Posts tagged as “Donald Trump”

The 2022 Mid-Term Elections Are All About Trump 2024

The 2022 Mid-Term Elections Are All About Trump 2024

By John R Guardiano on November 8, 2022

Trump’s not on the ballot, but his handpicked Senate candidates are, and whether they win or lose today may determine whether the GOP nominates Trump again in 2024.

Regardless of how, exactly, they turn out, the 2022 election results won’t effect any substantive change in public policy. However, they will have a dramatic impact on the 2024 Republican presidential nomination fight and, for the reason, are worth watching.

Legislatively, nothing will change because Democrat Joe Biden will still be president and the Republicans will win control of at least the House of Representatives. This will result in legislative gridlock.

Consequently, there will be no major legislation enacted into law for at least the next two to three years. But whether the Republicans win control of the Senate matters big-time for judicial nominations.

More importantly (because there likely will be no Supreme Court vacancies in the next two years), the fate of Trump’s handpicked Senate candidates will affect Trump’s standing within the GOP, and whether the Republican Party adopts a more non-interventionist or isolationist foreign policy. Ditto Trump-backed gubernatorial candidates.

Trump, of course, intervened in the 2022 GOP primary races by endorsing specific candidates, who often won the party’s nomination because they had Trump’s backing.

If these candidates win on election day, it will strengthen Trump’s claim that the Republican Party should nominate him again for president in 2024. (Trump has basically said he will announce next Tuesday that he is running again for president.)

If, however, at least a couple of Trump’s handpicked candidates lose on election day, it rightly will be seen as a repudiation of Trump and a blow to his image as a political winner. The GOP then will be less likely to nominate him for president in 2024.

The Preferred Scenario. For this reason, I am hoping that the Republicans win control of the Senate, even as their most Trumpian Senate and gubernatorial candidates go down to defeat. Because if that happens, it is much less likely that the Republican Party will nominate Trump again for president.

Granted, this is unlikely to happen. If the Republicans win control of the Senate, then Trump’s toady candidates almost certainly will win their respective races. However, my preferred scenario is possible.

If, for instance, non-Trumpy conservative GOP Senate candidates in Colorado and Washington State win, then the GOP could suffer losses in Georgia, Arizona, and Ohio, and still win control of the Senate.

Here, then, specifically, are the races I am watching:

Georgia. The Republican Party Senate nominee, Herschel Walker, is frighteningly unfit for political office and should not have been nominated.

Walker won the nomination only because Trump endorsed him and because he is the greatest college football running back (a Heisman Trophy winner) ever produced by the state of Georgia. If Walker loses (unlikely), then it rightly will be seen as a repudiation of Trump.

Unfortunately, Walker is running in the red-purple state of Georgia against a likable but extreme leftist, Raphael Warnock—which means Walker probably will win.

Ohio. JD Vance emerged as the winner from a crowded field of GOP Senate hopefuls only after Trump endorsed him. He is a weak and uninspiring candidate, but an intellectual leader of the Trump wing of the Republican Party.

Vance also is infamous for loudly and proudly declaring that he doesn’t care if Russia conquers Ukraine. His defeat, therefore, would go a long way toward saving the GOP from its growing non-interventionist or isolationist wing.

Unfortunately, Vance is running in solidly red Ohio, which means he almost certainly will win Tuesday.

Arizona. Blake Masters is a weak and unattractive candidate who also bends the knee to Trump. Masters is in a very tight race with incumbent Democratic Senator Mark Kelly.

Most analysts agree: if the Republicans had nominated two-term Governor Doug Ducey, then this race long ago would have been called safely for the GOP. But Ducey declined to run, because he knew Trump would vociferously oppose him after he refused to participate in Trump’s fraudulent 2020 “stop the steal” election scheme.

Consequently, the Republicans turned to Masters, whose off-putting persona and servility to Trump has made him politically unappealing to many Arizona voters. This race is a tossup.

Pennsylvania. Trump endorsed the weaker of the two GOP Senate candidates, Dr. Mehmet Oz, a heart surgeon. Trump emphatically rejected the stronger, Reaganesque candidate, David McCormick, because, Trump said, McCormick wasn’t really MAGA.

For most of the race, Oz has been trailing ultra-leftist John Fetterman, the incumbent Lieutenant Governor. But Fetterman’s disastrous debate performance showcased his obvious cognitive impairment suffered as a result of a stroke May 13, 2022.

