The Elephant Not in the Room

I don’t think Democrats realize how radicalizing it was for Republicans that Barack Obama sued nuns to force them to pay for abortions. Nor do I think Democrats realize how radicalizing it is now for culturally conservative people across races and political parties that they’re pushing transgenderism as hard as they are. They simply do not realize how much of an existential threat they seem to many voters.

They literally sued a bunch of nuns to force them to pay to murder children, which is what abortion is to a great many people.

I don’t think Republicans realize how radicalizing it was for Democrats to see the “character counts” GOP come out for a twice-divorced serial adulterer who bragged on video about being able to grab women by their vaginas and then spent four years in office keeping everyone tuned to Twitter to see if he’d start World War III with a tweet.

I don’t think Democrats realize how radicalizing it was for Republicans that Democrats, using the press, spent four years delegitimizing Trump’s win by claiming he was a Russian plant and advancing the Steele Dossier with an assist from politicized FBI agents. To this day, many Democrats and members of the press insist Russia stole the election, which is a fiction.

And I don’t think Republicans realize how radicalizing it was for Democrats to see the sitting President of the United States provoke a mob to storm into the United States Capitol in an attempt to undermine the lawful functions of the United States Congress and, in some cases, attempt to hang Mike Pence. The radicalization has continued with Democrats seeing so many Republicans lie about the 2020 election and defend every act by Trump and many of the rioters. Your — yes, your unwillingness and not just Trump’s unwillingness — to accept that though there were irregularities in the 2020 election, it was not stolen has a good deal to do with what is happening right now with these indictments.

If you don’t understand how January 6, 2020, its aftermath, and the Republican reaction to it led to Democrats pulling out all the stops, cutting the brake lines, and gunning full speed ahead to take out Donald Trump through the judicial processes of the country, you have not been paying attention. All the indictments, including the classified documents one, come from that radicalizing day and the Republican refusal to denounce it.

I do not think Democrats realize just how radicalizing it is for Republicans to see Democrats engage in what is, to the GOP, a political prosecution already convinced of Trump’s guilt and just trying to find enough laws to get the result they have pre-ordained. I don’t think Democrats realize how radicalizing it is to a lot of people on the right who did denounce January 6th that Democrats now believe you must reject the GOP and embrace them, or you are no better than the rioters.

Hell is coming for Democrats, most particularly for Joe Biden and members of his family and cabinet. Republicans will pay them back in kind.

Each side has, quite obliviously, radicalized the other. Each is a step towards greater dysfunction.

I can think of only one kill switch.

The old man on the right must stop trying to get back into the office. And the old man on the left must pardon the old man on the right and bring all pressure to bear on the two state prosecutors, both of whom are Democrats, to stop their prosecutions too.

Both sides must leave these two self-absorbed, petty, and thin-skinned octagenarians on the ash heap of history and move on.

But that is not going to happen. Joe Biden will not pardon Trump. Trump will not disappear into the good night.

Instead, we will continue down an ever-escalating path of radicalization for both sides until we’re in a Civil War or external events force us back together or completely apart.

This country is literally tearing itself apart over two old narcissists and the political divides between the parties. Each side now defines itself in opposition to the other. Politicians and activists on both sides condemn the other as evil. Look no further than the right’s embrace of “Rich Men North of Richmond” and the left’s need to hate the song and attack the singer. Look no further than the left’s embrace of the woke women’s soccer team and the right’s disdain for it. Look no further than the media’s embrace of the left and its crashing ratings.

Now, about the elephant not in the room — on Friday and Saturday, I will have six of his primary competitors on stage in Atlanta. We did not invite him. He made it clear he did not want to share the stage with any of his competitors. It is why he refused to participate in the Tucker Carlson event. It is why he refused to participate in the Kim Reynolds event. It is why he is currently exploring counter-programming of his own on the night of the first GOP debate. Likewise, were he now to come, undoubtedly Fani Willis would arrest him on stage for show.

My goal on Friday and Saturday of this week is to ask exactly zero questions of the candidates about Trump.

We are doing a real disservice to the other candidates, asking them what they think about Trump, about the indictments, about his record, etc.

I, instead, what to know why voters should choose them instead of the competition. I want to know what keeps each of them up at night and where in the world they’d go searching for, in Donald Rumsfeld’s words, “the unknown unknowns.” I want to know their vision for the future and what they think the biggest issue of the day is. At the end of the day, I want the attendees to have a clear picture of what they’d get from each of these candidates if the person became President.

With apologies to my friends in the press, I have no plans to ask about the Trump indictments, the Trump campaign, or the Trump Administration. We need to hear about these candidates now.