Democracy 2024: # 9

I am aiming for a short entry this Saturday as I am not really sure what to write about. I was more interested this week in the first round of the Chicago Mayoral Election. I am thinking there will be a better chance of me finding a satisfying result of the final outcome than I will be over whatever winds up happening in the 2024 Presidential election. This round of voting did get a good deal of national attention as well, but some of the "hot takes" especially on the right, from people far outside the Chicago media market do not understand all that really happened and are instead taking glee that Lori Lightfoot came in third place and was defeated. I am not at all unhappy about that, but they seem to missing the point that one of the candidates that beat her is a good deal to her left.

So, in the runoff between Paul Vallas and Brandon Johnson, imperfections aside, I am definitely rooting for Vallas, and I think he has a good chance of winning. An accurate comparison to the national scene is that this is a race between two liberals. Vallas is similar to Joe Biden and Johnson similar to Bernie Sanders. Those that oppose Vallas will do everything possible to make him into Donald Trump though and try to portray a vote against Johnson as being a vote against a Barack Obama figure.  Both candidates are of course pledging their support for the City to host the next convention of the national party, where conventional wisdom is that Joe Biden will hold off the insurgent candidacy of Marianne Williamson. Of course, I am being somewhat tongue in cheek there.

This weekend was the CPAC conference and today Donald Trump made his big speech. Thank goodness I did not have to see a second of it, but as expected of course, he won the straw poll with 62 percent ahead of DeSantis with 20 percent. Apparently, longshot contender Perry Johnson, a recently defeated Michigan Gubernatorial primary candidate won the bronze with five percent. This looks like a strong showing for Trump, but is it really, considering how much he has owned CPAC for years now?

 

Many people who had attended or spoke to recent CPACs stayed away. This likely has much to do with the sexual assault allegations against conference Chairman Matt Schlapp. A male Herschel Walker staffer accused the married Mr. Schlapp of doing something very inappropriate. Not to get too into certain stereotypes, but I was not exactly shocked that Schlapp might be into such a thing.

Needless to say, this is not the CPAC of my youth. As a young teenager, I used to be glued to C-SPAN on a Saturday afternoon to be inspired by the message and vision conservative luminaries like Jack Kemp and others. There was always a bit of a lunatic fringe at that event, which grew with whatever influence Ron Paul came to hold over people, but under Trump and Trumpism, things are definitely different. From what has been reported, including from Trump's speech today, today's "conservative" message is nothing more than a list of grievances. Some of them have some sliver of relevance, but many do not and many more are exaggerated. Nobody seemed to be offering any real solutions to win people over. Just declarations and desires to "own" those on the other side. This is not Reaganism and this is not conservatism. 

In fact, Donald Trump once again sounds very much like a leftist, railing against "endless" and "scripted wars" in a clear rebuke of the current U.S. policy of supporting Ukraine in its battle of survival against Russian invaders who are committing crimes against humanity. Trump is also insisting that he will oppose any effort to "cut" Medicaid or raise the retirement age for Social Security. These are definitely shots against Ron DeSantis whom Trump regularly accuses of wanting to do such things, as part of daily online ratings. These claims against the Florida Governor may be valid or may not be valid. I lean more towards thinking they are typical demagogic exaggerations, but this is nothing new in American politics. Trump is basically intending to oppose DeSantis on these matters similar to how Al Gore ran against George W. Bush or Walter Mondale ran against Ronald Reagan. In the meantime the so-called "right" eats it up, because in this Age of Trump, principle matters to so few.

As I will say many times, there is a long way to go until the next Republican nominee is decided and many things might happen. It is course disheartening to me that the only real alternative to Trump may be DeSantis, and all the demagoguery and big government power solutions he himself now engages and supports.

Political opportunist Nikki Haley also spoke to CPAC and did not get many straw poll votes and was heckled at times,but there will be people looking for some alternative who talks about a positive vision of America, athough she is sure to get the requisite amounts of "anti-wokeness" into her speeches.

So of course, I am still  holding out for someone else, that I may be proud to support, regardless of how quixotic the effort may be. I was not exactly thrilled to read this week that Liz Cheney has accepted a new teaching role at the University of Virginia. I would have hoped she might have had other plans. The search continues.