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The GOP declined to adopt a new platform in 2020, deciding instead to stick with the language approved four years earlier. In essence, the party was saying that it would provide unconditional support to anything Donald Trump decided to do in his second term. It no longer had any principles other than standing with Trump.

If you want to attach a date to the MAGA takeover of the GOP, that would be a logical choice. Will the party do the same thing in 2024? Well, why not? Trump always likes to keep his policy options open as long as possible, and who at the convention is going to stand in his way?

The Iranians launched a large-scale drone and missile attack on Israel from bases inside its boundaries yesterday. The attack was a complete failure. Virtually all of the objects were intercepted by the Israelis and their allies, little damage was done, and nobody died.

Having essentially gotten away with their targeted attack on Revolutionary Guard leaders, and exposed Iran’s inability to breach their defenses, will the Israelis count their winnings, or retaliate in kind? Isn’t one full-scale war in Gaza enough?

You would certainly think so. My only concern is that Bibi might see an opportunity to lure America into a direct conflict with Iran that neither Biden nor the Iranians desire by attacking the Iranian heartland. That possibility cannot be completely discounted.

C: The Trump hush money trial starts tomorrow. As of today, Trump has a very slim lead over Biden in most reputable polls. How are the two of you feeling?

M: Depressed.

S: Optimistic, but worried.

C: Let’s start with you, Mark. Why are you depressed?

M: Look at the choice I’m facing! Biden wants to increase my taxes. Trump won’t do that, but his tariffs and his hatred of electric cars are going to do a lot of damage to my business. The car companies have already made the leap to electric. America can’t possibly build millions of gas-powered cars every year when the rest of the world is building electric. It doesn’t make any sense.

S: Sure it does! When we make America great again, it won’t need any help! We can just tell the rest of the world where to go!

C: Will you be voting for Biden or Trump? Or maybe a third party?

M: I haven’t decided. It depends on what happens between now and November. The third parties don’t have anything to offer me. One thing is for sure–my wife is going to vote for Biden.

S: I always said you were a RINO. Now you’re proving it.

M: If you define the Republican Party as a group that gives unconditional support to Trump to do whatever he wants instead of an ideological group with a consistent set of beliefs, I guess I am a RINO.

C: Will the outcome of the trial influence your decision?

M: Probably. I’m not comfortable voting for a felon.

S: The trial is rigged. Trump can’t get a fair hearing from those Marxists in Manhattan. I don’t care how it turns out–he’s my man.

C: So why are you worried?

S: Because of people like Mark. If Trump is convicted, it could cost him the election. The polls are already too close as it is.

C: What do you think of Trump’s latest flip-flop on abortion?

S: I’m totally OK with it. Anything that wins him the election is OK with me.

C: I thought you said you were pro-life.

S: I’m totally pro-Trump. He needs power to get what he wants. If being a little soft on abortion gets him there, fine. He can always change his mind after the election.

C: Who should be his running mate?

S: I don’t care. Anyone who can get him more votes in November. I’ll support Don Jr. in 2028, so it’s not like I’m committing to the VP choice as the next party leader.

C: I’ll see you both in a few months.

You can’t out-crazy Donald Trump. You know it, I know it, and he knows it. Since RFK is increasingly sounding like a Trumpian conspiracy theorist, Trump won’t have to pay him any mind. He’s not going to lose any portion of his base, let alone votes from Nikki Haley supporters, to a second-rate version of himself.

Biden is in a different position; he could lose votes to ignorant progressives who assume that RFK is one of them simply by virtue of his name. He should be running commercials on the web reminding the blue base that RFK is an anti-vaxxer who supports the January 6 rioters and Israel’s actions in Gaza. That should do the trick.

In the long run, I think Biden will have a greater problem with young progressives voting for West or Stein. They represent a more ideologically coherent threat to him than RFK does.

Two genuinely pro-life NYT commentators, David French and Ross Douthat, are appalled at the GOP’s reaction to the Alabama and Arizona legal decisions. The only conclusion they can draw is that the GOP isn’t truly pro-life. For that, they largely blame Trump. Are they right?

The real test for a truly pro-life person is whether he is willing to support substantial enhancements to the welfare state at his expense to benefit the women who are compelled to give birth in exchange for giving up the right to abortion. Does that sound like a majority of the GOP to you? Can you ever think of a time when it did?

Not in my lifetime, that’s for sure. Trump may bear some responsibility for this, just as he can be blamed for making Christianity less attractive to young people, but the genuinely pro-life cohort of the GOP has always been a small minority. The vast majority of reactionaries are about power and pain, not love.

