that Cornyn would be better-positioned than Paxton to beat Talarico in November, given Cornyn’s ability to fundraise and his palatability among general-election voters. Especially in a year when the political environment seems so favorable to Democrats, running someone as controversial as Paxton, they argue, would be risky. The Cook Political Report has already said that if the attorney general wins next week, “Texas would move into a fully competitive race.”

This is, of course, the outcome that many Republicans dread most: that Paxton will be unable to win over the moderate Republican and independent voters he’ll need to succeed in November—and that Texas will make Talarico the first Democratic senator it’s elected since 1988.

Godfrey thinks Paxton's supporters are delusional.

At least for now, [Paxton supporters] seem to exist in an alternate reality—a place where Donald Trump’s endorsement can only be a good thing, where MAGA reigns.... “I don’t know where they’re getting those numbers from,” a woman named Mary told me ... when I asked about the president’s dwindling national popularity.... [Supporters] don’t see Ken Paxton as an electoral liability any more than they believe that Joe Biden won the 2020 election fair and square. For them, November is looking particularly bright.

There's just one problem with this: the polls tell us that these "alternate reality" voters are right. Paxton's past doesn't seem to be a handicap in Texas -- in fact, his numbers and Cornyn's are nearly identical in head-to-head matchups with Talarico.

Why wouldn't years of scandals be hurting Paxton in Texas? Because he never stops trying to own the libs. Godfrey writes:

As attorney general, he sued the Obama administration more than a dozen times, with mixed success; later, he filed more than 100 lawsuits against the Biden administration. (Both of these facts are applause lines in Paxton’s stump speech.)

As attorney general, Paxton sues like he breathes. This month, he won a $10 million settlement from the Texas Children’s Hospital that required it to stop gender-transition surgeries for minors. He also ordered Texas public schools to show proof that they were displaying copies of the Ten Commandments in classrooms....

Culture war. Always culture war.

Godfrey doesn't really seem to understand this. She writes:

Paxton’s superpower is that he is highly adaptable to the changing dynamics of his party and, like the president, appears to be completely lacking in shame. He has always simply “ignored electability as a concern,” Brandon Rottinghaus, a political-science professor at the University of Houston, told me.

But the "dynamics of his party" aren't changing -- owning the libs is always in favor. Paxton hasn't "ignored electability as a concern." Boastfully attacking the libs is the source of electability.

This seems like a good place to bring up a 2017 quote from Thomas Massie, the GOP congressman from Kentucky who just lost his primary after challenging Trump on a few issues. Massie regards himself as a libertarian in the mold of Ron and Rand Paul, and recognizes that Trump is not a libertarian. In 2017, after Trump had been sworn in as president, Massie said this to the Washington Examiner:

"I went to Iowa twice and came back with [Ron Paul]. I was with him at every event for the last three days in Iowa," Massie said. "From what I observed, not just in Iowa but also in Kentucky, up close with individuals, was that the people that voted for me in Kentucky, and the people who had voted for [Ron] Paul in Iowa several years before, were now voting for Trump. In fact, the people that voted for Rand in a primary in Kentucky were preferring Trump."

"All this time," Massie explained, "I thought they were voting for libertarian Republicans. But after some soul searching I realized when they voted for Rand and Ron and me in these primaries, they weren't voting for libertarian ideas—they were voting for the craziest son of a bitch in the race. And Donald Trump won best in class, as we had up until he came along."

Ken Paxton survives scandals because he's always the craziest son of a bitch in the race. "Craziest," in his case, means least self-examining and most lib-owning.

I don't believe every Republican voter prefers the craziest son of a bitch in every instance -- Cornyn did, after all, poll slightly ahead of Paxton in the March 3 primary, though not decisively enough to avoid a runoff. And we know from national politics that many pollsters divide GOP voters into "MAGA" and "non-MAGA." Trump's support among non-MAGA voters is eroding.

But in a typical red-state election, zealots pick the craziest son of a bitch in the race and then less extreme Republican voters rally around that candidate because, gosh, you can't expect them to vote for a Democrat, can you? In red states -- including Texas until maybe, just maybe, this year -- that's all a Republican candidate has needed in recent years: supporters of the crazy SOB plus anyone-but-the-Democrat voters. In purple states, and also nationally, you need more, which is why Trump had to add a few non-white men and young bros to his coalition in 2024.

