I wondered where all the Trump signs and flags around Annapolis had gone this summer. Now I know.
Route 50 between the Bay Bridge and Ocean City is peppered with them. The new ones, “Trump Vance 2024,” are next to the classics, “Trump: Make America Great Again.” They’re in front of businesses and homes, stabbed into the edge of soybean fields and hanging from at least one very tall crane.
Voters who smile in quiet agreement as they drive past those signs are likely to watch the debate at 9 p.m. Tuesday on ABC, cast as the only meeting of Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump before the race for the White House is decided.
What plays out could be great for Republicans, or it could be one of five nightmares likely to keep them and other right-of-center voters awake at night until after Inauguration Day.
Yes. He’s the stuff of fitful nights, even for those who vote for him.
There is no “Make America Great Again” movement without generalissimo chaos, Donald John Trump. But waiting for the outcome when you bet the house on a whirlwind is stressful.
Democrats had their fingers crossed when President Joe Biden walked onto that debate stage with Trump in June. It didn’t go for Scranton Joe. The outcome was Biden sitting on a beach in Delaware and Harris leading a rejuvenated Democratic ticket drawing huge crowds and setting fundraising records. It’s been one of the most tumultuous summers in American political history.
Republican voters hope their three-time nominee will bring his norm-busting, billionaire bravado to Philadelphia. Policy details that make sense? Nah. Not important to most Republican voters.
Harris is considered a great debater while Trump, well, he’s coming off summer sounding like the 78-year-old man who suffered a brush with death that he is. He sounds incoherent in speeches and interviews — even with friendly news media, and even given our rueful acceptance of his rambling speaking style.
“I do the weave. You know what the weave is? I’ll talk about, like, nine different things that they all come back brilliantly together. And it’s like friends of mine that are like English professors, they say: ‘It’s the most brilliant thing I’ve ever seen,’” he said Saturday in Pennsylvania.
A Republican nightmare is that Trump suffers Biden’s fate, doomed by his verbal decline. There’s just no reset as the Democrats got with Harris.
If the former president wins in November, the folks who put up the “Dorchester is Trump Country” sign will be cheering.
Maybe not for long. Consider immigration and Trump’s promise of mass deportations. Rural communities like the Eastern Shore are likely to feel the pain of any mass immigrant roundup first. Elected sheriffs infected with MAGA fever could step forward to run detention camps. And, agriculture would be vulnerable to losing its workforce.
If Trump loses, the Republican nightmare is a war for MAGA leadership.
It’s anyone’s guess who wins. Maryland has a single MAGA player, and what happens to conservative U.S. Rep. Andy Harris in a post-Trump scramble would shake up the state party, too.
No one wants another shooting.
Why is it that every time there’s a tragedy involving guns, some Republican somewhere decides to say something that draws attention to the party’s indefensible record?
I’m not surprised that Trump’s running mate, U.S. Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, said something stupid. He’s on a streak for that caliber of comment. When a troubled 14-year-old in Georgia is accused of using an assault-style rifle to kill two fellow students and two teachers, though, who thinks it’s a good time to say school shootings are a fact of life?
“I don’t like this. I don’t like to admit this. I don’t like that this is a fact of life. But if you’re, if you are a psycho and you want to make headlines, you realize that our schools are soft targets, and we have got to bolster security at our schools,” Vance said Thursday.
Metal detectors, armed officers, active shooter drills. What’s left?
And psycho? So much for putting more resources into mental health care.
I’m not surprised that former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan used another school shooting to sound tough on crime in his race for the U.S. Senate.
A 16-year-old was charged in the shooting of a student at a Harford County school last week. The Republican candidate went on X to lament a law passed over his veto that gave additional protections to children suspected of crimes.
“The law should never hinder law enforcement’s ability to do its job and bring violent offenders to justice,” he wrote. “But the legislature jammed through this dangerous and completely misguided bill over my veto. Their actions protect criminals and put our communities in danger.”
Except, of course, it didn’t. The police arrested the teenager and charged him with murder.
Hogan’s comments are a reminder of his mixed record on gun safety measures.
Democrats had to override his veto of a measure requiring background checks for private sales of shotguns and rifles. He signed a law requiring school resource officers in every school.
Hogan wouldn’t sign a ghost gun ban proposed by the late House Speaker Mike Busch, only allowing it to become law without his signature. He did sign a ban on the sale of bump stocks and a red flag law that gives judges the power to take away someone’s gun if they pose a risk to themselves or others.
School shootings are a nightmare for everyone. Dumb comments about guns are particularly a Republican one.
Thoughts and prayers.
If Hogan were to win the Senate, he would get six more years as a leader of a Maryland Republican Party that widely reviles him for his sane leadership during the COVID pandemic.
Here’s what that would look like. Members of Congress affect their state by supporting young leaders in local government or political activism. Hogan was never much of a team builder as governor, but he would recognize his legacy is linked to guiding the state GOP back toward moderation.
It’s a recipe for conflict with the Andy Harris-led faction that dominates the party.
If Hogan loses to Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks, the Democratic nominee, the nightmare is that Republicans are stuck. Doomed to fringe status under leaders from rural parts of the state, unable to overcome the Democratic advantage in the center of it.
Gov. Wes Moore, despite the whole Bronze Star scandal, remains a well-liked political figure in Maryland.
The Democratic governor will spend some of that capital for Kamala Harris with trips to battleground states such as Pennsylvania. He was there Monday.
Republicans should worry how much will go to the race between Alsobrooks and Hogan.
An ad highlighting Hogan’s opposition to abortion is running online, paid for by Unity First PAC, the governor’s political action committee. Keeping Democratic control of the Senate to block a national abortion ban supported by Trump — maybe, his position keeps changing — is a significant theme of the race, and Hogan is vulnerable on it.
Moore has campaigned with Alsobrooks. She leads Hogan in the latest polling, having gained a bump from her speech at the Democratic National Committee.
Republicans should fret about Moore weighing in more forcefully for her.
If Trump manages to win again because of the Republican advantage in the Electoral College, Democrats could still take the House with a pro-Harris wave of enthusiasm that drives the popular vote.
U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin would then become chair of the House Oversight Committee. It has been an arena for gladiatorial TikTok battles and partisan fishing expeditions under the current Republican chairman, James Comer of Kentucky.
Republicans know that it would be more serious and focused under Raskin. Just how partisan should give Republicans nightmares even long after Inauguration Day.