Oz has since taken a slight lead in the race and is now expected to win. And although Trump endorsed him, Oz is hardly a Trump toady.

Instead, Oz enjoys a well-deserved reputation as an independent-minded thinker who will put Pennsylvanians, not Trump, first.

Colorado. Trump angrily denounced Colorado Senate nominee Joe O’Dea after O’Dea mildly said he would prefer that the GOP nominate someone else other than Trump for president in 2024.

O’Dea is a superb candidate, but a long shot in this purple-blue state. However, if he pulls off an upset, it will be an indication that Trump’s hold on the GOP may be less firm than many think.

Washington State. Tiffany Smiley is another superb candidate and even more of a long shot than O’Dea, because Washington State is even more Democratic than Colorado.

Her story, though, is moving, inspiring, and compelling. Smiley is a 41-year-old nurse with three young boys. Her husband, Scotty, is an Army veteran who was blinded and temporarily paralyzed in 2005 by a suicide bomber in Iraq.

Smiley fought and advocated for her husband to ensure that he got the medical care he needed and had earned.

As a result, notes the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, Scotty “became the first blind active-duty officer in military history. After many years, he officially medically retired from the military in 2015.”

Trump has been a non-factor in this race, and Smiley is clearly not a Trump Republican. Instead, she is the type of Republican—positive, forward-looking, and solutions-oriented—that the party needs more of on the national scene and in elected office.

Her opponent, incumbent Democratic Senator Patty Murray, is an aging political fossil and arguably the dumbest and least influential member of Congress.

Arizona Governor’s Race. Republican nominee Kari Lake is a superb politician, but also a total Trump toady. That, however, is not what most concerns us.

More worrisome is Lake’s newfound political alliance with former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), her denunciation of “warmongers,” and apparent embrace of a non-interventionist or isolationist foreign policy that retreats from the world even as America’s enemies advance and move forward in Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

The danger is that if Lake wins the Arizona governor’s race, she’ll be well-positioned to run for vice president or president in 2028 or 2032. Her political skills are unique and compelling and Lake would be a formidable candidate. Better to stop her now before it’s too late.

The polls say Lake will win Tuesday, but the race is considered close. So an upset is not beyond question.

The bottom line: The 2022 election results matter because of what they portend for the 2024 presidential race, not because of what they will mean legislatively.

Truth be told, we are in for two to three years of legislative gridlock, as a Democratic president and a Republican House of Representatives check each other legislatively.

But if Trump’s handpicked Republican Senate candidates in Georgia, Ohio, and Arizona all lose, then the former defeated president will be a diminished political figure with a much-reduced political standing.

It then will be easier for a strong Republican presidential candidate—Florida Governor Ron DeSantis most likely—to knock off Trump and return the GOP to its winning ways.

A GOP Senate. Defeating Trump’s handpicked Senate candidates also would deal a crippling blow to the non-interventionist or isolationist wing of the Republican Party. And the GOP can still win the Senate if its non-Trumpy conservative Senate candidates in Colorado and Washington State pull off upset wins.

GOP control of the Senate matters because it will help to stop or at least slow down Biden’s disastrous judicial nominees.

For these reasons, let’s hope and pray that my preferred scenario—a Republican-controlled Senate without Herschel Walker, JD Vance, and Blake Masters—materializes on election day.

Feature photo credit: Trump’s handpicked candidates Herschel Walker (Georgia), JD Vance (Ohio), and Blake Masters (Arizona), courtesy of CBS News, Scripps Media, Inc., and AZ Central, respectively.

Wit and Humor are Ron DeSantis’s Keys to the White House

Wit and Humor are Ron DeSantis’s Keys to the White House

By John R Guardiano on October 22, 2022

Just ask Ronald Reagan, William F. Buckley, Jr., and Antonin Scalia.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is widely seen as the Republican Party’s strongest presidential candidate in 2024.

As a highly successful governor who is cruising to reelection in America’s third-most populous state, DeSantis has executive experience and a proven record of accomplishment that none of his likely GOP rivals (speechifying senators, mostly) can match.

There is, however, one thing that might hold DeSantis back and keep him from ever reaching the Oval Office: his lack of wit and a sense of humor.

“It’s not apparent to me that DeSantis has a sense of humor,” Dexter Filkins told Andrew Sullivan on The Dishcast. “He’s not a very jokey guy, at least not in public.”

Filkins knows of what he speaks. In June, he published the most insightful reportorial piece to date on Florida’s governor.