If the Democratic Party has a future, it will come from persuading some of the moderate-ish voters who don't prefer the crazy SOB that the Republican Party is bad and they should at least consider the Democrat once in a while. But I fear that Democrats will never grasp the need to do this, so the GOP will continue to be the party of crazy SOBs, who'll fire up the base and win the less-crazy GOP leaners, and maybe flip just enough swing voters to win nationwide.

WE'LL ALWAYS HAVE NASCAR

At the end of his most recent video, which is about Donald Trump's dwindling popularity and cult of personality, Jamelle Bouie says:

What makes a Republican now is whether or not you align with Donald Trump, whether you support his efforts to make himself something like king of America. If you do, then you're a Republican. If you don't, then you're not. And so what does the Republican Party do when Trump is gone, when there is now a vacuum? I don't really have an answer to that. I'm mostly curious to see. But that, I think, is the dilemma the Republican Party will face. It doesn't have an identity outside of Trump, and it won't be in a position to even find one until Trump is gone. Until then, it is his party as long as he wants it.

Bouie is right about Trump's status as the undisputed leader of the GOP -- a status he probably won't relinquish as long as he lives. But I don't agree that the party has no identity independent of Trump. It has a cultural identity -- or, perhaps, a culture-war identity. That predates Trump, and will persist once he's gone.

I screenshotted the front page of FoxNews.com late this morning. It hinted at a severe case of Trump fatigue in Murdochistan. The front page barely focused on politics. Here's the top of the page:

Lead story: A NASCAR driver who recently died at the age of 41. Lower right: A hero bystander prevents a crazed criminal from attacking a helpless woman. To the left of that: A celebrity exposes some flesh in a photo; readers are invited to gawk, and decide whether the celebrity is too thin. Next to this apolitical supermarket-checkout gossip is the lone story about Trump at the top of the page, and the clickbait headline conceals the fact that the "yearly vice" our manly hero is fighting is daylight saving time.

Further down the page, there's surprisingly little political ragebait, or even pro-GOP propaganda. Some is just booga-booga crime news: A town in New Jersey deploys law enforcement against "teen takeovers." Some is cultural: The founder of the "anti-woke" Black Rifle Coffee company drops a country music video in honor of veterans; a pro wrestler declares victory after a fight; a hero cop catches a baby dropped from the window of a building that's on fire.

And, of course, there's fraud in blue America and there are trans people who want to play sports. The mayor of New York exists and must be the subject of negative coverage.

But it's the cultural coverage that hints at the GOP's future when Trump is gone.

This coverage is all about aspects of American life that Republican base voters believe are their property: NASCAR, pro wrestling, the military, crimefighting. It envisions a world where cops are always good and crime is always lurking. Democrats are socialist, trans, and generally weird. Republicans are the guarantors of good old-fashioned normality.

As I said last month, Republicans in the post-Trump era could be like Republicans in 1988: a party trying to carry on in the absence of a twice-elected leader who is worshipped by the base. Before the George H.W. Bush campaign found the secret to defeating Mike Dukakis (racist scare ads about Black criminals), Bush played the GOP culture card. He talked about enjoying pork rinds. He campaigned with country music legend Loretta Lynn (who said of Dukakis, "Why, I can't even pronounce his name!"). He toured a flag factory (at a time when his campaign was floating rumors that Dukakis's wife, in her youth, had burned an American flag).

Republicans don't really care about the needs of NASCAR fans who eat pork rinds. But it's effective branding, and it will keep the GOP going once Trump is gone.

IS THERE SUCH A THING AS A PLATONIC HONEY TRAP? ASKING FOR A PENNSYLVANIA SENATOR.

A New York magazine story published this morning tells us about David "Dovi" Safier, a Long Island-born resident of East Jersusalem who has become a near-constant companion to Senator John Fetterman, despite the fact that he has no official position that would explain his close access to the senator.

