Conventional Wisdom

I’m on the road this week, taking my daughter to visit some colleges, but given this week’s insane flurry of activity in the presidential campaign, I’ll try to post when I can.

First and foremost, let me beg Democrats to stop the goddamn doomerism.

We all know the Democratic Party is prone to panic, but this past month has been especially bad. Yes, Biden had an awful performance at the debate, but the clumsy effort to push an incumbent president out of the race — piecemeal and publicly, inflicting the maximum amount of damage with a minimum chance of success — proved to be ultimately pointless. For all the hand wringing and rending of garments, the polls are basically where they were before the debate in a virtual tie.

Luckily, we all learned a valuable lesson from that freakout.

Wait, no.

On Friday, the attempted assassination of Donald Trump set Democrats off on yet another doom spiral. I’ve seen several confident pronouncements that the shooting — carried out by a 20-year-old white man who’s a registered Republican — had somehow guaranteed a Trump victory four months from now.

I’m not sure where this comes from, but it’s not the history of American campaigns.

Everyone seems to be focusing on the bump President Ronald Reagan got — when he survived a shooting as president — but that’s really the exception to the rule, and one most people have misremembered. (Before the assassination attempt on March 30, 1981, Reagan’s approval rating was 60%. It shot up to 67% for a couple months, but by June 1981 it was below 60% again.)

That’s a small, temporary bump, and I’d argue that Reagan was uniquely suited to pull it off, thanks to his natural wittiness — joking with the surgeons that he hoped they were all Republican — and a really great PR machine that crafted a soft, sunny image for him. Trump ain’t that.

Instead, let’s look to what happened to other candidates who were shot at. Teddy Roosevelt was a former president running to take back the office too; he took a bullet to the chest in the 1912 campaign — and finished his damn speech! — but still failed to win. George Wallace, a candidate I’ve often argued is the clearest precursor to Trump, was badly wounded by a would-be assassin and confined to a wheelchair as a result, and he went from the Democratic frontrunner in the early 1972 primaries to a forgotten also-ran. Gerald Ford suffered through two attempts and only won mockery.

So, no, the race isn’t over.

And while we’re at it, no, this doesn’t mean Joe Biden and Democrats should stop pointing out how authoritarian and dangerous Donald Trump and the Republican Party will be.

The fact that a registered Republican shot at the Republican presidential candidate with the gun that Republican politicians have worshipped so much they literally wear it as a badge of pride and pose with it in Christmas photos like the weird family you warn your kids to bike nowhere near, no, that doesn’t mean that Democrats bear the responsibility for this attack and that Democrats have to adjust their rhetoric.

Not remotely. Get a grip.

Last and absolutely least, Trump has picked Senator J.D. Vance as his running mate.

Despite being a vocal one-time critic of Trump, a man he privately denounced as “America’s Hitler” in 2016, the Yale Law grad and venture capitalist has now twisted himself into a loyal lapdog to Trump. This seems like a pick that does nothing to help Trump in the election — Ohio wasn't ever in play, and they’re both white guys who are ideologically identical — but Vance checks the one box that even an otherwise loyal lickspittle like Mike Pence would not: he would back an election coup.

Clearly, Trump believes he doesn’t need any help from a VP pick this time around, unlike the Pence choice which was designed to bring a skeptical religious right in line. But I think that’s a bit of overconfidence, stemming from the echo chamber on the right (aided by some bed-wetting in the middle) which has been arguing that he now has this thing wrapped up. (As a prophet said, never get high on your own supply.)

It’s much too early to state anything confidently, and many of the fervent certainties that pundits are expressing in this moment will quickly fade as events roll on.

All right, that’s it for tonight. Lee Greenwood is singing his praise hymn to a weirdly bandaged Trump on the hotel TV, and I need to check to see how much I’ll be liable for in damages.

More soon!