“Not Much Has Changed!” Heard on Morning Joe. What hasn’t changed much according to the Joe show? 2020 compared to 2024.
    Sigh. I find parties this sure of themselves, so blind to the obvious, tend to lose.
    Hey, Joe, do you folks REMEMBER 2020?
    2020: COVID. Relaxed mail in ballot rules. Trump was in power and making it worse for himself with statements like COVID would end in spring, June, summer… no worse than common cold… you probably know the long list as well as I do. Obviously it was hurting him.
    Now he’s been out of office heading towards four years: change. His poll numbers have been going up: change. (Not that that’s as crucial as some think, more later.) We no longer have COVID as an excuse to make way for many more mail in ballots: change. (Remember Trump, DeJoy and company did their damnedest to stop that? NOT a coincidence.) Not being president has the advantage of forgetfulness of how bad it was: change. Instead of desperation to get him out too many of us who didn’t vote for him have developed a, “Oh, that’s just Trump and he’ll just lose again,” tude.
    That last is a really bad change. Shrugs don’t win elections. Just the opposite.
    On the national and state by state scene a lot has changed, and not that much in our favor. Programming at CNN apparently is now run by a pro-Trumper who just gave a deliberate big wet kiss to him. (Audience only allowed to applaud the Ex.) Republicans in some states have worked hard to negate the vote, results, if not to their liking. At least one state is planning on making it legal to get rid of politically inconvenient prosecutors/AGs and legally harass get out the vote groups. (Do you have Georgia on your mind now? You should.)
    Not that the vote matters as much as we think. The past 2 Republicans won because, yes, elections ARE being rigged: the Electoral College. Republican pols in red and purple states have made sure they can throttle the vote via gerrymandering, eliminating polling stations, purging politically inconvenient groups of voters… short list.
    With the EC national vote totals matter far less than number of states.
    Meanwhile, the worst of the worst in Congress are more willing than ever to ditch the economy for purely political purposes. And you can bet if there’s a compromise it will be one to make the Biden administration look as bad as possible.
    Some of this is change: perfecting the neutering of actual representative governance. And every election, every year, every minute they get better at it. There’s a long history of the right wing and their presidents/pols doing whatever they can to prevent select groups from voting. This goes back to post Civil War. Now it computerized, they know just what voters and places to target.
    WHEW! And I only mentioned A FEW of the tactics.
    Dems wring their hands over polls, think polls matter: increasingly less so. It’s no accident the past two previous Republican presidents won due to the Electoral College. Note that when the counting was finally done by several papers of note Gore won. Note Hillary got almost 3 million more votes. Donnie is right: it has been rigged, state by state, in the favor of one party: HIS.
    While fear mongering and culture wars activate the hate base, too many Dems yawn. Classic Dem we won behavior. Too many think the job is done post elections. That’s not how Republican strategists do it: they do all they can to keep their base angry. And have been doing it long before Trump was happy just being a shitty, woman grabbing, star.
    Meanwhile appeal to the worst of the worst, call them “good people,” say they’ll be pardoned them when they beat cops on a “beautiful day.” They KNOW their base is small and shrinking, so there’s a constant, persistent focus on eliminating politically inconvenient voter bases and adding fuel to the kind of rage that will intimidate politically incorrect voters, while pissing out a yellow brick road straight back into the White House.
    They know they have the vote handled, and they know to seal the deal they also need to appeal to a base that LOVES an Oklahoma City approach to politics. It’s no accident this time Trump went to Waco.
    But I could be wrong about impending 2024. If I am, should they lose in 2024, they’ll do what they have been doing: double down for 2028. And because they want to make it worse I’ll “eagerly” wait for them to try to resurrect Timothy McVeigh and Jeffry Dahmer.
    ”Not much has changed?” I would laugh if that claim wasn’t so distinctly unfunny.

                                      -30-

    “Inspection” is a column that has been written by Ken Carman for over 50 years. Inspection is dedicated to looking at odd angles, under all the rocks and into the unseen cracks and crevasses that constitute the issues and philosophical constructs of our day: places few think, or even dare, to venture.
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