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Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: The 2024 election is just around the corner [1]

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Date: 2023-04-22  

From The Wall Street Journal poll:

x "Biden tops Mr. Trump by a big margin, 54% to 15%, among voters who disapprove of how both men have handled the office of the presidency." — Josh Kraushaar (@JoshKraushaar) April 21, 2023

Let that 54-15 number sink in and ask yourself how (barring a major recession) Trump grows his numbers (with more indictments likely).

Paul Waldman and Greg Sargent/The Washington Post:

Enraged by GOP debt limit extortion? Blame MAGA’s moderate enablers. When it comes to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s use of the debt limit as a weapon of extortion, the media relentlessly focuses on his dealings with extreme conservatives. They’re the ones, we’re told, who are pressuring the California Republican to refuse to raise the U.S. borrowing limit, threatening default and economic disaster, to squeeze Democrats for extreme spending cuts. But this storyline lets another key GOP group off the hook: The supposedly reasonable Republicans — the moderates, the centrists, the pragmatists, whatever you call them — who could end this madness now if they chose but instead are enabling the crisis.

Politico Playbook:

How to lose friends and alienate people, by Ron DeSantis “If you’re going to go into politics, kind of a fundamental skill that you should have is likability. I don’t think [he] has that,” [former Rep. Dave] Trott said. “He never developed any relationships with other members that I know of. You’d never see him talking on the floor with other people or palling around. He’s just a very arrogant guy, very focused on Ron DeSantis.” Given that, Trott isn’t surprised that so many members of the Florida delegation are opting to endorse Trump over their own governor. “He wasn’t really liked when he was in Congress. And now it’s coming home to, you know, prove out as some of the Florida delegation endorsed Trump and and some of the donors, you know, think he’s kind of awkward in terms of how he interacts with them,” Trott said. “If his pre-presidential campaign was playing out differently, then I’d say, ‘Well, maybe he just didn’t like me.’ But I think there’s something more at work here.” In short, said Trott, “I think he’s an asshole. I don’t think he cares about people.”

Perhaps the smartest take on Ron DeSantis I’ve seen comes from Helen Lewis/”The Bluestocking” on Substack:

Politics is, apart from anything else, a trade where people are intensely sensitive to status. My hunch is that DeSantis assumed that he was the big dog and everyone would be drawn to him, whereas he should have hosed down both donors and Republican colleagues with flattery (mixed with threats). The best politicians make everyone they speak to feel special.

x “Oh my god, they wrote down the racism policy,” was Attorney Mackenzie Hayes's reaction, a former prosecutor for Jack Campbell’s State Attorney’s Office, upon finding the memo at the office, which directed harsher punishments for Hispanic people. pic.twitter.com/WuRPwEGBMk — Our Tallahassee (@OurTallahassee) April 19, 2023

CNN:

Text messages reveal Trump operatives considered using breached voting data to decertify Georgia’s Senate runoff in 2021 The plot to breach voting systems in Coffee County, coordinated by members of Trump’s legal team including Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, is part of a broader criminal investigation into 2020 election interference led by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. Willis’ office is weighing a potential racketeering case against multiple defendants and is actively deciding who to bring charges against, sources tell CNN. Willis has subpoenaed a number of individuals involved in the Coffee County breach, including the two men who carried it out who were in touch with Penrose and Logan. Willis has also subpoenaed Giuliani and Powell as part of her probe. Giuliani has been told he’s a target in the Fulton County probe, CNN previously reported. The special grand jury convened for the case recommended issuing multiple indictments in its final report completed in February, according to the jury foreperson. A source familiar with Willis’ investigation tells CNN that Willis and her team have in their possession evidence that Trump allies planned to use the breached voting data from Georgia to try to decertify the state’s senate runoff election. Emails obtained by CNN show Penrose and Powell arranged upfront payment to a cyber forensics firm that sent a team to Coffee County on January 7, 2021. The Coffee County breach is also under investigation by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

Burgess Everett/Politico:

Lost on abortion politics, Republicans struggle for a solution Leading GOP lawmakers can’t even agree on the most basic question: whether the federal government should get involved in abortion at all. The GOP is so divided over abortion politics that even top Mitch McConnell allies — who could succeed him as Senate leader — have opposing ideas on how to approach it. Minority Whip John Thune sees a 15-week national abortion ban as something Republicans can defend amidst Democratic attacks. Another possible GOP leader, John Cornyn of Texas, doesn’t see a need for Congress to weigh in on abortion policy in a post-Roe world. And GOP No. 3 John Barrasso said simply that “states ought to make the decision.”

Republicans struggle for a solution because their position(s) are incredibly unpopular and lose elections.

Jill Filipovic/Substack:

Why are Conservatives Obsessed with Gender Identity? It's because they want to impose their own gender ideology. Conservatives who push and support these bills claim to be concerned about “gender ideology” perverting young minds — telling boys they can be girls and vice versa, allowing men to compete in women’s sports, giving children hormones and genital surgeries. This is all pretty dishonest. Members of the conservative movement aren’t concerned about women’s sports (otherwise they’d be funding them), children’s health (otherwise they’d be fighting the number-one killer of children), or women’s rights (otherwise they wouldn’t be virulent misogynists attacking women’s rights at every turn, banning abortion, and electing rapists to office). They care about liberal “gender ideology” for one reason: Because they want to impose and enforce their own right-wing gender ideology on the public.

x “Why did Speaker Sexton & other Republican leaders not act more decisively, and how much did this cost taxpayers?” — Phil’s report on the resignation of @tnhousegop caucus vice chair Rep. Scotty Campbell 👇🏽



Sexton knew for at least 3 weeks, did nothing— while expelling the TN 3 https://t.co/JyKkH76jIw — The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) April 21, 2023

Michael Hiltzik/The Los Angeles Times (via syndication partner Minneapolis Star-Tribune):

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