(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
 . . . . . . . . . .



This Is How We Win [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2024-05-22  

Here’s what we’ve been looking for:

An issue that reveals the deepest hopes and fears of the fragility of Americans democracy

An issue with the power to persuade all but the hardest hardcore MagaHeads

An issue with the power to shift “undecideds” to the Biden camp.

An issue that leverages the terror in the hearts of millions of voters

Yesterday, Bloomberg ran an article by Joshua Green called “A Hidden Variable in the Presidential Race: Trump Might Not Leave Office.” (Sorry, paywall — article is neatly summarized here.)

Seiji Carpenter, vice president at David Binder Research, described an April focus group and told Bloomberg News, "We were talking to Latino men and Asian American-Pacific Islander women in battleground states, and they went straight to the issue of: What if Trump won't give up power?"

Here’s what really caught my eye:

GOP strategist Sarah Longwell, publisher of The Bulwark and an outspoken Never Trump conservative, is also encountering this fear in focus groups she has been conducting. At one of them, Longwell — who supported President Joe Biden in 2020 and is supporting him again in 2024 — asked voters, "Does anybody think he may not abide by the 22nd Amendment of the Constitution and leave office after the 2028 election? Anyone worried about that?"

Answer:

Seven out of eight participants, according to Longwell, raised their hands.

REPUBLICANS! 7 out of 8 think Trump is going to stuff the 22nd amendment into his diaper if he wins in 2024. The article says this is a dealbreaker for many Republicans and Independents.

Want this big deal to be even bigger? The reason that so many people are taking this so seriously is because of the Supremes repealing Roe. For years, the right-wingers had been promising to do this but very few voters really believed they’d do it. Now, with the Supreme’s “we don’t give a shit what you think” repeal of Roe and a Trump owned and branded Supreme Court, people think that Trump will do what he’s been promising over and over on the campaign trail. Gosh, he really means it!

Steve Bannon tried to laugh this off by saying how hard it would be repeal the 22nd amendment. But wait a minute — who actually thinks Trump has the attention span to do that? What people fear (rightly) is that at the end of his term, Trump will invent some bullshit (like, oh, say his “Presidential Immunity” hallucination) that the 22nd amendment doesn’t say anything about NON-CONSECUTIVE presidential terms. Then the whole thing would be lobbed into the courts where a Trump appointed Judge like Aileen Cannon...do I really need to finish this sentence?

Do the Dems have the courage to hammer this home? Trump’s (and the RNC’s) endless commitment to ignore the actual results of the 2024 election if Trump loses reinforces this narrative.

Keith Olbermann was all over this in today’s podcast. He suggested (and I agree) that the DNC’s attack ad begins and ends here:

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/5/22/2242161/-This-Is-How-We-Win?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=latest_community&pm_medium=web

Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/