Safier, a writer of Jewish history and fundraiser for Orthodox causes, has no public background in government or counseling politicians on Capitol Hill. He is not an official staffer or paid outside adviser. A few years ago, he “just kind of appeared” in the senator’s orbit, one former Fetterman staffer remembers. And then, suddenly, he seemed to be everywhere. Staffers would walk into Fetterman’s office, only to find Safier sitting in the room. When the senator went to Israel in 2025, Safier joined him on the trip; when Fetterman filmed Real Time With Bill Maher, Safier met up with him in Los Angeles. The two are constantly texting and talking, according to multiple former Fetterman staffers, and Safier has unofficially operated as a top campaign fundraiser and senior adviser. He has even set up and attended sensitive meetings with foreign officials; in some cases, he is the only person staffing those meetings, I’ve been told.

Fetterman, of course, is now the Democratic senator who is most uncompromisingly pro-Israel.

Safier met Fetterman in 2023 and "worked his way into the senator’s inner circle." He befriended Fetterman and later arranged a four-day trip to Israel, during which he traveled with Fetterman. He regularly appears in Fetterman's office.

When he is on Capitol Hill, Safier will “hang out and sit in Fetterman’s office all day or walk with him to the floor,” a former staffer says. After their conversations, Fetterman would appear “far more radicalized,” the former staffer remembers. The chatter around the office is usually: “Oh God, Safier is here, and now John’s not gonna go to any of his meetings.”

We're told that Safier has become Fetterman's best bud at a time when he otherwise seems socially withdrawn:

The senator has isolated himself from many of his Senate colleagues and members of his own party. There are few who Fetterman seems to trust beyond his dad and brother, who are conservative; Bobby Maggio, his 2022 campaign manager; and now Safier, who has become arguably the senator’s closest confidant.

But a recent Politico story about a possible Fetterman party switch tells us that Fetterman has some friends in the Senate -- two Republican senators and their spouses -- although he seems isolated otherwise:

If Fetterman does flip, according to officials who were given anonymity to talk about sensitive matters, it will be thanks in large part to his deepening friendship with a pair of senators and their high-profile spouses: Sen. Dave McCormick (R-Pa.), and his wife Dina, and Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.), and her husband, Wesley....

As he’s drifted from the party line, Fetterman has become increasingly isolated ... those who previously worked for him say he spends much of his time on social media....

The former aides and Pennsylvania Democrats say he rarely participates in the unglamorous work of a senator: showing up for ribbon-cuttings around his home state or racing between committee hearings in Washington.... He has a cool relationship with Gov. Josh Shapiro and barely interacts with the state’s Democratic congressional delegation.

He does, though, spend considerable time with Republicans, particularly the affable Britts and McCormicks, who’ve all but adopted Fetterman and his wife, Gisele.

These sound as if they might be genuine friendships. On the other hand, President Trump and Senator Majority Leader John Thune would love to flip Fetterman. We're told that Thune has good relations with Fetterman, but he "has largely let Britt and McCormick handle the Keystone account."

Safier and the McCormicks and Britts might be true friends, but they're also manipulating Fetterman for political reasons. And it seems easy for them to do that because Fetterman is not in a healthy state of mind.

It's not just the stroke Fetterman suffered while campaigning in 2022. As a 2025 New York magazine story noted, in early 2023, shortly after he was sworn in as a senator, Fetterman had six weeks of inpatient care for clinical depression. Subsequently, he appeared to stop following his treatment plan.

... by mid-March [2024], his aides were again worried that he hadn’t been getting regular checkups. No one I spoke to for this article could be sure about whether Fetterman stayed on his medication during this period, but five different people said they heard comments from the senator that suggested he was not.... Two aides told me they frequently heard him talk about how he felt so great that he didn’t “need” medication. One person told me Fetterman said he “didn’t like the way” his medication “made” him feel — made, past tense.

He alienates people:

One staffer told me there would be entire days when they couldn’t let anyone outside the office be around him because he was in “some sort of state” and might say “really fucked-up shit to constituents.” Sometimes he would just “shut down,” according to one former staffer. He was saying “unhinged shit,” according to one text, and spending more time on social media. [Eric] Stern [a Fetterman consultant] wrote to the group that it seemed to him like Fetterman was “spiraling” and that his constant “doomscrolling” — “I think he’s on essentially all day now?” — would only make things worse.

