And so it begins.
The indictments, the kangaroo courts in New York and Georgia, the lies, the smears, and the panicmongering about threats to Muh Democracy™ were all just part of a warmup act for what happens now that Donald Trump has all but secured the GOP presidential nomination.
Spoiler Alert: Trump has the nomination, really. It's secure. PJ Media's own Matt Margolis has pre-written the inevitable "Nikki Haley Suspends Campaign" article because, c'mon, all it's missing is the date, a few quotes from Haley, and a little gloating from Trump on Truth Social. As Kruiser put it in his post-New Hampshire Morning Briefing, "Here's hoping that Nikki Haley decides that she wants to start her inevitable Girl Power Boozy Brunch Club with Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger sooner rather than later and gets out of the race quickly."
But that's today's news. I'm here to give you tomorrow's news.
Here's a preview, courtesy of whoever is in charge of Drudge Report these days.
If you're wondering whatever happened to the fine art of subtly slipping the shiv between your opponent's ribs, it's my sad duty to remind you that it was killed off during the Bush Derangement Syndrome pandemic of 2001-2009.
At the New York Times, Thomas Edsall frets — egads! — that "We Are Normalizing Trump. Again."
Can one normalize that which had been previously normalized? Was there an interim state of Trump re-denormalization? Whatever the case, "Trump has steadily escalated his defiance of behavioral norms, [and] a substantial share of the American electorate remains willing to cast a ballot for him."
Or do we re-remain willing, Mr. Edsall, now that Trump has been renormalized? Hmm?
"I braved a Trump rally in New Hampshire," boasts this Dana Milbank headline in the Washington Post. "He’s very confused." Biden's brain is fine, you see. Trump is basically a turnip already, according to Milbank.
Even the staid UK Telegraph went into Full Trump Panic Mode in the hours after New Hampshire voters effectively ended Haley's bid.
Not included in the Telegraph's pulse-pounding roundup were two columns with the headlines, "Nikki Haley can’t give up yet – it’s time to take the fight to Trump," and "Only the courts can stop Trump now." I'd remind you that this is a fairly conservative British paper — they won't even have to live with President Trump. Even stranger, Trump was much more friendly to the UK than Obama or the Obama-run Biden White House ever were or will be.
I haven't dared look at Twitter/X today because there's only so much Trump Derangement Syndrome one columnist can expose himself to before having to demand hazard pay.
The thing is that everything I've shared with you today is more of the same stuff we've been inundated with since Trump rode that golden escalator into the GOP primaries more than seven years ago — just turned up a bit louder, with a slightly more panicked edge to the tone.
That will change, however.
On a recent-ish "Five O'Clock Somewhere," Kruiser and I discussed what the Democrats will do to rig the 2024 election. The only thing we could say for sure is what probably won't work, and that's more of the same we got in 2020. Americans are over the pandemic panic, Democrats have topped out on the mail-in balloting (and Republicans are belatedly getting into the game), and there's only so much fraud they can commit before people start marching on Capitol Hill — but for real next time.
Maybe we'll get a major war. Maybe a financial panic so bad that everything shuts down again. Maybe they'll do the seemingly impossible and lock Trump up. Nobody knows for sure and, as I've written here before (humblebragging), I lack the imagination to plot like a Democrat who fears losing power.
But I feel there is something coming, and today's panicked headlines were just a small taste.
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