The Downside of Idiocracy
Yesterday, I wrote about the Idiocracy that Trump and his team is causing for themselves by doing incredibly stupid things that they think they can get away with having convinced themselves that they supposedly won a “landslide mandate,” when in reality Trump won by just 1.4% and the party lost a seat in the House. And so many of his and their incredibly stupid actions are not only things the public on both sides doesn’t want and didn’t vote for (seriously, making Canada a state? Buying Greenland?), but some of which they are aghast by, like releasing terrorists from prison convicted of seditious conspiracy. And there's so much more, including Trump’s partner-at-the-hip, illegal immigrant Elon Musk giving the Nazi salute.
As serious and dangerous to democracy as many of these incredibly stupid actions are by Trump and his fellow MAGOPs in Congress, I noted that the sheer stupidity of them risks undermining all their worst plans over the next four years.
“And in the end, they don’t have four years. Candidates for the mid-term races will begin positioning themselves and campaigning in not much more than a year. And Election Day only eight months after that. When all seats in the House are up for re-election, and more MAGOP seats in the Senate than Democratic are at risk.”
Lest anyone think this was just rose-colored glasses wishful thinking, let's put this is brief perspective. Trump won the election with 49.8% of the vote. In a new poll by Reuters/Ipsos, taken the first two days into his administration, when all new presidents are in their honeymoon period, Trump's approval already has dropped from that, down to just 47%! Moreover, 58% of the country is against his mass pardons of 1,500 convicted criminals. So much for that whole, y'know, "landslide mandate."
And again, lest anyone think what I wrote yesterday was just rose-colored glasses wishful thinking, and prefer to ignore the Reuters/Ipsos poll, we jump you ahead far into the future, all the way to -- later in the same day.
Hours after writing all this yesterday, there was CNN's John King on Wednesday, being spot-on correct when he said that Trump had just created "a Democratic campaign ad" for 2026.
Trump not only pardoned 1,500 convicts, but as King noted, "He pardoned somebody who used the dark internet to sell cocaine, to sell heroin, to sell murder for hire. He pardoned him because Elon Musk and some others said, 'This is a good idea, sir.' That's a democratic campaign ad already made against House Republicans in vulnerable districts."
Indeed, all through the day, there was video of MAGOPs in Congress being followed by reporters and asked their reactions to Trump’s mass pardon of criminals, many of them violent criminals – and almost all of those MAGOP politicians were doing their best to run away and avoid answering. Which tells you how disastrous they knew the pardons were.
Of course, the problem for all these MAGOPs in Congress trying to run away is that
they're not answering because they're scared how it will come across not just to Trump but also to the voting public. And what they miss is that most of the public is as aghast as they themselves clearly are, and many of these voters won't be scared to voice their reaction at the mid-term elections. And so, rather than get out in front of the story, the MAGOP members of Congress are tied to the 1,500 pardons.
And if they think it won’t be an issue in the mid-terms, that it won’t be a “Democratic campaign ad” as John King noted, that they’ll be able to hide away 1,500 pardoned criminals while trying to be the supposed “law and order” (sic) party, and just be seen as pretending to make America great --
-- then all they had to do was watch what Democrats did later that very afternoon to drive home the point how disastrous this MAGOP stupidity was.
On the House floor, ranking member of the Rules Committee Jim McGovern stood and bluntly stated, "I think it takes a lot of nerve to come down here and talk to us about law and order when the gentleman who just spoke was at a D.C. Jail celebrating the release of people who attacked and beat cops."
And during the House Judiciary Committee hearing yesterday, Rep. Zoe Lofgren went straight to the point, and snapped at Subcommittee Chair Tom McClintock (R-CA): "Don't tell me that the motivation for the immigration crackdown is public safety when we release these violent criminals back into our communities."
But that was only the warm-up. Because after her came Rep. Jamie Raskin. And he let loose so impactfully that any MAGOP dreams that this all could be buried and slip by unnoticed went up in smoke.
"The chairman began by saying the point here is to restore the rule of law," Raskin stated. "Can you even pretend to do that if you stand by and support Donald Trump, who on day one, as the chairman of the committee just said, day one of his presidency pardoned 1,500 insurrectionists, including hundreds of people who violently assaulted and attacked American police officers?"
He went on -- "The family of Officer Sicknick is absolutely devastated and demolished by what's just happened," speaking of the Capitol Police officer who had been killed during the Insurrection. "And now you have the temerity to come forward and say this is about public safety?
