Campaign and Gain

Disgraced former president Donald Trump is currently leading in the polls in six out of seven swing states. It’s time to face facts about what could happen in November, and why.

• The gravest mistake Democrats could make this year is underestimating Donald Trump. Like a villainous creature emerging from the primordial ooze, Trump is stronger than ever, and his campaign is a frighteningly well-oiled machine. Gone (or, at least, exiled to the periphery) are the unpredictable egomaniacs like Roger Stone, Steve Bannon, and Kellyanne Conway, who had a habit of gumming up the works and leaking things to the press that were supposed to stay concealed. Trump is playing 2024 less like a game than he did 2016, because now, with a slew of state and federal cases aimed his way, Trump’s money and his freedom are very much at stake. (I mean, it’s still definitely a game to him, but this time his own money and carceral future are on the table.)

• Barely two years ago, Trump was something of political poison, and it seemed that every candidate he endorsed in the 2022 midterm elections went on to lose. That same fall, he hosted noted antisemites Ye (Kanye West) and Nick Fuentes at Mar-a-Lago. But in late 2022/early 2023, the Trump campaign got some new blood and began changing the news cycle. Led by senior adviser Chris LaCivita, the Trump campaign spent all last summer lobbying state Republican primaries to change their processes to favor Trump. Then the former president benefited from a crowded GOP primary full of candidates even more inept than him. But his myriad criminal indictments are what really gave him a boost, providing him with new material, new enemies to attack, a potent new fundraising pitch, as well as a distraction from some of the more politically-destructive bullshit he frequently pulls on the campaign trail.

• But Trump’s steady re-ascent has crucially been boosted by President Joe Biden’s fall from grace with American voters. Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war has cost him mightily with Democrats, with protest vote campaigns against the president in recent Dem primaries netting at times more total votes than Biden’s 2020 margin of victory in a given state, as happened in Wisconsin on Tuesday. Trump has and will, if reelected, give Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu everything he wants. But with the death toll in Gaza having surpassed 32,000, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, many Democratic voters are finding Biden—who has consistently approved aid and arms transfers to Israel despite the mounting civilian casualties—difficult to stomach. On Thursday, the president spoke with Netanyahu over the phone for the first time since an Israeli attack killed seven workers with the disaster relief organization World Central Kitchen, one of whom was an American citizen. In a White House summary of the call, Biden reportedly “made clear the need for Israel to announce and implement a series of specific, concrete, and measurable steps to address civilian harm, humanitarian suffering, and the safety of aid workers.”

Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated the president’s message in Brussels on Thursday. So did White House spokesperson John Kirby. Biden and his top aides have repeatedly issued verbal warnings to Israel, but have so far been unwilling to turn those rebukes into policy changes. We hope this time is different.

NEWS NEWS NEWS

The White House approved the transfer of thousands of additional bombs to Israel on the same day that Israeli airstrikes killed seven aid workers for World Central Kitchen, the Washington Post reported citing three unnamed U.S. officials.

A Georgia judge on Thursday rejected disgraced former president Donald Trump’s effort to dismiss the charges in the state’s case against him for election interference. Trump had tried to argue that the case violates his right to free speech. We know Trump still has full use of his free speech by the general lack of peace undergirding our daily lives.

A new report from nonprofit think tank InfluenceMap shows that since 2016, more than 80 percent of the world’s CO2 emissions can be traced to 57 fossil fuel and cement producers.

Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE), a moderate Democrat and one of President Biden’s closest allies in Congress, told CNN he believes it is time to begin conditioning aid to Israel following the attack on World Central Kitchen workers.

Weather forecasters at Colorado State University predicted an “extremely active” Atlantic hurricane season this year because of warm sea surface temperatures and less wind shear to break up the storms.

A federal district court judge in California ruled on Wednesday night that the federal government is required to “expeditiously” house migrant children rather than allow them to remain in unsafe open-air sites along the border.