Filkins told Sullivan that, based on his reporting, DeSantis would wipe the floor with most of the Democrats who would likely run against him in any general election matchup. However, he warns, DeSantis’ “entire persona is strident and angry,” and the governor does not excel at small talk.

This is a glaring red flag and a real problem for DeSantis. Wit and a sense of humor, after all, are integral to political success, especially for conservative Republicans. Why?

Because conservative Republicans are seen as more hard-edged and tough-minded. A sense of humor thus helps to soften their image and humanize them in the public mind.

Social conservatives in particular run the risk of being caricatured as harsh and judgmental, rigid and dogmatic. Wit and humor can compellingly show otherwise and put the lie to this caricature.

Ronald Reagan. It is no accident, after all, that the most successful conservative politician in American history, the man who won reelection as president in an historic 49-state landslide, was Ronald Reagan.

Reagan had a wonderful sense of humor that endeared him to the American people, even those who strongly disagreed with his conservative political philosophy and public policies.

Consider, for instance, how the 73-year-old Reagan handled concerns about his advanced age during a 1984 presidential debate with Walter Mondale:

I want you to know that, also, I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.

As Politico reports: “Many members of the audience, gathered in the cavernous Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City, Mo., applauded and laughed. So did Mondale.”

And, as a result, Reagan won more than the debate. He won, by an overwhelming margin, a second term in the White House.

Buckley and Scalia. After Reagan, the next two greatest conservative public figures in recent decades are author and columnist William F. Buckley, Jr. and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. And what distinguishes these two men aside from their towering intellects?

Their wit and sense of humor, which showcased a humanity and a warmth of personality that made them impossible to demonize.

When asked, for instance, what would be the first thing he would do “if he actually won his rollicking, long-shot campaign for mayor of New York City in 1965,” Buckley responded: “Demand a recount!”

As for Scalia, “he had a great sense of humor,” admits left-wing comedian Stephen Colbert:

People have actually broken down the transcripts for [Supreme Court] oral arguments and he told more jokes and got more laughs than any of the other justices.”

“In a big family,” quipped Scalia, the father of nine children, “the first child is kind of like the first pancake. If it’s not perfect, that’s okay. There are a lot more coming along.”

“We should start calling this law SCOTUScare,” he amusingly wrote in a dissent from a Supreme Court decision upholding the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare.

That quip even drew a chuckle from Chief Justice John Roberts, who had written the Court’s decision that aroused Scalia’s ire.

Ron DeSantis. If DeSantis wants to succeed at the highest level of American politics, if he wants to win the presidency and move America in a socially conservative and economically dynamic, free-market direction, then he has no more urgent task than to emulate Reagan, Buckley, and Scalia.

He needs to understand that for a conservative Republican especially, having and demonstrating wit and a sense of humor are of paramount importance.

Wit and Humor. To be sure, wit and humor are not things that can be instantly conjured up and created. They take time, effort, and practice. They are a reflection of life and personality, playfulness and camaraderie, joy, triumph, anguish, and even pain.

“Humor: a difficult concept to learn,” Spock tells Admiral Kirk in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. “It is not logical.”

True, but wit and humor can be developed. Jokes can be incorporated into political stump speeches. Witty remarks can be crafted and used out on the campaign trail. A politician can consciously cultivate a more joyful public persona that wins converts even as it disarms critics.

And make no mistake: this matters, politically. Why? Because, as one website helpfully explains:

Humor is a great leveler. It is almost impossible to remain angry with someone who is making you laugh.

Donald Trump. Exactly, and yet, this is precisely what Donald Trump did not do. Trump did not disarm his critics. He did not make people laugh in recognition of his humanity.

To the contrary: Trump angered and repelled too many voters by his insistence on being “tough” (read: nasty and unpresidential) and refusing to show “weakness” (read: humanity). Consequently, a record number of voters turned out to vote in 2020 precisely so they could vote against Trump.

Ditto the 2018 election cycle, which flipped the House of Representatives from Republican to Democratic control. A critical mass of voters turned out to vote Democrat for Congress because Trump so angered and repelled them.

DeSantis needs to avoid Trump’s mistake or politically fatal character flaw. He needs to show voters that he cares; that he has a heart; that he’s human; and that he is worthy of leading this great nation. And the best way, the most effective way, to achieve this is through wit and humor.

Is there a political market for this? Absolutely.