Many men are in a very bad place right now. They have trouble maintaining personal relationships and lose themselves on the internet. Some of this is the culture; some is their own damn fault. I think Fetterman is an unhappy, unwell man -- if there's a male loneliness epidemic, he has a bad case. It's compounded by his medical history, his discomfort with his treatment plan, and possibly the fact that he's in a commuter marriage, and doing a job he seems to hate. It also seems to be compounded by the fact that he likes alienating people.

We all know about "honey trapping" -- "the use of romantic or sexual relationships for interpersonal, political (including state espionage), or monetary purpose." David Safier's friendship with Fetterman seems like a platonic honey trap -- Safier became Fetterman's friend in order to encourage him to be more and more pro-Israel. The McCormicks and Britts also seem as if they're honey trapping Fetterman on behalf of the GOP. I'm sorry Fetterman is a senator. Because of his difficulties with people, he seems extremely vulnerable to this, and thus far too easy to influence.

DOES TRUMP WANT TO STEAL THE MIDTERMS OR THROW THEM? OR BOTH?

What is President Trump doing in anticipation of the midterms? On the one hand, he and his fellow Republicans on the bench are obviously trying to steal them for the GOP. The Supreme Court opened the door to eleventh-hour gerrymandering in the South, while right-leaning appointees on the Virginia Supreme Court blocked a gerrymander that would have aided Democrats. Meanwhile, Trump has pardoned January 6 insurrectionists, strong-armed Democratic governor Jared Polis of Colorado until he offered clemency to electoral criminal Tina Peters, and now is dangling a slush fund before anyone who might want to riot in response to Democratic wins in November.

But on the other hand, he seems to be doing everything he can to handicap his party's chances in the midterms. Punchbowl tells us:

With less than 24 weeks until Election Day, President Donald Trump seems almost maniacally focused on doing and saying things that could harm Republicans’ chances of keeping their House and Senate majorities in November.

With voters saying they’re frightened by high prices and disappearing healthcare coverage, Trump is building a new billion-dollar White House ballroom and asking for taxpayer money to secure it. His administration announced Monday that it was setting up a nearly $1.8 billion fund to compensate victims of “weaponization and lawfare” under the Democrats, a move that shocked even Republicans.

As gas prices skyrocket due to the unpopular war in Iran, Trump says it’s a “very small price to pay” as long as he believes the conflict is proceeding to his liking.

He's alienating Senate Republicans -- and possibly putting a key seat at risk -- with his decision to endorse Ken Paxton rather than John Cornyn in the Texas Senate race, as The New York Times notes:

Senator Lisa Murkowski, the Alaska Republican whose independent streak has often angered the president, said that she was “supremely disappointed” by Mr. Trump’s decision.

Then she went a step further, saying that the president’s endorsement of Mr. Paxton, a scandal-plagued conservative firebrand, could cost Republicans what had been considered a safe Senate seat.

“I think that this puts that seat in jeopardy,” she told reporters.

Punchbowl points out that this also about campaign cash:

... GOP senators privately griped about Trump forcing out one of their most prolific fundraisers; Cornyn has raised more than $400 million for Republican candidates and incumbents over his long Senate career. Many saw the episode as Trump once again using Senate races to advance his personal goals at the expense of the GOP majority....

So on the one hand, Trump seems ready to cheat or strong-arm his way to victory in the midterms. He might even send troops to polling places to make that happen. But he doesn't seem to want to win the midterms through legitimate means: advancing popular policies, maintaining party unity, and so on.

Does this make sense? I think it does to Trump.

I think Trump wants to win, but he wants to win his way: brutally. He always wants to project "strength," which, to him, means breaking the rules and getting away with it. He's happy when he gets away with violating (or doing an end run around) the law, and he's also happy when he breaks the laws of politics and wins. (That pretty much describes his own political career since he announced his candidacy in 2015.)

And even though he'll happily engage in felonious conduct or instigate mob violence in order to win the midterms, I'm not sure winning is as important to him as fighting -- specifically, fighting dirty -- and surviving after acting recklessly. At that point, even if he loses, he can blame other people who were "very unfair" to him, while enjoying the thrill of surviving his own recklessness.

