A note on Trump's ascension to the Republican nomination

What many feared is now a reality: Trump will again take on Biden

A seismic shift in the Republican presidential race has again given the nomination to Donald Trump. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis dropped out of the race this week and endorsed Trump. It was the end of the most disappointing and poorly run campaign for a nomination in recent history. 

DeSantis had been the darling of Republican circles when he first announced his bid. Some in Congress said the party’s actual leader was DeSantis instead of the man who had left the White House amid disgrace following an effort to overturn the 2020 election and inciting an insurrection at Congress.

I commended Nikki Haley early on for being the only one in that party who exhibited any guts at all in standing up to Trump. Chris Christie likewise had shown some gumption in taking him on in the primary. But none showed any political courage when it became clear to them that Trump would earn the nomination. To flip a Kennedy saying, it was nothing but profiles in cowardice. It is easy to take on people in the opposition party. That will make you popular among people who empower you. But it takes the rare presence of mind and a sense of history to oppose influential figures in your party for the sake of your country. None exhibited those traits. 

Despite their and others in the establishment’s best effort to derail his campaign, Trump overcame all that to once again lead his party against an unpopular Democratic president who has been criticized for his age and economic policies, along with questions about the handling of foreign affairs in Israel and Ukraine. 

There’s almost a sense among Trump and his supporters of “Now, what? They threw their best shot at us, and we’re still in the lead.” 

As we approach the election, we will wait and see if there is a jury of 12 who could ever reach an agreement on convicting a president who inspires deep hatred from his enemies and unwavering loyalty and deference from his supporters. Several judges have been targeted for harassment by his supporters, who he’s incited by criticizing those figures on social media. Trump has shown no respect for court decorum or belief that a president is subject to the same laws as every citizen. 

Many in the media have watched all this and are shocked that he got the nomination. It didn’t surprise me, but I’m not in the New York bubble. There’s an echo chamber there that has done a disservice to political discourse and in preparing and informing leaders by limiting what is acceptable to write and say, even if by writing and saying it you would lead to better strategy because it would be based on reality instead of wishful thinking. 

For journalism to work, we must write the quiet part out loud. You explain why there is tension between people, communities, agencies, and countries. By writing those truths, we confront them and address them directly instead of through passive-aggressiveness. Speaking the truth angers a lot of people. Nothing will do it more. But to exit this political carnival, we must base all our writing as journalists on the truth. That is not my truth. Not your truth. The truth as the evidence and reality shows it to be. The truth that would be shown to a jury. The truth that people see. The empirical truth. We may not like the truth, but we know it to be. 

We’re not serving our political leaders or readers well by simply being competing puppets with our strings pulled to have some desired effect. That’s what got us Trump. No one manipulates people better than him. 

I’m not on a soapbox here, though it may seem to be. But I understand I influence journalism since I’ve accomplished quite a bit within the profession. So that’s my message to journalists. 

Insofar as reproductive rights leaders, the likelihood here is that Trump will downplay his opposition to abortion rights because he realizes it’s the one issue he’s losing on. He’ll try to bait activists into focusing on aspects of healthcare that alienate moderate to conservative voters. He’ll try to pit one part of the Democratic party against another so that he marginalizes and disempowers the individuals he fears most. I will cover the presidential race in great detail in the future. 

I’ll have more as the week goes on.