Consider, for instance, the astounding success of the The Babylon Bee, a conservative Christian satirical website, as well as the sky-high ratings of Fox News’ Greg Gutfield, whose late-night show is tops in the nation.

Gutfield! is “beating CBS’ The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, NBC’s The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, and ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live—with FNC outpacing the broadcast networks even through their fall premieres,” Forbes reports.

As for The Babylon Bee, it is the most popular satirical site on the Internet, with more than 20 million page views per month, reports Ben Shapiro. “Fake news you can trust,” is the site’s witty tagline.

Conclusion. Politics and culture increasingly intersect. The political marketplace is waiting for a conservative Republican politician who can do politically what The Babylon Bee is doing journalistically and Greg Gutfield is doing for late-night television or streaming.

DeSantis has crucial executive experience and a highly successful track record as governor. These make him a compelling Republican presidential candidate.

But he is wants to be a winner and not just a contender, DeSantis will have to demonstrate that he can make people smile and laugh, even as he himself smiles and laughs. He will have to showcase a sense of humor that, thus far, has been conspicuously absent in his public appearances.

Can he do it? Yes, but only if he works at it. Only if he consciously makes liberal use of humor to achieve conservative political ends.

Only if recognizes that a politician elevates himself through self-deprecation, not self-promotion; and that while successful public figures take ideas seriously, they do not take themselves too seriously. Just ask Ronald Reagan, William F. Buckley, Jr., and Antonin Scalia.

Feature photo credit: (L-R): Author and columnist William F. Buckley, Jr., President Ronald Reagan, and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, courtesy of National Review, FramedArt.com, and YouTube, respectively.

Why ‘America First’ National Security Hawks Can No Longer Support Trump

Why ‘America First’ National Security Hawks Can No Longer Support Trump

By John R Guardiano on September 24, 2022

No one should be under any illusions that a second Trump administration would be anywhere near as hawkish as the first Trump administration.

Republicans who believe in a strong national defense and an assertive U.S. foreign policy, and who supported President Trump in the 2016 and 2020 general elections, cannot pull the lever for him again in 2024.

Why? Because of Trump’s own statements about Ukraine, Putin, Iran, and Russia. And because, in a second Trump administration, Trump almost certainly will be more isolationist and accommodating of Russian President Vladimir Putin and other anti-American dictators.

Perennial “never Trumpers” will say, of course, that they were never fooled. “America First,” they say, had tainted origins dating back to the 1930s before the Second World War. But whatever the history of the “America First” movement, there is no denying that, in his first administration, Trump was no isolationist.

To the contrary, thanks to Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, National Security Advisers H.R. McMaster, John Bolton, and Robert C. O’Brien, Deputy National Security Adviser Matthew Pottinger, Ambassador Nikki Haley, Senator Lindsey Graham, and others, Trump often acted in a strong, Reaganesque fashion.

Trump 2017-2021. Thus he ordered and oversaw the quick destruction of ISIS, adoption of the historic and path-breaking Abraham Accords, and the killing of Iranian General Qassem Suleimani.

Trump withdrew from the fatally flawed Iran nuclear deal and Paris climate accord. He recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and launched retaliatory missile strikes at Syria to degrade its chemical weapons program.

And, perhaps most historic, long-lasting, and consequential: Trump became the first president to recognize that China posed the greatest strategic threat to American national security since the Soviet Union a generation ago during the Cold War.

Thus he began the necessary process of decoupling the U.S. economy from China’s, a process that will play out over the next two decades.

Now, to be sure, there are plenty of things about Trump’s foreign policy that deserve condemnation. He shamelessly, for instance, abandoned our Kurdish allies in Syria, while setting the stage for Biden’s disastrous withdrawal and surrender in Afghanistan.

Trump’s China policy also was lacking. He foolishly withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement and failed to build and sustain an anti-China alliance on the world stage. Trump also was late to recognize the threat from COVID, mostly because he was too eager to reach a trade deal with China.

‘America First’ means…? But that’s exactly the point: “America First” was always a jump ball policy-wise in Trump’s first administration. It could mean either hawkish or dovish positions, depending on who proved most influential with The Donald. The two factions competed for Trump mindshare.

But that almost certainly won’t be the case in a second Trump administration. The hawks have mostly moved on. In fact, many of them—Ambassador Nikki Haley and National Security Adviser John Bolton, for instance—moved on well before Trump had completed his first term.