I'm haunted by something Tucker Carlson said in his recent New York Times interview. Carlson says he tried to dissuade Trump from invading Iran, and Trump waved him off:

He felt he had no choice and he said to me, Everything’s going to be OK. Because I was getting overwrought. Don’t do this. The people pushing you to do this hate you. They’re your enemies. This will destroy you. This will gravely harm our country. We’ve got kids. I’m hoping for grandkids. Let’s not go there. And he said, It’s going to be all right, and he said, Do you know how I know that? And I said no, and he said, Because it always is.

And he said, It’s going to be all right, and he said, Do you know how I know that? And I said no, and he said, Because it always is. That's Trump's belief in the Power of Positive Thinking. It's also his accurate assessment of the course of his life. When he said this to Carlson, he'd done so many ill-conceived things, from the bad deals that led to his first bankruptcies to the incompetence that led 81 million Americans to vote for his not particularly inspiring opponent in 2020, and then to January 6 and his theft of presidential papers and a host of other actions that would have sunk anyone else. And he was still standing. He was president again. You can't blame the guy for thinking he has life's cheat codes.

On some level, I think he knows he's a colossal fuck-up -- but he also knows that he's gotten away with being a colossal fuck-up all his life. I think he gets off on that idea: that he fucks up, but (as he might put it) he fucks up "very strongly," in an aggressive, intimidating way, and it all works out for him. That's what he wants out of the midterms: he wants the feeling of being a vicious aggressor, and he wants to survive if he can't win. But whether he's consciously aware of this or not, he'd rather lose as a thug than win shrewdly -- as long as he can keep going, even in defeat.

MAKE TRUMP'S CORRUPTION A KITCHEN-TABLE ISSUE (updated)

I keep thinking about something Hakeem Jeffries said late last month:

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) on Sunday said Democrats will not focus on impeaching President Trump if they regain a majority in the lower chamber after midterm elections.

When asked if impeachment was a top priority, Jeffries said “of course not” during an appearance on “Fox News Sunday.”

“I’ve made clear from the very beginning that our top priority is going to be to drive down the high cost of living,” the House minority leader added.

In other words, We're not getting distracted by calls for impeachment -- we're focused on ordinary Americans' finances. To be fair, this approach appears to be working: Democrats now have a 7.2-point lead on the generic congressional ballot, according to Real Clear Polling. In the new New York Times poll, that lead is 50% to 39%.

But this story makes me think that Democrats could sell impeachment as a pocketbook issue:

The Justice Department on Monday announced that it would create a new $1.776 billion taxpayer-backed fund that could pay out money to people — including President Trump’s allies and supporters — who think they were wronged by the department under previous administrations.

This amount of money -- $1.776 billion -- is about $5 for every person in America. That's not a life-changing amount of money for most people, but it still sounds like a big outlay, at a time when Americans feel that they're hurting. I've always believed that most Americans don't do any kind of mental arithmetic when they hear about government expenditures, so critics (usually Republicans) can easily get them angry about government outlays that might even be in the six-figure or five-figure range -- in other words, less than a penny per person in America. This is a lot more money.

If I were leading the Democrats, I'd be denouncing this corruption and linking it to Americans' financial pain: You're struggling, and Trump is using your tax dollars to pay himself and his alllies. Especially when this is just one element of Trump's campaign to enrich himself using the power of the presidency. David Rothkopf writes:

... the president has, throughout his time in office, engaged in thousands upon thousands of stock trades that appear to cash in on unique knowledge he had as president or of actions he intended to take. His sons run companies doing multimillion-dollar deals with the Pentagon and with governments worldwide seeking Trump’s favor.

Trump has accepted aircraft, donations to projects designed to glorify him, golden statues, bitcoins, and cash from suckers eager to buy up Trump swag. Trump phones, Trump watches, and the branding rights to Trump Airport in West Palm Beach are part of his scheme. It looks like the “Trump Presidential Library” may well include a hotel where people can pay to honor Trump in the way that means the most to him: with cash that ends up in his bank account.

Where is the money that the U.S. made from selling oil we stole from Venezuela? Who controls the billions that have been allocated from the U.S. Treasury and governments worldwide to the Board of Peace for Gaza? How many times has Trump sold pardons or lifted regulations or prosecuted or persecuted the innocent in exchange for campaign contributions?

