By: Copeland Jacobs, Staff Writer
12/20/23
The safe seats
Political polling aggregation website, 270 to Win, gives the Democrats 191 safe electoral votes and the Republicans 121, the Democrats 30 likely electoral votes and the Republicans 97, with 62 toss-ups.
South Carolina is listed as a safe Republican state, as from 2000 to 2020 the Republican presidential nominees have won the state with over half of the vote.
Nobody is popular
Joe Biden and Donald Trump continue to enjoy large leads in the primary polling despite a wealth of news stories across the Internet- if you haven’t read that people don’t want the 2020 candidates to return to the nomination, just check any of the big news sites- saying another Biden-Trump election would make American voters unhappy.
For further proof, a Dec. 5 Reuters article stated Biden’s popularity was close to the lowest level of his entire presidency, and per the Pew Research Center, “Trump remains broadly unpopular with the public.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson hasn’t been around long, but the same Pew article doesn’t bode well for him, as his predecessor Kevin McCarthy and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer are viewed unfavorably more than favorably.
Trump off the Colorado ballot
Per the Associated Press (AP), Donald Trump was removed from the Colorado presidential primary ballot by their state Supreme Court.
“A majority of the court holds that Trump is disqualified from holding the office of president under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment,” decided the court.
The 14th Amendment has been invoked infrequently since its passage after the Civil War. The amendment was originally intended to prevent ex-Confederates from obtaining office.
A Notre Dame law professor quoted in the AP article speculated the Colorado Supreme Court’s actions may serve to embolden other courts across the country.
Trump remains the Republican primary frontrunner in the polls, even after the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling.
- Morning Consult gives him a 54-percentage point lead over Ron DeSantis
- Real Clear Politics also names him the leader with 64 to Nikki Haley’s 11, with DeSantis at 9.
- 538’s primary polling put Trump at 61.6% on Dec. 20, with DeSantis at 12.5% and Haley at 10.7%. Asa Hutchinson has a 0.6%.
Trump rhetoric draws Nazi comparisons
Even before the Colorado decision, Trump’s recent comments about illegal immigrants “poisoning the blood” of the United States drew comparisons to Nazi rhetoric.
According to Reuters, the phrase “blood poisoning” appears in Adolf Hitler’s notorious manifesto.
Trump claims he has never read Mein Kampf. His first wife Ivanka claims otherwise, stating in a Vanity Fair article in 1990 he had a collection of Hitler speeches.
Trump’s language was condemned by the Anti-Defamation League’s Jonathan Greenblat as “racist, xenophobic, and despicable.”
So, who has read it?
It’s important to remember today’s headlines are tomorrow’s history, so I dug into the historical library for some background information on the controversy of the moment. I would’ve preferred starting this sub-feature delving into an aspect of American history, or a previous election with similarities to the upcoming 2024 election, but I don’t make the news.
Adolf Hitler penned Mein Kampf (“My Struggle”) in prison after leading a failed coup, the Beer Hall Putsch, where according to historian Allan Bullock, the future demagogue turned tail and ran as soon as the bullets started flying.
The book, which is part autobiography and part political manifesto, outlines Hitler’s political ideology and his vision for the future of Germany.
Bullock described Mein Kampf as “filled with turgid discussions of Hitler’s ideas, written in a verbose style which is both difficult and dull to read.” The original title was “Four and a Half Years of Struggle Against Lies, Stupidity, and Cowardice.” I believe Benito Mussolini described it as a horrible book he struggled to read.
I won’t quote Hitler’s venomous ravings here, but it’s important to note the manifesto’s central theme, antisemitism, wasn’t exclusive to the political fringe in 1924. As Michael Burleigh wrote in his one-volume, The Third Reich – A New History, antisemitism was dispersed throughout the political sphere; though the extreme degree of Hitler’s prejudice against Jews was uncommon, to be prejudiced against Jews would not seem strange or outlandish in 1924. Burleigh noted conservatives, socialists, liberals, and anarchists each had their own set of reasons and rationalizations.
The book is known for its virulent anti-Semitic content, racist ideology, and expansionist goals. It played a significant role in shaping Nazi ideology and became a central text for the Nazi Party. However, it’s important to note that the book is widely discredited for its false and hateful ideas, and it is considered a dangerous work that contributed to the propagation of Nazi beliefs.
Indeed, much of what we in the present find horrifying and strange about National Socialism (Nazism) was considered ordinary banal in the years when it competed in elections. Political parties with a paramilitary wing were commonplace in Europe. In Germany alone the communist and democratic parties had uniformed, marching supporters.
It is because of Nazism’s brief reign of terror over Europe, because of the Holocaust and World War II these things- openly racist rhetoric, political parties with armies- were stricken from Western political life.
While comparisons to Hitler are frequent enough to have spawned Godwin’s Law – in short, the longer an Internet argument goes on, the more likely somebody gets compared to him. You shouldn’t forget the real tragedies behind the clichés.
Author: Tracy Sanders
