Don’t lose the plot

| 7:00 pm EDT July 8, 2022
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I keep seeing the narrative that keeping Donald Trump out of office has to be our nation’s number one political priority. Some of this is coming from a ratings-hungry mainstream media, and some of it is coming from presumably well-meaning political activists. But I’m here to tell you that it’s really, really, really bad advice.

For one thing, Trump isn’t running for anything in 2022. We’re just a few months from a historic midterm election whose outcome will frame everything when it comes to 2024. So even before getting to the reality that Trump is far more likely to be in a prison cell by 2024 than a presidential race, the 2022 midterms are currently infinitely more important than the 2024 election, because the 2022 midterms are happening now and 2024 is way down the road.

Further, there’s nothing anyone can do about 2024 right now. Trump can’t do anything, other than flip flop about whether to launch a formal faux-campaign now and open himself up to campaign finance scrutiny, or continue merely hinting he might run so he can keep fundraising money and pocketing it. Trump absolutely 100% cannot somehow magically keep himself from being indicted by announcing a 2024 campaign. In terms of being prosecuted he’s a sitting duck.

Nor is there much that we can do about 2024 right now. We don’t know if President Biden will seek reelection. If he does, then by 2024, the things he’s currently being knocked for – such as gas prices and inflation – will have certainly resolved themselves. And if Biden doesn’t run, we’ll be looking at a crowded Democratic field that will sort itself out as the primary goes on, as these things tend to do. There is literally no point in even thinking about any of that stuff before we get to the midterms, unless you’re looking for an excuse to lazily not have to put in any work on the midterms.

For that matter, if the Supreme Court does follow through on the vague hint that it might try to make it harder for us to win the 2024 election, then the only way to push back against that is to help the Democrats expand their majority in the midterms, so that they can reform the Supreme Court and codify voting rights.

So no, nothing about 2024 is a priority right now. Donald Trump is a sitting duck who’s being targeted by prosecutors on all sides, and he can’t do anything about it. Nor can we accomplish anything about 2024 right now by speculating or fretting about it. But we can make a huge difference by putting in the work these next few months and winning the 2022 midterms. That is our nation’s number one political priority right now. Any discussion about 2024 is just a distraction from what we need to be focusing on.