To what extent does RFK represent a threat to Biden? And who are his potential voters? Let’s break it down.

There are two fairly large groups of undecided voters: centrist, establishment Republicans who supported Nikki Haley over Trump; and young progressives who are angry with Biden over Gaza. RFK won’t get any support from either of these groups. His arguments about vaccines, Ukraine, and January 6 are consistent with Trump’s positions, not Haley’s, and he hasn’t said anything critical about Israel and the war.

He’s not going to take the conspiracy theorist vote away from Trump. When it is all said and done, regardless of what the polls say today, he’s not going to be a major factor in this race unless it is so excruciatingly close that he can play Ralph Nader to Biden’s Al Gore.

Netanyahu long since lost Thomas Friedman, whose love for the best side of Israel knows no bounds. Now he has lost the extremely hawkish Bret Stephens, and even Trump is making noises that don’t sound too great. Is this a warning sign?

You bet it is. If the Israeli government can’t even keep foreigners who almost always give it unqualified support on its side, it can’t expect any help from anyone outside its boundaries while the war drags on. It will be overstretched and completely isolated–all for the privilege of killing thousands of Palestinian noncombatants who aren’t responsible for the war.

The people who watched the total eclipse, regardless of ideology or religious beliefs, found it utterly exhilarating. Why?

For the same reason we all stare out to sea when we’re at the beach; we’re wired to believe in an awesome (in the correct meaning of the word), benevolent God, because we know only too well that we’re likely to screw things up on our own.

In the classic movie “Key Largo,” a character played by Humphrey Bogart confronts a gangster named Johnny Rocco. The Bogart character asks the question, “What does Rocco want?’ He answers the question himself–“More!” Rocco agrees.

If you were to ask the same question of Trump, which is completely appropriate, given his ethics and enthusiasm for gangsters, what would he say? The answer would be “Power.” Having power proves that he is the man, and everyone else isn’t. It gives him the ability to exact revenge on his enemies. It forces people who think they are better than he is to suck up to him. It makes him the center of attention at all times. It proves that those people in Manhattan who were contemptuous of him all of those years were wrong.

It has everything to do with his own emotional needs, and nothing to do with the best interests of the country, which are of no concern to him whatsoever.

There is a lot of discussion these days in the publications I read about how the left is more depressed than the right. Is that something which arises naturally from liberal ideology, or is something else going on?

Depression is clearly associated with a feeling of helplessness. The McConnell Project–a reactionary judiciary, a legislature in which reactionaries are overrepresented due to gerrymandering and the vagaries of the federal system, and the filibuster–effectively blocks the left from implementing its agenda on the federal level, even when it is popular with the public as a whole. Putting an end to the McConnell Project would require the left to engage in the same kind of illiberal tactics that the right openly and unashamedly embraces, which is unthinkable today, although it may not be at some point in the future. Call it the Polish Problem.

The bottom line is that reactionaries have every reason to be happy; they are running wild in the red states, and the Supreme Court is doing their bidding on the federal level. They are winning! The left’s gloom thus has nothing to do with ideology, and everything to do with process.

Having previously floated a 15-week national abortion ban balloon, Trump is now saying that the issue should be left to the states. Should we assume this is his final word on the matter?

Of course not! Trump changes positions on anything other than his own interests and awesomeness as easily as he breathes. Even if he does now believe that a national abortion ban is politically imprudent, that doesn’t mean he won’t use the Comstock Act or the FDA or the Post Office to deprive women in blue states of their rights. The MSM need to ask him questions about those issues, as well.

One of Trump’s attorneys has come to Mar-a-Lago to prep him for his upcoming New York trial. He has a pretty good idea what to expect from him.

A: Good morning, Mr. Trump.

T: Damn right it’s a good morning! You know why? Because I’m finally going to get my vengeance on that racist New York prosecutor.

A: I’ll do my best to get you justice.

T: No, I mean VENGEANCE! I want to see blood! They need to pay for what they’ve done to me!

A: This is a courtroom, not the OK Corral. And I know you like to compare yourself to Al Capone, but trials aren’t the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.

T: This one needs to be different! And that pipsqueak Cohen! I want him destroyed. DESTROYED! Do you hear me? That’s what Roy Cohn would do.

A: Roy Cohn is dead, and my job is to convince a jury to acquit you. That means showing you in the best possible light.

T: I can’t wait to get on the stand. It’s the best form of campaigning. I’ll show all of liberal America what I think of them. The base will love it.

A: There are several problems with that.

T: What?

A: First of all, the trial won’t be on TV.

