THE GOP: SO DESPERATE, SO SOON?

How desperate are the Democrat-haters to prevent a rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, which they, like all Very Smart People, assume Trump will lose? They're so desperate that even Bari Weiss's "journal of ideas," The Free Press, is now featuring an anti-Trump diatribe by William Barr:

There's not a word in here about liberal fascism or cancel culture. If Bari Weiss thinks this is what's necessary right now, seventeen months before the election, to save the world from the unspeakable horror of Democrats and liberals, the Republican Party that she enables every day must be scared shitless.

In the past week, there have been three opinion pieces calling for a Donald Trump pardon: by Marc Thiessen and American Enterprise Institute apparatchik Danielle Pletka in The Washington Post; by National Review's Rich Lowry at Politico; and by Federalist Society hack Chip Muir in The Hill. They advance various pardon scenarios -- before the election, after the election -- but the mesage is the same: Can't we work this out like gentlemen? Do you really have to put our front-runner on trial and demonstrate that he's a criminal? And Republican voters, can you really not see the problem with voting for this front-runner in the primaries?

Republican voters can't see the problem with voting for Trump -- and really, why should they? I see an absurd and probably dishonest example of polling spin in the New York Post:

Biden dispatches all of his potential Republican foes except DeSantis, whom he trails 43% to 44% — well within the margin of error, the DailyMail.com/J.L. Partners survey showed....

Trump lags behind Biden 44% to 46%....

Actually, the poll says that Biden leads DeSantis 44% to 43%. But I'm sure this was merely an unintended error in Rupert Murdoch's paper and not a reflection of Murdoch's loathing of Trump.

So to sum up: DeSantis trails Biden by 1. Trump trails Biden by ... um, 2. The margin of error of is 3.1. Those are effectively identical results.

We're told:

Other polls have shown similar results, with the Florida governor topping Biden by 1.3 percentage points, according to the latest RealClearPolitics aggregate.

Yes but Trump leads Biden by 2.4, according to Real Clear Politics.

Most members of our political class -- Democrats and Republicans - assume Trump will be too damaged to win by November 2024. I don't see it. His trial in Florida on the latest charges probably won't happen until after the election. The same will be true of any future charges. The New York trial is scheduled for March, but the public doesn't seem to care about the charges in that case, and if he's convicted, there are likely to be appeals that stretch at least until Election Day. He's facing another civil trial in January on charges of defaming E. Jean Carroll, but he lost to her earlier this year and his poll numbers didn't decline at all.

I hope all the Very Smart People are right. I hope Trump is the nominee and public revulsion defeats him. But why aren't we seeing that in the polls now? Why is he doing better in the polls now than he ever did in the 2020 or 2016 elections? I know normal people aren't paying attention to presidential politics yet, but how can they not know what he's like?

Trump can win, but the enemies of the Democratic Party are desperate. They're throwing Robert Kennedy Jr. at him (Kennedy's the subject of yet another New York Times feature story.) They're working on a No Labels run by Joe Manchin. A left-wing party that embraces a lot of right-wing talking points teed up Cornel West as a spoiler (although West is now running as a Green instead).

The anti-Democratic forces are terrified. I hope they're right. But I don't buy it yet.