This election is a contest to see which party can do its best to lose.
asserted
party → see → best
Looking forward from mid-September, President Donald Trump’s Republicans seem to be well ahead at this.
asserted
Republicans → look → this
But the Resistance (or don’t they call themselves that any more?) Democrats are putting up a contest.
asserted
Democrats → call → contest
Second-term presidents tend to make political mistakes by doing things they think are right.
asserted
they → tend → things
You can see two examples of this in the second Trump term.
asserted
You → see → term
One is his insistence on haphazardly imposing tariffs.
asserted
One → impose → tariffs
It is an example of providing a plentiful quantity of something for which there is no demand among the electorate.
asserted
It → provide → electorate
President William McKinley, cited by Trump as a tariff advocate, called for switching from protective to reciprocal tariffs in his last public speech in 1901.
asserted
McKinley → cite → 1901
Over the next half-century, as economist Douglas Irwin points out in his definitive book Clashing Over Commerce, Republican presidents were leery of tariffs, which were supported by congressional leaders as a way of holding their majorities together: you vote for a tariff that helps my local industry and I’ll vote for one that helps yours.
asserted
that → point → yours
The definitive moment may have been when, as Jude Wanniski argued years ago, a proposal for a tariff on the dairy product casein got the progressive Wisconsin delegation to join the legislative mob that passed Smoot-Hawley in 1930.
uncertain
that → argue → 1930
Over 1,000 economists signed a petition begging President Herbert Hoover to veto the bill, but he signed it anyway, and the Great Depression followed.
asserted
Depression → sign → it
Almost no one without a lobbyist wants tariffs now.
asserted
one → want → tariffs
And voters don’t have to read Irwin to realize that Trump’s tariffs raise prices for consumers and many manufacturers as well.
asserted
tariffs → have → consumers
Trump stands on sounder ground, in my view, in attacking the regime in Iran which has preached and practiced “death to America” since 1979.
asserted
which → stand → 1979
But, apparently believing that he could compel a surrender as he had against the Chavista gangsters in Venezuela, he launched a devastating assault without preparing the public for it and promising a speedy resolution.
uncertain
he → believe → resolution
That hasn’t happened; wars turn out to be hard to predict.
asserted
wars → happen → ?
But it has brought higher gasoline prices and continued inflation and has destroyed Republicans’ previous edge on the economy.
asserted
it → bring → economy
Meanwhile, the president, in childish self-aggrandizement, is devoting political capital to his beloved ballroom, to renaming the lowest-altitude Great Lake
asserted
president → devote → Lake
to Hunter Biden-style enrichment of his family members, to closing the Kennedy Center if he can’t put his name on it
asserted
he → close → it
“An extraordinary number of dumba** political takes,” as elections handicapper Nate Silver notes.
asserted
Silver → note → takes
Just to make sure that voters don’t forget these things, the Trump political command has opened up its nine-digit war chest and is spending ads centered on the president despite his 40% job approval and 58% disapproval.
asserted
command → make → approval
It looks like the strengths, maybe even the identities, of actual Republican candidates will get minimal airing.
asserted
strengths → look → airing
If Republicans’ weakness is the self-indulgence of a second-term president, Democrats’ weakness is their propensity to embrace the wildest and least popular impulses of their political left.
asserted
weakness → embrace → left
There’s abundant videotape back from the left-wing craze that followed the death of a Minneapolis fentanyl user in May 2020 of Democrats’ demands for defunding the police, abolishing prisons, and abandoning enforcement of immigration laws.
uncertain
that → ’ → laws
Which is exactly what the Biden administration did, raising the number of foreign-born by 8.3 million in four years, 30% more than the Obama administration did in eight years.
asserted
administration → do → years
That was five times as many as the foreign-born increase in the first Trump administration, and in the 20 months of Trump 2.0, the Census Bureau reports, the foreign-born population was declined by 2.8 million.
asserted
population → bear → million
Democrats’ no-enemies-to-the-left posture is most obvious, perhaps, in Democrats’ reluctance to oppose boys playing in girls’ sports, their support for government-paid transgender surgeries for prison inmates and illegal immigrants, and their policy in states they govern removing teenagers professing gender dysphoria from the custody of their parents.
asserted
they → oppose → parents
As the most effective pro-Trump ad of the 2024 campaign cycle put it, “Kamala is for they/them.
asserted
Kamala → put → them
So is the reluctance of Michigan Senate nominee Abdul el Sayed to distance himself from Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, the internet personality who campaigned by his side in the Democratic primary.
asserted
who → distance → primary
Piker has said “America deserved 9/11,” and that Hamas was justified in its Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel.
asserted
Hamas → say → Israel
Reporters and analysts who have been eager to ask Republican candidates whether they renounce extremist Republicans, even those from faraway venues, have rarely asked Democrats to renounce extremist Democrats.
asserted
they → ask → Democrats
But surely it’s far to ask el Sayed, and Democrats campaigning for him, whether he stands by the man he was pleased to summon to his side earlier this year.
asserted
he → ’ → side
Democrats, like most parties not controlling the White House, have no clear leader, and they are also more likely than some opposition parties to sign up for any new-fangled initiative.
asserted
they → control → initiative
And particularly, given the contempt so many of their partisans feel for those who honor traditional lifestyles, for ideas and causes that seem exotic or repulsive to denizens of Middle America.
asserted
that → give → America
Politicians of both parties, including centrist demeanor governors like Democrat Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Republican Greg Abbott of Texas, have been quick in recent weeks to switch and oppose AI data centers, and many officeholders are giving serious consideration to AI regulation.
asserted
officeholders → include → regulation
The danger for Republicans is that imposing regulation may seem at odds with traditional party beliefs and, at least at the moment, is directly contrary to the stand of Trump.
uncertain
imposing → impose → Trump
The danger for Democrats is that they may seem to be switching too readily from one cause to another.
uncertain
they → seem → another
In the process they may seem unserious about everything.
uncertain
they → seem → everything
“The nuclear doomers become the climate doomers become the AI doomers,” as the Georgia-based radio talk show host Erick Erickson put it.
asserted
host → become → it
“It is always the same apocalyptic crowd moving from one issue to the next,” in the words of the Kentucky Republican partisan Scott Jennings.
asserted
It → move → partisan
…and 3 more, not listed.
The Aporia