I think Democrats should draw up articles of impeachment focused on this monetary corruption, and every Democrat in Congress should sign on as a sponsor. I think Democrats should introduce a bill preventing any outlay from that $1.776 billion fund, or even establishing an office to pay the money out, and every Democrat in Congress should sponsor that bill as well. I think they should link anti-corruption to a focus on Americans' financial woes.

Obviously, none of this can pass now. Obviously, an impeachment is likely to fail in the Senate even after the midterms. But putting Democrats on record as anti-corruption -- and Republicans in Congress on record as pro-corruption -- would send a message.

At the very least, I think Democratic campaign ads that alternate images of high gas prices with headlines about how much richer the Trump family has become since he returned to office would be powerful. Make Americans think about his finances when they think about their own.

*****

UPDATE: They're not linking it to the economy, but this is a start:

Important: Dems will seek to force Republicans to vote on a bill blocking Trump's illegal $1.8 billion slush fund, Rep Jamie Raskin tells me. Dems will use discharge petition. Hakeem Jeffries is supportive of Raskin's efforts, I'm told. New piece from me: newrepublic.com/article/2106...

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— Greg Sargent (@gregsargent.bsky.social) May 19, 2026 at 1:08 PM

HOW BAD IS TRUMP'S HEALTH?

Late Saturday afternoon, within the space of twenty-eight minutes, Donald Trump posted these three images on Truth Social:

Trump's Truth Social feed generally includes attacks on political enemies, promotions of pet Trump projects, and hyperbolic proclamations of his own magnificence -- but these posts seem different. They seem like Trump's attempts to persuade Americans -- and himself -- that he's supernaturally healthy, as if he's concerned that Americans won't believe he is ... or as if he doesn't believe he is.

I think Trump is self-soothing here. I think he's lying to himself.

As The Atlantic's Jonathan Lemire notes, Trump has been under quite a bit of medical scrutiny lately:

The White House announced this week that Trump will undergo a medical and dental checkup on May 26, which will be his fourth publicly disclosed doctor’s visit in his second term. (He has also had two dental visits in Florida.) Last year he had an annual physical in April 2025, and then what the White House described as a “routine yearly checkup” in October. Across his terms, Trump has bragged repeatedly about acing multiple cognitive tests, a boast that only raises more questions.

On those dental visits, HuffPost notes:

The White House has its own dental suite. Which raises the question of why Trump would schedule routine appointments elsewhere if they’re actually routine.

Lemire wonders why we're not focusing on Trump's apparent frailty the way we focused on Joe Biden's. I know many of you think it's because the media hates Democrats and protects Republicans. I think the media feels it displays its independence when it attacks Democrats and shows its lack of bias when it cossets Republicans, and I think that's part of the problem. But I think Lemire is close to the truth here:

... as Trump himself grows older—traveling less, switching to more comfortable shoes, and seeming to nod off during meetings—his age isn’t getting the same kind of scrutiny.

I have long thought that a reason for that is the president’s sheer size. Trump stands 6 foot 3 and, according to his most recent physical, weighs 224 pounds (yes, questioning that number is a legitimate thing to do). He is a big presence in any room, as opposed to Biden, who grew visibly thinner as he got older, adding to the appearance of frailty. Trump is also LOUD; Biden’s voice was frequently reduced to a gentle whisper. And Trump has the gift of omnipresence. His genius is in capturing attention. Biden’s public schedule grew sparse, and he actively avoided generating news; Trump holds multiple events in front of the press nearly every day. He fills Americans’ TV screens and social-media feeds seemingly nonstop, with an almost-unspoken message: How could he be fading if he’s everywhere?

I think it's not just that Trump is bulky and loud, while Biden increasingly seemed thin and whispery. I think it's also the fact that Biden struggled to finish some of his sentences, and Trump just plows on. As I wrote just after the 2024 election:

... Joe Biden ... frequently stops speaking while he gropes for the right word or phrase. Trump just keeps going until his sentences and anecdotes end somewhere, then he looks pleased with himself and moves on. I think millions of people think he sounds like a normal guy on a talking jag, not like a dementia patient....