Trump’s isolationists supporters, meanwhile, have grown more vocal, more strident, and more influential. They also have big and consequential megaphones, thanks to Fox News and social media.

Ukraine. Tucker Carlson, for instance, rails regularly and often against American support for Ukraine. Laura Ingraham calls the war a costly disaster and a diversion from the real “America First” agenda.

Other prominent and influential Trump supporters call for the United States to negotiate a “compromise solution” that will end the war and bring peace to Ukraine. As a result, Trump now says that he would bring Putin and Zelensky to the negotiating table to end the war.

The problem is that by negotiating with Putin, Trump serves to legitimize and strengthen Putin. And any negotiated settlement now would result in the formal annexation of Ukrainian territory by Russia.

This is an obvious nonstarter. But who would convince Trump otherwise?

Maybe Senator Graham, but he would do so from the Senate and would face the opposition of a bevy of new isolationist Trump administration officials like Russian accommodationist Douglas Macgregor. The hawks have moved on and, for the most part, will be gone in a second Trump administration.

Trump 2025-2029. And it’s not just Ukraine, but NATO, Israel, and our Gulf States allies as well that would be endangered in a second and more isolationist Trump administration.

Trump has often flirted with withdrawing from NATO and he might well do so given a second term.

This, obviously, would be disastrous for American national security. It would immeasurably strengthen Putin’s hand and threaten the peace and security of Europe, especially Eastern Europe, in a way not seen since the 1930s just prior to the Second World War.

Trump also has expressed his desire to reach a deal with Iran. “I would have had a deal done with Iran one week after the [2020] election,” he boasts.

True, in his first term, Trump imposed severe sanctions on Iran, but given Trump’s eagerness to show that he is a great dealmaker, and given the absence of hawkish advisers in a second Trump administration, it is all too easy to see Trump agreeing to a bad deal that strengthens the hand of the mullahs and paves the way for their acquisition of nuclear weapons.

In short, no one should be under any illusions that Trump’s foreign policy in a second term would the same as it was in his first term of office.

To the contrary: there are deep-seated and disquieting reasons to believe exactly the opposite: that Trump’s foreign policy would swerve wildly and recklessly to the left precisely to appease his most fervent and fevered isolationist supporters on the populist right.

Conclusion. For this reason, no one seriously committed to a strong national defense and an assertive U.S. foreign policy can possibly support former President Trump in 2024. The stakes are too high; the risks are too great; and the resultant damage would be too deep-seated and widespread.

In 2024, “America First” necessarily means “Donald Trump last and never again.”

Feature photo credit: YouTube screen shots of “America First” national security hawks Ambassador Nikki Haley (L) and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (R), courtesy of Fox News.

The Republican Party is Getting Its Comeuppance in the 2022 Senate and House Races

The Republican Party is Getting Its Comeuppance in the 2022 Senate and House Races

By John R Guardiano on September 5, 2022

By highlighting former President Trump, the GOP is getting what it deserves: unanticipated and unprecedented defeats in a midterm election it otherwise should sweep convincingly.

We see it every day in American politics. Politicians, activists, journalists, and political parties do things that are wrong, misguided, condemnable, and contemptible, and for that, they pay a steep price.

They get what they deserve. They get their just deserts. They get their comeuppance. And here at ResCon1, we are gonna call them out, starting with…

The Republican Party—for putting Donald Trump back on the ballot, making him the issue in the 2022 Senate and House races, and diverting attention away from Joe Biden and his disastrous record as President.

Their comeuppance: Six months ago, there was widespread talk of a “red wave” or even a “red tsunami,” with the GOP poised to take decisive control of the House and a comfortable majority in the Senate.

“One of the most ironclad rules in American politics is that the president’s party loses ground in midterm elections. Almost no president is immune,” reports FiveThirtyEight.

Except, perhaps, for Joe Biden, who is benefiting from the Republicans’ boneheaded decision to make Trump the centerpiece of their campaign. Consequently, and unsurprisingly, the GOP is trailing in key Senate races and has given the Dems a plausible, albeit still long-shot, chance of keeping their House majority.

But even if the Republicans take the House, they likely will do so now with a slim majority that may prove more politically troublesome than it’s worth.

“Must-pass bills to prevent government shutdowns and address a looming debt ceiling crisis could create massive headaches for Republican leaders” if they have only a slim House majority, CNN warns.

“The involvement of former President Donald Trump makes 2022 different than almost any other midterm” election, notes FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver.