"How much safer are we now with these 1,500 criminals at large in Washington, D.C., and going out into the country?" Raskin continued. "Are you vouching that they are no longer a threat to public safety? What an outrage. What a scandal."
Democrats in Congress clearly get it, and clearly get the response.
Here's the Judiciary video in full --
You can’t hide from the public the release of 1,500 convicted criminals from prison. You certainly can’t hide it from your political opponents, and they aren’t going to let the public forget. Nor forget that MAGOPs in Congress ran away to avoid criticizing what the public was already on record being strongly against.
And you can’t hide photos of Trump’s “shadow president” giving the Nazi salute, a ghastly fascist image that will be in so many of those campaign ads. Or all the other incredibly stupid things that Trump and his MAGOP party have done in only two full days in office – let alone all their serious, dangerous, idiotic things sure to come. As Trump’s dementia kicks into higher gear.
Sure to come. Consider that after I wrote the first draft of this article, I had to jump back in because later last night, there was Trump on "Fox" with Sean Hannity, talking about TikTok --
Trump: Is it that important for China to be spying on young people watching crazy videos?
Hannity: I don't want China spying on anybody.
Yes, really. Trump actually thinks the TikTok law passed by a bipartisan Congress is about watching kids watch videos. Rather than all being about the vast information being gathered on Americans by the Chinese government. And he thinks that only kids use TikTok. I mean, even Sean Hannity gets it. Sean Hannity. Moreover, he gets it enough to actually push back on Trump.
And it's all on video. Trump indeed does keep making campaign ads for Democrats in 2026.
What Democrats did in Congress yesterday is not only what they should be doing at every single stupid, egregious, dangerous thing Trump does that MAGOPs attempt to avoid criticizing -- or even defend -- but it seems pretty clear from their actions that it is what Democrats will be doing. Not just because it's politically smart...but because it's what you do when you know it's your responsibility to defend democracy against fascism.
This blunt pushback from Democrats about the 1,500 pardons of criminals? This is just one issue. A mere two days into the new administration. Put aside for the moment that a majority of the public is against Trump's unworkable "mass deportation" plans (which he promised he'd put into operation on Day One, but didn't) -- imagine the reaction when an absence of migrant workers -- including those here legally, but scared of being caught up in a sweep -- causes food prices to skyrocket, compounding inflation. (No, this is not hyperbole. NBC reports today that already "The California Farm Bureau says fears in the Central Valley have led to migrant farmworkers not showing up for work, which has virtually halted the area's citrus harvest.") Imagine, too, public reaction to Trump not ending Russia's war against Ukraine (which he promised he'd do on Day One, but didn't), as video shows it continuing to rage into next year amid our election campaigns. And what was his "secret plan" to end the fighting? It was a social media post he wrote to Putin yesterday, "Settle now, and STOP this ridiculous War! IT’S ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE". Terrifying to Putin, for sure, if he was a third-grader.
And just imagine opposition campaign video of Elon Musk giving the Nazi salute and Sean Hannity having to explain to Trump the problem with China spying on Americans, spying on children, and all the dangerous stupidity from Trump and MAGOPs that will fill up Democratic ads, for races that will start in only one year from now. One year. That's how close it is before candidates begin running -- donation requests, primaries, TV ads. And Trump's approval is already dropping, and is below 50%, a mere two days into his honeymoon!
What's important is to put all this in its larger context:
For all their many flaws and stupidity, one thing MAGOP politicians get (like all politicians) is poll numbers. It's the lifeblood their campaigns run on. If Trump -- a lame duck president on Day One -- already has an approval of just 47% and dropping, two days into his administration when his numbers should be at their highest, and has been pushing issues that the public at best doesn't care about at all or at worst hates, and is getting slammed by the conservative, Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal (in a scathing editorial yesterday about Trump's unethical "meme coin" scam that they wrote risks lawsuits) and is criticized by courts for the release of convicted criminals without reason, then MAGOP politicians at some point start paying attention for the safety of their own skin, and those in the party who want to be the new leader in 2028 start looking for ways to find cracks in the wall that are safe to attack (for "the sake of the party," of course).
For now, MAGOPs in Congress seem to be hiding in those cracks. As those cracks become wider, though, it gets much harder to hide in them.
What will happen in two years? You'd need a crystal ball for that, and they rarely work. Two things, though, are clear. One is that this is a very poor way to start, and even worse when your 78-year-old leader has dementia. And the second is --
As MAGOPs gear up to run for re-election, with election night only 22 months away, never was the phrase more literally true:
You can run -- but you can’t hide.
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