Joe Shaw and Greenbean Walk Into A . . .

Primary.

Or a trap.

Or a primary trap.

If you must know, the Kool-Aid I drank last night was cherry red. Mrs. Greenbean enjoyed the orange.

I asked my friend, Joe Shaw, to respond to the same five questions I am addressing here. I’ve cut-n-pasted his reply below for easy reading, but you should go read his introduction — it is so much better than mine. Click here to be amazed!

Essentially, we are engage in a post-mortem of the Super-Tuesday from yesterday. Joe is a super-smart, highly analytical man with high integrity. And he is funny and clever. A wonderful set of characteristics. So here we go.

How big of a night was it for MAGA?

            HUGE! The crushing defeat of Nikki Haley, by 80-20 margins in many of the states indicates the entirety of the GOP is MAGA – the assimilation is complete. Any resistance to the unique brand of populism and confidence that goes with MAGA has either been beaten into submission or quietly left out the back door. Where it goes from now I don’t know, but I think we can safely now stop calling it the GOP and just call it MAGA. 

            In Texas, where I live, this MAGA victory was even more pronounced. Ken Paxton and Greg Abott, MAGA Men, effectively purged, and I mean purged, in the primary process all Republicans who opposed them. It was a bloodletting, politically speaking that included by the house GOP, forced the speaker into a runoff, and took out three judges, that’s right, judges!

            MAGA should pop the champagne today and toast their wins and celebrate the comlete destruction of their republican enemies. 

Joe Shaw says:

I guess that depends on what you mean by MAGA. For some, MAGA is synonymous with white supremacy, racism, sexism, and all the other bad -isms you can imagine. For others, MAGA is simply “the Trump faction of the Republican Party.” For others, still, it’s something like “an American, nationalistic approach to conservatism, currently spearheaded by Donald Trump. 

There are almost as many definitions for MAGA as there are for genders now, except that people don’t ask what your MAGA pronouns are when you speak it. They just make decisions about your moral turpitude based on THEIR interpretation about what MAGA means, and respond accordingly. Much like the Fashion industry, current TikTok trends, and anything Kanye West has tweeted in the last year or so, it’s all very confusing and likely has no basis in Reality. 

So, when I think about whether this was a Big Win for MAGA, I have to think about what it means for Trump in this election, what it means for the Republican Party and conservatism overall. 

For Trump, this was an obvious huge win. It was a big, massive, but, but it was an expected, massive win. The only place Nikki Haley won was Vermont, which is not exactly a Republican stronghold. You have to be somewhere left of Stalin to carry that state in the general election, so there’s a good chance this was more “Socialists Behaving Badly,” than an actual groundswell for a Trump alternative. 

For the Republican Party, it means they’ve clearly and decisively selected Trump as the standard bearer, but I don’t think it means they’ve solidified Trumpism as the prevailing party philosophy. I haven’t seen a lot of articles from Republicans or conservatives discussing what Trump’s policies mean for America post-election and into the future. It’s mainly just “Trump can beat Biden! Yay Trump!” And I think this stems from a pre-2016 election mantra I heard often. “We need to elect Trump so we can keep Hillary out of office and define who will be on the SCOTUS bench,” people said. No one was saying “Trump’s economic and foreign affairs acumen is sublime.” Whatever happens from here on out, this is Trump’s last rodeo. The Republican Party specifically and Conservatism in general need to work out their respective identities. Trump is many things, but he is not an ideological leader. The Republicans haven’t had that since Reagan, and it’s not been morning in America for a long time.  

At present, the Republican Party is whatever Trump says it is. Once Trump is gone, they will need to figure out who they are again. 

What is the future of Nikki Haley?

            I originally believed she would stay in, but I also originally believed she would hold firm at about 40% of the GOP vote. Her defeat was so thorough I think she needs to say thanks, so long, farewell, and bow out. Even if something did come up legally or medically with Trump, the delegates are all MAGA and they would never choose Haley in a brokered convention. 

            The question is, does she leave with a warning as in, ‘I think you’ve made a grave mistake’ or does she leave with an endorsement. I personally can’t see her endorsing someone she spoken about so harshly, however, I present to you Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio as evidence politicians have no spines. 

            I suspect her political career is over.

Joe Shaw says:

First off: props to Haley for sticking around so long. She had the only true and possible path to victory out of any of the candidates. If the Republicans are going to start figuring out who they are post-Trump, they need a diverse set of ideologies to choose from. Haley was that for this election cycle. Unfortunately for Haley, all she succeeded in was proving that, in response to the question of whatever the Republicans will become, “Not Nikki Haley” seems to be the first and easiest answer. 

If there can be unity between her supporters and Trump’s supporters, Trump might gain some ground with moderates, but I don’t see him going that way. One of the biggest criticisms of Trump I’ve seen from conservatives is that he wasn’t strong enough in response to Fauci with COVID and with members of his administration that undermined his efforts. To reach toward the middle with a selection fo Haley for VP would be to make that same mistake, at least in the eyes of his most rabid supporters. 

