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Welcome to Thunderdome, your weekly update on all the crazy that 2024 has to offer! Thanks for listening to our weekly podcast, the latest edition of which is available here — and yes, we start off by talking about golf and soccer, but don’t worry: we don’t focus on important things for too long. There’s presidential stakes to be talking about, and questions to answer! Like: who is Doug Burgum, and why is Doug Burgum? Let’s get to it.
Christie the kamikaze, or Pence the pure of heart?
Everyone assumes that Chris Christie is going to be the thorn in the side of Donald Trump on the debate stage in August. But what if he isn’t? His meandering introduction to his presidential run this time sounded like someone who’d been too far gone from the political battleground to rediscover his old blustering bombast. Too many green rooms and not enough contentious press conferences can do that to someone. But there’s another possibility: what if it turns out that Mike Pence’s presence on the stage is a bigger challenge for Trump to navigate? Not that either Pence or Christie has a strong shot at becoming the nominee — they don’t. But Pence and his indefatigable spirit of straight-backed Christian honor may prove to be a more difficult nut to crack.
“The American people deserve to know that on that day, President Trump also demanded that I choose between him and the Constitution. Now voters will be faced with the same choice. I chose the Constitution. And I always will,” Pence said. “My former running mate continues to insist that I had the right to overturn the election. But President Trump was wrong then, and he’s wrong now. Anyone who puts themselves over the Constitution should never be president of the United States, and anyone who asks someone else to put them over the Constitution should never be president again.”
I honestly don’t know what Trump will say in response to that on the debate stage, but I’d like to hear it. Perhaps he’ll just dub Mike Pence a loser and a coward, disloyal and a drag, and call his wife ugly or some such. But as much as the vast majority of Republicans have no interest in seeing Pence as president, the level of animosity toward him seems to have diminished to just the die-hard Trump supporters who truly believe he could do a thing the Constitution says he can’t. He isn’t hated so much as he’s viewed as a Reagan-era relic, Don Quixote jousting at entitlement reform windmills. Even his logo looks like something Jack Kemp would’ve used in the Eighties.
Also, unlike Christie, who is already telegraphing he plans to narrowcast to the New Hampshire audience just as he did unsuccessfully in 2016, Pence truly does have a slim base of support around the country: evangelicals who are tired of supporting candidates whose personal behavior makes them cringe. That’s not a big enough base to win the nomination, but they do exist, especially in GOP primaries. But Pence’s problem could be…
Tim Scott makes Republicans happy
It’s been my belief for a while now that if I had to choose someone likeliest to lead the “not Trump-DeSantis” lane in the early states, it has to be Tim Scott. His message may seem like a throwback, but he’s got a talent for communication in a field notably bereft of it and his personal story is the one that makes Republican voters feel good about supporting him. Things like going on The View and disarming the aggressive race-baiting of Sunny Hostin is not something every candidate can do.
Scott’s problem, as noted last week, is that he seems too sunny and hopeful in a way that appeals to donors and mainstream Christians, but comes off as inconsistent with the mood of the populist Republican electorate who want a more aggressive fighter to take on Washington. And when you’re most associated with policy areas like criminal justice reform, that helps you in a general, not a primary. Still, he could emerge as a viable VP choice — there’s no question Republicans would have confidence for a debate with him versus Kamala.
Ron DeSantis makes Vivek Ramaswamy sad
Despite claiming he has no particular beef with Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy has been bashing away reliably at the Florida governor since he joined the 2024 field. The focus has attracted the animosity of pro-DeSantis influencers online — particularly after an allegation on CNBC that DeSantis had signed into law an anti-free speech bill at the behest of a donor.
This attracted a ton of Twitter community note corrections pointing out the flaws in the candidate’s claim, which prompted Ramaswamy to complain about the use of the Community Notes, comparing them to a “mob” designed to silence him.
The bill in question was prompted by an increase in antisemitic leaflets being dropped on Jewish residents’ lawns, as well as the projection of an antisemitic message — “Kanye was right about the Jews” — onto the stadium during the Florida-Georgia football game… neither of which are the sorts of things even most “free-speech absolutists,” as Ramaswamy claims to be, would defend, since they involve defacing or violating private or public property without permission. Even if the messages weren’t antisemitic, harassing messages of any kind can be illegal without risking free speech rights. You can say Kanye was right in lots of places, but that doesn’t give you the right to project it on my house or the local stadium.
Expect Ramaswamy to continue with this line of attack, as he’s clearly already accepting a role as Trump’s wingman — whether it’s one that’s actually directed from Mar-a-Lago or not.
RFK sparks Democrat jitters
With the latest polling data showing RFK Jr. hanging around at 20 percent among Democrats and Democrat-leaning voters, the White House can’t feel good about its position, united with the DNC, that no debates will be held.
RFK’s only getting started in his media-heavy tour — he hasn’t even done Joe Rogan yet! But he’s being endorsed by people like former Twitter head Jack Dorsey, and influential VC David Sacks is hosting a fundraiser for him, along with his fellow podcast host and CEO Chamath Palihapitiya, in Silicon Valley next week.
You might consider this development as just the frustrated contrarian set on the Rogan-listening left, responding to an independent voice who is clearly, for any nutty beliefs on vaccines, more mentally present than the current occupant of the White House. But the real fear that should be there on Pennsylvania Avenue is: what if RFK is the only place that people have to go if Biden continues to display physical and mental weakness? How quickly could a Gavin Newsom for President campaign be stood up, practically speaking, in the event that it’s needed come 2024? That “break glass” scenario needs to be figured out ASAP, or RFK could be a much bigger deal than this boomlet.
One last thing
The idea that pendulums swing in politics isn’t always true, but it certainly is the case when it comes to the culture wars. Look no further than Gallup’s report this week, which found that social conservatism is the most popular it’s been in more than a decade. “More Americans this year (38 percent) say they are very conservative or conservative on social issues than said so in 2022 (33 percent) and 2021 (30 percent). At the same time, the percentage saying their social views are very liberal or liberal has dipped to 29 percent from 34 percent in each of the past two years, while the portion identifying as moderate (31 percent) remains near a third.”
The trend is mostly driven by Republicans, who went from 60 percent in 2021 to 74 percent today, but Independents went up by five percentage points as well, from 24 percent to 29 percent. And while there were modest increases among the youngest Americans, it’s a strong voting cohort that saw the biggest boost: “Since 2021, there have been double-digit increases in conservative social ideology among middle-aged adults — those between the ages of thirty and sixty-four.” That’s those millennials finally having kids, folks. So tell me more about how the culture war is the small tent.