“Trump is on the ballot this fall in every key Senate race and in almost every top-tier gubernatorial contest,” admits The Dispatch’s Chris Stirewalt. “That makes 2022 a referendum on Trump at least as much as it is about President Biden.”

Unfortunately for the GOP, this does not bode well for November:

The Republicans are “getting killed in money, they’re getting killed in some of these contests when it comes to fundamentals,” Jessica Taylor told The Dispatch. (Taylor is the Senate and governors editor for the Cook Political Report.)

“There is a reason Democrats are eager to keep Trump at the center of the conversation,” observes conservative pundit Ben Shapiro.

“Half of independents say Trump is a major factor in their vote, and they’re breaking 4-1 for the Democrats. Republicans shouldn’t play that game. If they do, they’re cruising for a bruising.”

Exactly. The GOP is getting what it deserves. It’s getting its just deserts. It’s getting its comeuppance.

Feature photo credit: Former President Donald Trump, courtesy of Business Insider.

January 6 Lies and Distortions

January 6 Lies and Distortions

By John R Guardiano on January 2, 2022

January 6 is a day that will live in infamy. So, too, will left-wing lies and distortions about that infamous day.

The January 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol never should have happened; and Donald Trump bears responsibility for inspiring the assault, for failing to deter and prevent it, and then failing to help stop it once it happened.

This was more than enough reason to impeach and convict Trump, as I argued at the time.

However, Democrats and “progressives,” aided by the media, have since depicted the protest as something that it was not: an insurrection involving hundreds of “racists” and “white supremacists” intent on “hanging Mike Pence” and violently seizing control of Congress.

In truth, a few thousand protesters marched on the Capitol and a few hundred of these protesters violently clashed with the police. None of the protesters were found to possess guns or firearms; and, despite hyperbolic, martial rhetoric from some of the protesters, they had no plan or scheme to seize control of Congress.

The protest got out of hand and became a full-scale riot because the Capitol Police were, as Andrew McCarthy explains, “grossly undermanned [and] unprepared.” Weakness begot aggression.

Yet, today on Face the Nation, Professor Robert Pape of the University of Chicago repeatedly referred to protesters who “broke into the Capitol.” But in truth, as we’ve seen in real-time video, many of the protesters were allowed into the Capitol building by police who opened the door for them and let them in.

Nor is this surprising. The Capitol has long been welcoming and hospitable to visitors. Ours is a democracy, after all; and those who foot the bill and elect our Congressional representatives have always been welcomed into the corridors of power.

For this reason, many of the protesters genuinely seemed to think they had a right to enter the Capitol. And the Capitol Police initially took a soft and relaxed approach to the protest because they seemed to view it as benign and non-threatening.

It was only after a small minority of protesters grew violent and viciously assaulted the police that things began to change.

Professor Pape also insists that “race is an element and race is a driver” of Trump’s January 6 protest. But he reaches this conclusion only through the worst possible interpretation of the evidence that he himself presents.

The evidence that Professor Pape presents is this: most of the 700+ indicted Trump protesters came from politically blue urban areas with declining white populations. This, he says, “dovetails with the right-wing conspiracy theory… called the great replacement.”

In short, these Trump protesters were racists and white supremacists angry that their communities are becoming more black and brown.

Blue State Politics. That’s one possible, albeit farfetched, interpretation. Here’s another more plausible interpretation:

These Trump protesters who live in blue enclaves have seen firsthand the damage wrought by “progressive” Democratic rule. Thus they are more politically engaged—and enraged—and more politically sensitive than ordinary red state voters.

In other words, politics, not race, is what drove these Trump supporters.

Because minorities vote Democrat in significantly greater numbers than white voters, it is all too easy to conflate race and politics. But we should avoid conflating these two factors unless we have clear and compelling evidence that race and not politics is at work. Professor Pape presents no such evidence.

The bottom line: we can and should condemn Trump and the January 6, 2021, Capitol Hill riot. However, we mustn’t allow “progressives,” Democrats, and their media fellow travelers to use January 6 as a pretext to vilify all of the Trump protesters and especially all Trump supporters.

Most had peaceful intentions and were the misguided victims of Trump’s lies and demagoguery. Others were more malicious and sinister in their intent. Fair enough. However, the same can be said of Trump’s political opponents in the media and Democratic Party.

Feature photo credit: Political Science Professor Robert Pape (L) and Donald Trump (R), courtesy of Face the Nation and Ballotpedia, respectively.