Michael Goodwin: Dems Play Same Old Hand: The Trump Card

If you are a consumer of Democratic Party propaganda, you learned over the last two years that Donald Trump is not only a unique threat to democracy, he also single-handedly caused inflation, created the crisis at our southern border and ran up the scandalous national debt. 

Just last week, you learned of two more ways the former president is destroying America.

First, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg declared that voters in the 2016 presidential race were deprived of key facts that could have made Hillary Clinton the winner.

Bragg appears to be insisting she lost because, in 2017, Trump reimbursed a lawyer for giving Stormy Daniels and two other people hush money. 

Later last week, President Biden also tried to rewrite history by claiming that, despite near-universal belief that he, as commander in chief, was responsible for the chaotic and deadly withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, it was actually and totally — drumroll please — Donald Trump’s fault. 

A visitor from Mars might reasonably wonder who this fellow Trump is and how he remains a free man despite doing so many terrible things.

To which his tormentors could answer that they have a plan to end his free man status. 

What would Democrats do without Donald Trump?

The short answer is they would have to find somebody else to hate and blame. 

The obsession is not just a top-down manufactured political trick.

The party’s rank-and-file seems to have sworn an oath never to break ranks on two related fronts.

First, they swear to stick together on anything major and, second, anything that can be pinned on Trump is major. 

A unity oath would be a coherent explanation for the incoherence of a blame game that can’t let go of the past and gives more power and responsibility to a former president than to the bumbling current one. 

There is, of course, a method to the madness.

Biden’s record is a disaster both at home and abroad but polls consistently show he and his party are usually better off when the former president is in the news.

Trump’s endorsements in key races helped Dems retain Senate control in 2022 and party leaders and activists aim to build on that success by helping Trump become the Republican nominee next year. 

Although Biden has not committed to seeking a second term, Dems believe Trump cannot win a general election so they are using a political bank shot to help guarantee he is the opposition candidate. 

Their working theory is that the more they attack Trump, the more the MAGA base rallies around him.

Thus, by hammering him relentlessly and unleashing serial prosecutions, Dems aim to choke off GOP support for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and other primary challengers, leaving Trump as a wounded nominee. 

Limited appeal 

The idea is not as farfetched as it sounds.

Trump enjoys unshakeable support of perhaps 35-40% within the party while his tiresome histrionics limit his appeal among other Republicans and independents.

Those dynamics explain why Dem activists see him as a very beatable 2024 general election opponent. 

Still, their latest forays at putting the plan in motion are so bizarre that the machinations might have reached peak absurdity. And could backfire. 

The sheer weirdness of the Bragg indictment is captured by the fact that even disappointed Trump haters threw cold water on it.

The historic moment of having a former president criminally charged was overshadowed by doubts about Bragg’s judgment to use a novel legal theory to dodge a statute of limitations and turn bookkeeping misdemeanors into 34 felony counts. 

On top of Bragg’s reputation for avoiding prosecution of violent criminals, the overreach cemented the view that the DA’s motive is purely political. 

Despite the lack of merit, polls show as many as 84% of Dems approve of the case, a tide that has silenced any qualms from moderates.

Also, three other Dem-driven criminal cases targeting Trump are underway, demonstrating how completely the party is wedded to a course of prosecution that has no American precedent. 

Meanwhile, Biden’s claim that Trump is responsible for the Afghanistan debacle takes the cake for presidential fiction.

The 12-page document released by the White House purports to be a thorough review but instead reads like a Biden campaign speech written by an intern.

It puts more blame on Trump than the Taliban. 

“President Biden’s choices for how to execute a withdrawal from Afghanistan were severely constrained by conditions created by his predecessor,” it says, adding that “the outgoing Administration provided no plans for how to conduct the final withdrawal or to evacuate Americans and Afghan allies.” 

Having washed its own hands of responsibility, the administration tries to turn humiliation into triumph, and uses childish phrases to blow Biden’s horn.

“President Biden undertook a deliberate, intensive, rigorous, and inclusive decision-making process,” is typical of the heroic terms White House authors employed. 

Attempts to produce evidence of its flawed assertions amount to little more than quotations from Cabinet members’ congressional testimony, as if the self-serving claims are irrefutable facts. 

Historic mistake 

As for actual facts, the review avoids any hint of the documented proof that military leaders warned Biden that total withdrawal was a dangerous mistake. 

And it’s not until page 8 that the authors get around to mentioning the terrorist attack that killed 13 American service members and 170 Afghans while injuring 45 other Americans. 

Although the airlift is accurately described as historic, there is no mention of the vast store of military equipment and weapons left behind, making the Taliban the best-armed terrorist force on the planet. 

Despite so many allies being abandoned and the mistaken drone attack that killed 10 innocent Afghan civilians, the report insists the outcome was a big victory that “freed up critical military, intelligence, and other resources to counter terrorist threats around the world.” 

It claims that fears the withdrawal “could weaken our alliances or put the United States at a disadvantage on the global stage” did not materialize. 

“The opposite has happened,” the report says.

“Our standing around the world is significantly greater, as evidenced by multiple opinion surveys.” 

That assertion would be laughable were it not so tragic.

A more honest view of Biden’s tenure is that the Afghan cut-and-run convinced our adversaries that their time has come because America is weak and the West is divided. 

The results include the brutal Russian war in Ukraine and China’s aggressive moves toward global domination, with a takeover of Taiwan now considered inevitable.

Additionally, the “unlimited” agreement between presidents Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping sets the stage for an unprecedented united front aimed at restricting the United States around the world. 

In effect, they are using a form of the containment strategy we used to defeat the Soviet Union, only now America is the nation to be contained.

Good luck blaming that on Trump.