Dateline: Nov. 5, 2024, Washington, D.C.:
Let me use columnist mojo to take us 1,128 days into the future: the 2024 landslide victory of Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W. Va., and Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., over Donald Trump and Ivanka Trump.
Let’s begin with the astonishing "Joe vs. Joe" primary battle.
Joe Manchin reprised Ronald Reagan’s 1976 primary challenge of incumbent Gerald Ford. Except… in 2024, the insurgent beat the incumbent.
How’d he do it? By attacking Biden as having reneged on his promised pragmatism as summed up by Biden himself: "People want results, not a revolution."
Biden, inexplicably, took a left turn.
As nailed by Jonathans Martin and Weisman at The New York Times:
"After he vanquished Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont in the Democratic primary, he brought the liberal icon’s ardent supporters into the fold by embracing much of the senator’s platform even as he ran on unifying the country. When moderate Democrats came to call, he used the tones of centrism to assure them of his conciliatory bona fides. But when Mr. Biden ventured to the Capitol on Friday to help House Democrats out of their thicket, he had to choose sides. He effectively chose the left."
The Fanatic Democratic Wing declared war on the Donks' Pragmatic Regulars, and chaos ensued.
Biden’s popularity eroded deeply, especially (to the confusion of chronically confused progressive thought leaders) among women, youth, and people of color. That created a political vacuum.
Nature abhors a vacuum. Cue the "Battle of the Joes."
Manchin entered the race, out-Bidening Biden.
In 2021, he took a dramatic stand against the massive expansion of Big Government, heroically opposing what the New York Times characterized as "The $3.5 trillion social policy bill that . . . would touch virtually every American, at every point in life, from conception to old age."
What’s up with that? The $3.5T Pink Porcupine Porkfest was wildly popular with the Center for American "Progress." It was a dream come true for the 95-member House "Progressive" Caucus.
Its only flaw, mystifyingly overlooked by Biden?
This kind of "Sweet Charity"/"Hey Big Spender!" politics had just been decisively repudiated by the voters. Repudiated even by the Democratic Party’s primary voters.
Oops! Biden had been right. The American people want "results."
Manchin was righter. The results we want are not trillions of dollars in more taxes and debt heaped on us and our engines of prosperity.
Then, in 2022 the sorry Biden economy led to a rout of Democrats on Capitol Hill.
That drubbing made Biden even more vulnerable.
Manchin, having made himself into a national icon of courage and common sense, seen his opportunities. And took ‘em.
Manchin began his long march through the institutions, stunning Biden in the Iowa Caucuses, steamrolling him in New Hampshire, delivering a decisive knockout in South Carolina, handily running the Super Tuesday table, forcing political commentators to exhaust our stock of election clichés!
Thereafter, Manchin’s picking Sinema as his running mate was a no-brainer. She, too, had gained great national stature by refusing to be cowed by the progressive snarkfesters.
Sinema brought many great demographic qualities, a great backstory, and a winning personality to the ticket. While Kamala Harris was avidly courting the Democrats’ lunatic fringe, Sinema was endearing herself to actual voters.
President-in-exile Donald "King of Debt" Trump, expecting to run against an unpopular Biden, claimed the Republican nomination. While at it, he designated his best beloved Ivanka as running mate the better to establish an American version of the Julio-Claudian dynasty.
What could possibly go wrong? Kyrsten annihilated Ivanka in their debate.
Yet Trump might well have won. As David Hannum, perpetrator of the legendarily fraudulent Cardiff Giant, once observed (about P.T. Barnum), "There’s a sucker born every minute."
Trump used his shrewd grasp of this simple political truth to propel himself to the presidency once. Could have worked again!
Except, as it turns out, we suckers are fickle. Just as happened with NBC's "The Apprentice," Trump’s successor season ratings dwindled dramatically.
His ratings downturn rattled Trump, shaking his supreme confidence, inflaming his insecurities. As The Washington Post's Francis Stead Sellers told us, in What Trump Learned On "The Apprentice"?:
"On a morning after 'The Apprentice' lost to a rival Fox show, 'American Idol,' [contestant Sam] Solovey visited Trump to introduce him to his fiancee — and found the usually ebullient businessman slumped at his desk. It was the only time I saw him totally downcast and dejected," said Solovey. . . .
Trump’s astounding political mojo went south with his ratings.
The Manchin Machine became a juggernaut.
Members of the Cult of the GOP and CINOs (Conservatives in Name Only) will mourn a White House capture by the formidable Joe Manchin.
Real conservatives, like me, found much to rejoice over in the election of the pretty darn conservative President Joe Manchin and Vice President Kyrsten Sinema.
Ralph Benko, co-author of "The Capitalist Manifesto" and chairman and co-founder of "The Capitalist League," is the founder of The Prosperity Caucus and is an original Kemp-era member of the Supply-Side revolution that propelled the Dow from 814 to its current heights and world GDP from $11T to $88T. Read Ralph Benko's reports — More Here.
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