For most of his adult life, Donald Trump has reveled in his ability to get away with things. I’m not familiar with his life as a child, but I would bet that he got away with a lot of things then, too.
For instance, if I ran the world, I might suggest we have some restrictions on how many times a person can declare bankruptcy and receive protection from the consequences of their poor decisions. Trump seems to be one of those people who view bankruptcy as a badge of honor for using the system to one’s advantage. Folks who repay their debts are such losers!
I might consider restricting eligibility to run for higher office to those convicted of, say, fewer than a dozen felonies. In Trump world, felonies just prove how much your enemies are out to get you and how much they warp the legal system to bring you down. And those rogue judges! Sad!
I might cause everyone, regardless of wealth or political status, to be subject to accountability for violation of criminal laws, which might require tightening up the criteria for receiving a presidential pardon. Trump, not surprisingly, loves springing big shots from jail, the more criminal counts the better. He is there for his fellow felons. At the very least, they go to a country-club prison while awaiting their pardon.
Trump is conducting his second term with a policy of doing whatever he wants since no one will stop him. I’m reminded of the infamous “Access Hollywood” recording in which he says, “when you’re a celebrity, they let you do it!” Since he sees himself now as the biggest celebrity in the world, perhaps in the history of the world, he doesn’t believe he can be stopped.
The recent spate of MAGA victories in Republican primaries has led to much commentary on Trump’s “power” and his “control” over his party. If the results aren’t analyzed more deeply, it can indeed seem shocking that extremist MAGA candidates have knocked several incumbent and highly regarded Senators and Congressmen out of offices they have held for decades. Looking a bit closer, the picture changes.
Let’s take last week’s primary runoff in which Attorney General Ken Paxton defeated fourterm senator John Cornyn. In the initial March vote, turnout was 2.2 million GOP votes, or around 11-12% of all registered voters in Texas. Cornyn received about 922,000 votes while Paxton got about 895,000. A runoff was needed since neither man exceeded 50% of the votes.
In the runoff, about 7.4% of eligible voters cast ballots, and while Paxton kept almost all his original base with 886,000 votes, Cornyn’s count dropped to 501,000, losing 421,000 voters. Thus, the results of the runoff had Paxton with 64% of the GOP vote and Cornyn with 36%.
Remember that the votes Paxton received represent only 4.7% of registered Texas voters. In other words, Paxton has an energized and loyal base, but 4.7% is not very impressive. They represent the kind of motivated extremists that typically turn out for primaries, but they are not necessarily a powerful political faction in the upcoming general election. That 4.7% doesn’t include Democrats, independents, or even a huge bunch of disaffected Republicans who didn’t go back to the runoff to vote for Cornyn. Yes, Paxton has supporters, but it’s smoke and mirrors that make them into 64% of GOP voters.
Here’s where the Republicans’ electoral strategy gets risky, since they’re basically betting on the 4.7%. By eliminating more moderate candidates, even ones like Cornyn who sold their souls to try to please His Majesty, the Republicans may alienate the vast numbers of voters who are very uncomfortable with the extremes of rhetoric and policy that the MAGA wing of the GOP has adopted.
Did you see Paxton’s victory speech? He could have been a Trump mini-me, tossing out disparaging nicknames for his Democratic opponent James Talarico and promising to save our children from transgender surgery. When the MAGA volume is turned up so high, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that most Texans aren’t extremists.
We don’t want immigrants who are following all the legal steps to pursue citizenship to be arrested when they show up for their required appointments and thrown in concentration camps along with their children. We don’t want them assaulted by untrained, masked street bullies.
We don’t want voting districts and rules to be manipulated so that elections don’t give an equal voice to each one of us. It looks like our country is evenly divided between Republican and Democratic voters, so why should it be okay for either party to stack the deck rather than allow the people to choose the candidates who best represent their wishes?
We don’t want a President, who will be in Washington, DC for eight years at best, building huge monuments to himself that dwarf the meaningful and historic parts of our nation’s capital that have had a special place in our relationship with our country, without advice or consent from us.
And we don’t want our elected Congress to be filled with ring-kissing sycophants who are willing to continue speaking to a President who is sound asleep in a Cabinet meeting, lest he suddenly awake and shout, “Off with their heads!”
Whether Republican, Democrat or independent, there are millions more of us than there are of them. We simply must show up for our country and our future.
Susan Hull is a retired clinical psychologist, a horse trainer, and an independent voter. She will give you a ride to the polls in November, no matter who you choose to vote for.
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