America: The Nervous Breakdown Continues

The 2023 elections continued a winning streak for Democrats that began with Joe Biden's 2020 presidential election victory and continued with the midterm results of 2022.  Andy Beshear was re-elected governor of Kentucky, Democrats won both houses of Virginia's legislature and expanded their majorities in the houses of the New Jersey state legislature, and abortion rights were enshrined in the state constitution in Ohio.  Many people think the MAGA movement is in retreat at the polls.  Don't you believe it.

The Republicans still have the advantage going into 2024.  Forget the polls that show Trump ahead of Biden, and forget especially the greater number of polls that show Biden ahead of Trump, which Biden himself alluded in a testy exchange with a "reporter" from Fox "News."   Here are the basic reasons why 2024 is still in tap to be a Republican year:

• Democrats face strong headwinds to keep their Senate majority.
• U.S. House districts are still gerrymandered. 
• Many voter-suppression laws remain on the books.  
• Voter turnout in off-year elections is low and cannot be used as an effective barometer for midterm or presidential elections.
• The Electoral College can still negate the will of the people if they pick a Democratic President, as the 2016 election so clearly proved.
• Support for abortion rights in Republican states like Ohio do not automatically translate into support for Democratic candidates in statewide elections.

Change these conditions, and the Democratic Party's fortunes can improve.  But as such changes are not likely to happen, even the rosiest outlook on the economy might not save Biden this time.

And there's not just the threat of a third-party candidate playing the role of spoiler to help Trump.  There's the threat of four of them.  Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is now a leading choice among young voters, and his anti-Semitic and anti-vaccine comments haven't hurt him as an independent candidate.  His appeal among young people might actually hurt Biden.  Cornel West has quit as the Green Party presidential nominee and continued to run as an independent, while Jill Stein - yes, the same Jill Stein who was the Green Party presidential nominee in 2016 and failed to win a 5 percent minimum of the vote to qualify the Green Party for matching funds in the 2020 presidential election - is taking his place on the Green ticket.  And the No Labels movement, which has promised to run a bipartisan presidential/vice presidential ticket, might have a presidential nominee in waiting in the form of Joe Manchin.

The senior senator from West Virginia announced that he will not seek re-election in 2024 and plans to tour the country to listen to voters needs - an obvious precursor to a presidential run, and possible as the No Labels candidate.  To be fair, No Labels' director, former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman, has said that No Labels will not field a presidential ticket if researching and polling show that such a ticket would help Trump, but there will still be at least three other presidential candidates on the ballot who could and probably will screw things up for Joe Biden.

At least.  There could be more candidates.  Some people are still talking about Oprah Winfrey for President, while others are talking about her as a vice presidential No Labels candidate.  And still, waiting in the wings, and being taken very seriously, even by esteemed newsmen such as CNN's Jake Tapper, is Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.

Oh, honey, I think America is having a nervous breakdown like you wouldn't believe! 

Oh yeah, in Mississippi, Democrat Brandon Presley - a distant cousin of Elvis - lost his bid for the state's governorship to incumbent Republican Tate Reeves despite Reeves being tainted by scandal.  Brandon has just left the building.  Another Brandon is likely to leave the White House a year and change from now.

Her Again?

Marianne Williamson is running for President again. 

Because if a crooked real-estate developer (I know, a redundancy) and beauty-pageant owner could be President (he couldn't), why not a college dropout turned self-help love guru and spiritual adviser to Oprah Winfrey? 

"I wouldn’t be running for President," Williamson said, "if I didn’t believe I could contribute to harnessing the collective sensibility that I feel is our greatest hope at this time."

You mean the collective sensibility that calls upon us to stand by President Biden and quell a primary challenge from within the Democratic Party that could help the 2024 Republican presidential nominee?

To those who are content to write off Marianne Williamson as a sideshow who isn't going anywhere - a description Edward-Isaac Dovere gleefully used to describe Martin O'Malley - Republicans were quick to so the same to Pat Buchanan in 1992, but his presidential candidacy derailed George Bush's re-election hopes.  Williamson could very well be able harness - as she puts it - pie-in-the-sky progressives who are dissatisfied with Biden's efforts to return America to the social contract that existed before Ronald Reagan destroyed it and fail to realize that the collapse of much of his progressive agenda was due to various reasons (*cough cough*, Joe Manchin, *cough cough*, Kyrsten Sinema, *cough cough*), and she could end up forming an unexpectedly potent political force.

And those who still doubt that possibility, I offer these two words - Bernie Sanders.    

And now that Marianne's in, I expect Dwayne Johnson - who has seriously talked about running for President with CNN's Jake Tapper -to throw his hat into the ring as well.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Can anyone tell me what sort of nation we're living in where Marianne Williamson and Dwayne Johnson are taken seriously as political contenders and Martin O'Malley is laughed at?  This country needs an enema!