Mass media examines Trump’s vulnerabilities in the wake of New Hampshire’s 2024 primary

Pres­i­dent Biden’s pre­de­ces­sor Don­ald Trump is com­ing unwrapped just as America’s pun­dit­ry is telling us he has wrapped up the Repub­li­can nomination.

Infu­ri­at­ed at Nik­ki Haley’s deter­mi­na­tion to stay in the race, The Don­ald declared: “I don’t get too angry. I get even.”

He ridiculed Haley, ask­ing: “Who the hell was the imposter that went up on the stage before and claimed a vic­to­ry? She did very poor­ly, actu­al­ly. She had to win.”

Quite a dif­fer­ence it was from cau­cus night in Iowa, when Trump sang Kum­baya with gen­er­ous words for his rivals and warm trib­utes for his fam­i­ly and sup­port­ing cast. The man’s mean streak, when not get­ting his way, is a mile wide.

The media spin on New Hamp­shire was fas­ci­nat­ing, and revealing.

The first batch of head­lines had Trump cinch­ing the nom­i­na­tion. The day after, how­ev­er, brought a trolling of rev­e­la­tions from Gran­ite State returns.

The vote Tues­day showed cult-like Trump sup­port from the hard right and evan­gel­i­cals. But there is a ceil­ing to his sup­port, and no par­tic­u­lar wish to add on new floors. Trump has flayed tra­di­tion­al con­ser­v­a­tives in his own par­ty and even resumed demean­ing deceased war hero Sen­a­tor John McCain.

Col­lege-edu­cat­ed vot­ers broke for Nik­ki Haley. So did inde­pen­dent and non-affil­i­at­ed vot­ers. The lat­ter were able to cast bal­lots under New Hamp­shire elec­tion rules. Turnout was heavy beyond the Repub­li­can base.

Exit polls did hold appalling find­ings. The Repub­li­can base believes the big lie, that Joe Biden didn’t legit­i­mate­ly win the 2020 elec­tion, and feel a con­vict­ed felon can still serve as pres­i­dent. But a sub­stan­tial num­ber of vot­ers — the inde­pen­dents — will take their votes else­where in the event of a conviction.

As well, after months of pre­oc­cu­pa­tion with Pres­i­dent Biden’s age, the press is at last land­ing on Trump’s cog­ni­tive decline.

New Hamp­shire saw him mix up Nik­ki Haley with Nan­cy Pelosi, false­ly claim­ing Haley was in charge at the U.S. Capi­tol dur­ing the Jan­u­ary 6th, 2021 insur­rec­tion at the U.S. Capi­tol. He has accused Biden of try­ing to start World War II.

The Biden-Har­ris cam­paign has feast­ed on anoth­er gar­bled rant from Trump, in which he non­sen­si­cal­ly said: “We are an insti­tute in a pow­er­ful death penalty.”

All this is good news for the 46th Pres­i­dent. The Trump base is cen­tered on blue-col­lar, white non-col­lege edu­cat­ed vot­ers, a shrink­ing chunk of the elec­torate. There’s a coali­tion out there for Biden to assem­ble, or rather reassemble.

He has work to do, notably get­ting mil­len­ni­als and Gen­er­a­tion Z to vote.

Younger vot­ers were absolute­ly essen­tial to Demo­c­ra­t­ic vic­to­ries in the 2022 midterm elec­tions, and to the 2020 Biden victory.

The mass media is final­ly awak­en­ing to a Goldilocks econ­o­my, not too hot and not too cold. Infla­tion is com­ing down, inter­est rates are begin­ning to dip. Infra­struc­ture spend­ing is pump­ing dol­lars into valu­able projects, such as Colum­bia Riv­er bridges and air­ports in dis­tricts of our state’s two Repub­li­can Unit­ed States House mem­bers — Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers and Dan Newhouse.

All this and the stock mar­ket has late­ly hit record highs. The admin­is­tra­tion needs to sell its achieve­ments, learn­ing from Obama’s fail­ure to do so. Sen­a­tor Maria Cantwell is wise­ly high­light­ing achieve­ments in which she played a role.

Joe Biden will remain an old-fash­ioned can­di­date — but also one who is able to play a game of patience. Such is need­ed to fash­ion society’s compromises.

The Trump regime staged mean­ing­less “infra­struc­ture weeks”. Biden made an infra­struc­ture invest­ment renais­sance hap­pen, and even brought Mitch McConnell along with him. Mitch need­ed work on a key Ohio Riv­er bridge.

Still, approval rat­ings for Biden tanked after the chaot­ic end of the Afghanistan inva­sion and have nev­er real­ly recov­ered. He is demo­nized by right wing media.

The Israel-Hamas war has stirred emo­tions, with lit­tle appre­ci­a­tion for qui­et back­stage work to curb hos­til­i­ties. Twice this week, pro-Pales­tin­ian pro­test­ers have dis­rupt­ed Pres­i­dent Biden’s speech­es. Israel’s prime min­is­ter Ben­jamin Netanyahu vehe­ment­ly and vocal­ly resists a two-state solution.

All this points to a close elec­tion, peri­ods of frus­tra­tion for pro­gres­sives, plus end­less sec­ond guess­ing. But would-be dic­ta­tor is run­ning on a plat­form of revenge and turn­ing off key seg­ments of the electorate.

The 2024 elec­tion is under­scor­ing founder Ben­jamin Franklin’s famous answer to the woman who asked what kind of gov­ern­ment Amer­i­ca would have — “a repub­lic, if you can keep it.” Let us be its keepers.