And Trump's sentences frequently end with him hurting people. Decent Americans (as opposed to Republican voters) find that repellent, but it's still a power. What we notice -- and this, of course, shows up in his deeds as well as his words -- is that Trump clearly retains the power to cause pain.

Here's a recent example:



He's asked, “Mr. President, you are here against the backdrop of the war in Iran. Why focus on all these projects right now? We're still seeing gas prices soaring.” He snaps back:

We're fixing up the reflecting pond to the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, and you say, "Why are you fixing it up?" Because you can understand dirt maybe better than I can, but I don't allow it.

This is one of the worst reporters. She's with ABC fake news and she's a horror show. She's saying, "Why would you bother fixing this up?" Why would I bother taking eleven or twelve truckloads of filth out of the water in front of the Lincoln Monument? That's what made our country great. Beauty made our country. People made our country great. A question like that is a disgrace to our country. Any other questions?

Beauty made our country great? This makes no sense! What does it even mean?

But the words just keep coming, and a person who doesn't think very hard about what Trump is saying can come away with the impression that the reporter (a Black woman, of course) really must be unpatriotic and have an unacceptable tolerance for "dirt" and "filth."

This isn't a thoughtful repsonse, but it still stings. I'll believe he's really losing it when he launches into one of these attacks and freezes up, unable to summon up the next nasty word he wants to say. I look forward to that the day, the day he tries to slip the verbal shiv in but can't manage to do it. I hope it happens.

Maybe he's experiencing some form of dementia. But for now, his words, even when they're incoherent, have power. And that's primarily why he's not judged the way Biden was, even though he's probably in terrible physical health, and he knows it.

TRUMP'S POWER IN PRIMARIES IS A GIFT TO DEMOCRATS, IF THEY'LL USE IT

Let's assess where we are.

Approximately 60% of the country despises Donald Trump. That's a very solid majority in a country that's been seen as 50%/50% for most of this century. The people who hate Donald Trump are the normal people. "Donald Trump is a terrible president" is largely an agreed-upon fact in America.

But a relatively small percentage of the country -- less than 40% -- worships the ground Trump walks on and will do anything he tells them to do:

For the second time this month, Republican primary voters sent a message about the price of defying the president, this time by retiring Senator Bill Cassidy, who voted to convict Mr. Trump in his impeachment trial after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. The outcome in Louisiana on Saturday followed losses by a group of Indiana state lawmakers whom the president targeted for political payback. And it arrived just ahead of another big test on Mr. Trump’s retribution tour: a House primary in Kentucky on Tuesday.

Cassidy finished third in a four-way race. He didn't even make it to a top-two runoff. That's how loyal the freaks and weirdos of the MAGA cult are to Trump. In Kentucky on Tuesday, they'll defeat Thomas Massie, on behalf of a president 60% of America hates.

This is an opportunity for Democrats to start saying what they should have been saying for years: not "Trump is bad," but "The entire Republican Party is bad."

Over clips of news stories about Trump's successful campaigns of revenge against Republican dissenters, Democrats can say:

Tired of Trump? Don't expect Republicans to do anything to help. Republicans can't. If they challenge Trump, their political careers are over.

This is where I'd like to see Republicans represented as a crowd of non-player characters saying what actual Republicans in Congress have effectively been saying for the past year and a half:

And while the message that follows this might be hard to craft -- many Democrats haven't exactly been brave anti-Trump warriors -- this is a good setup for a Democratic challenger who promises to fight. Incumbents, meanwhile, can say, We want to fight Trump, but first we need to change control of Congress.

This isn't the full message I want to hear from Democrats. The Republican Party is bad and was bad long before Trump. It's bad in many ways that have nothing to do with Trump. (For instance, Trump isn't the one removing Roots from school libraries in Knox County, Tennessee. That was based on a state law passed in 2022, when Trump was out of office.)

But it would be a start. Democrats could attack all Republicans as Trump bootlickers knowing that Trump is massively unpopular and that hating Trump is America's default mode now. Eventually they need to say that Republicans are massively out of step with normal Americans -- on taxation of the rich, on healthcare, on the minimum wage, on abortion. But they can begin here.