T: Make them put it on TV. The rules don’t apply to me. I’m the f— PRESIDENT, for God’s sake!

A: I’ll try, but it probably won’t work. Next, the judge won’t let you pontificate on the stand. He’ll shut you down.

T: Again, it’s your job to keep him under control. I have a First Amendment right to say whatever I want. Plus, I’m Donald Trump. The rules don’t apply to me.

A: Based on what has happened so far, you really need to be on your best behavior, because you need to look like a victim to the jury.

T: I’m good at playing a victim. And I have some ideas about who should be on the jury.

A: I’m listening.

T: We need as many small business owners as possible. Guys who hustle for a living. They know how tough it is out there. They do whatever they have to do to get by. Those people love me.

A: That makes sense. What else?

T: The poorly educated. They love me, and I love them.

A: I can’t imagine why. I’ll keep it in mind. The last thing is, I’m going to do my best to keep you off the stand.

T: WHY? IT’S MY PLATFORM! IT’S HOW I RUN FOR PRESIDENT!

A: Because you’re the guy who told 30,000 lies while in office. If you testify, you may be asked about every one of them.

T: That’s from that prick Jeff Bezos. He’s the liar. HE’S THE LIAR!

A: If we manage to destroy Cohen, and I’ll do my best, we may be able to keep you off the stand. That would be best for everyone. But we may need to put you on. If we do, you’re going to have to keep control of yourself. Looking like an angry maniac won’t help the cause.

T: I’ll just be me. It’s always worked before. It always will. I’m here for a purpose, you know. Little people can’t touch me.

A: That’s enough for today.

Many, but not all, of the Founding Fathers owned slaves. It was a system they inherited from their parents and grandparents; they didn’t create it. They were, to a man, uncomfortable with slavery, but they considered it essential to their economic survival. Given the difficulties of making a profit as a plantation owner in the late 18th and early 19th centuries–most of them died heavily in debt–they might well have been right.

Nevertheless, they stand condemned for their hypocrisy and inhumanity by today’s progressives. But judge not lest ye be judged, folks; we have been knowingly poisoning the environment for at least 30 years now, but how many progressives have been willing to give up their quality of life to go carbon neutral immediately for the benefit of future generations? What will our successors say about the greed and selfishness of our fearless crusaders for justice a hundred years from now?

Save your money on statues, because at some point, our grandchildren will be pulling them down. That’s the way the world works.

There are essentially three wildly different opinions on the Gaza war among Americans. The right completely identifies with Israel, thinks the Palestinian population as a whole is responsible for October 7, and demands unqualified support for the war, regardless of the civilian death toll. The left identifies with the Palestinians, thinks the Israelis are an evil occupying force, and demands a cease-fire, presumably with Hamas remaining in control of Gaza. The center wants a hostage release, an Israeli victory over Hamas, safety for the civilians, and progress on a Palestinian state. The centrists have supported Biden for the most part, but want to see concrete progress on their agenda; otherwise, they are prepared to support conditions on American aid.

Biden has no realistic hope of converting either the left or the right. He is under pressure to show that his insider approach can actually produce visible and meaningful results with the Israeli government. If Bibi doesn’t start listening to him, expect him to exert additional pressure in public, because to continue to defer to a government largely run by right-wing extremists without actually embracing their goals is to forfeit all of his remaining support on the issue.

Here is the list of the most important wedge issues facing Biden and the Democrats, along with their likely responses:

1. GAZA: The left wants a much harder line on Israel. Biden needs their votes, but he needs the support of liberal Jews, as well. THE RESPONSE: Biden is already moving to accommodate the progressives, although only part of that is motivated by domestic political concerns. For once, Trump is helping himself by staying quiet on this issue, but it is unlikely he will be able to maintain discipline as the campaign goes on.
2. CRIME: Local news programs consist almost entirely of crime stories. The public is consequently convinced that crime is soaring, particularly in urban hellholes, and that Biden is at fault. THE RESPONSE: The crime wave began under Trump, but has receded since. In any event, the president is not Batman; crime is almost exclusively a local issue.
3. THE BORDER: Abbott’s busing program has resulted in major financial impacts in blue cities, which has made immigration a wedge issue for the blue team for the first time. THE RESPONSE: Blame the GOP for opportunistically blocking legislation that would have helped resolve the problem.
4. TRANS RIGHTS: Many left-leaning voters are troubled by the more extreme claims made by trans advocates. THE RESPONSE: Support the rights of trans people to avoid discrimination and oppression but reject their claims to be “normal.” In any event, this is not really a federal issue, and it won’t motivate millions of people to cross over and vote for Trump.