I expect Haley to drop out of the race and become an answer to some of the more obscure questions in Trivial Pursuit 2025 edition

Is Joe Biden in trouble? 

            I actually tack differently on this. I think Joe Biden is in the best possible position he can be in. I present to you North Carolina. Obama carried it in 2008, but barely. Trump won it, narrowly, in 2020. I think we all can agree that there is more energy in the Republican primary this year than the Democratic primary, yet, in North Carolina, voter turnout was almost identical – 670,000 votes or so cast in both primaries. I think that tells me North Carolina is in play, and, if, only 5-8% of Haley’s voters are never Trumpers, then that is enough to move North Carolina blue.

            Much is made of Michigan’s ‘protest’ vote. I am selling that, completely. It is a protest in-house, so to speak, but I think Biden is in a strong position in Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. I could be wrong, but I don’t think so. The real battlegrounds are Arizona and Georgia, but if Biden carries the blue wall of the upper-Midwest and Carolina, he doesn’t need Arizona and Georgia. 

            I know what you’re saying – Biden has problems. Of course he does, every incumbent does. However, my argument is that given the tone of the nation, All Biden has to do is have a heart-beat and he can probably beat Trump. As evidence of this, I present the senate race in Pennsylvania where Fetterman, who was very very ill, still won statewide over a MAGA candidate. Biden will likely carry Pennsylvania again. 

Joe Shaw says:

TLDR: Yes. Very much so. 

Longer: Joe Biden is in trouble, but it’s trouble of his own making. The economy. The border. Foreign affairs snafus. That creeping feeling that he’s in decline. He has a lot to answer for this time around. Both candidates do, but Joe’s questions are more pressing. It will be interesting to see what happens. 

Will either make it to November?

            If I were a betting man, I would wager that at least one of them, I don’t know which one, will actually not make it to November. Biden has a look in his eyes that I’ve seen many times from people facing cognitive and medical situations. I’m looking forward to watching the State of the Union tomorrow night just to analyze that aspect of his wellbeing. Former President Trump is not much better. To me, he looks a little like someone who is having congestive heart failure. He’s always been puffy, but his color and puffiness seems a little more pronounced now. We may have a situation where it is literally ‘lasts man standing’. 

Joe Shaw says:

For the longest time, I’ve been expecting Joe Biden to drop out. When Jon Stewart came back to the Daily Show and, right out of the gate, attacked Biden due to his age and declining mental faculties, I thought, “Well, now that Jon Steward has said it, it’s cool to say it, and all the Democratic news outlets will start pushing for him to step down.” 

That largely hasn’t happened. Jon Stewart isn’t young and hip anymore (he’s 60), and the news outlets have, instead, chosen to focus on Trump’s alleged decline. So who knows? 

I could see someone convincing Biden to step down. His declining state is clearly the most egregious, but I don’t see that happening. Absent Obama finding a loophole and running for a third term, I don’t see anyone in the Democrat Party with enough OOMPH to seriously challenge Trump in the general. 

Trump is in it for the long haul. No one will tear him out of that role. He’d have to have a heart attack and actually die from it and, even then, I think he’d find a way to run. 

What about the Veep Situation?

            I think Biden is locked in with Harris, although there is likely some buyers remorse there. She has underperformed and underwhelmed. I had higher expectations from her. I don’t know how he could move away from her and not alienate some key constituencies. 

            Trump, however, that is fun to think about. Elise Stefanik wants it really, really, really badly. I think she would be a bad choice for him, but she does have that Dick Cheney bulldog mentality that Trump probably likes. Ramaswamy wants it badly too, but I think the MAGA people are nice to him but don’t really believe him. He doesn’t need DeSantis. 

            Need is interesting. In 2016, he needed Pence to validate him with evangelicals. He doesn’t need that any more as evangelicals mostly think of Trump as an anointed King David figure and already speak of him in messianic terms. Who does Trump need? 

            I have a wildcard theory: he may go after Arizona specifically and choose Kari Lake or . . . wait for it . . .Krysten Sinema. The margins are so close there that Sinema may actually move the needle his way. 

            I can see Tucker Carlson on the ticket as well. No one has been more loyal – in fact, any of those hosts over at FOXNEWS might show up as Veep. Trump loves a good television show, and that really is what we have now – MAGA so dominates the Republican party, it is not about what he needs or others want, it is all about what Donald Trump wants. It is totally his show. 

Joe Shaw says:

Biden sticks with Kamala. IF there’s going to be a change, it will be at the top. 

Trump, I think, will go with someone like Kristi Noem or Tim Scott. Personally, I’d like to see him pick J.D. Vance. But only because JD Vance is from Ohio. I’m from Ohio and I like it when hometown folks do well. 

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Thanks for reading everyone. Remember, we can disagree, but we are still friends, family, and Americans. If we are going to recover the ability to talk about hard issues together we’re going to have to remember to not demonize everyone who has different kinds of thoughts.