“In the End, the Election Wasn’t Even Close” New York Times, Nov. 20, 2024

Election Analysis

….by that time, Trump had become completely unhinged. When President Biden announced that he was stepping aside in favor of Vice-President Kamala Harris, Trump realized that the “great takedown,” (his advisors’ term for Trump’s performance at the debate) might not have been a victory at all. That became clearer in the days leading up to the Democratic National Convention as Harris raised a record amount of money and Trump’s supporters in Congress concluded that they had blundered in convincing Trump to make Vance his choice for Vice-President. It was too late to do anything about that; Trump was not the kind of man to admit, even to himself, that he had made a mistake; although after the debacle at the vice-presidential debate, he conceded that Vance could have done a better job.

By the end of September, Trump’s speeches had become increasingly, homophobic, misogynistic, and racist. His white nationalist supporters claimed that Trump’s fall in the polls was due to “Jewish control of the media” and that the hundreds of millions of dollars that Harris had raised came from “Jewish bankers.”

Although many rank-and-file members of the House were true believers, and like the voters who elected them, convinced that Trump’s reelection was the only way to stop the left-wing Democrats from turning America into a communist dictatorship, Trump’s support among the leadership in the House and Senate was always transactional. They were willing to tolerate anything Trump did (even his attempted coup on Jan. 6, 2020) so long as his leadership at the head of the party maintained their own power. But once they realized that their continued association with Trump would doom them as well, they became silent witnesses to history. By mid-October, Speaker Johnson no longer returned Trump’s calls.

Even Fox, Trump’s greatest enabler, turned against him. They couldn’t deny their previous support for Trump, but that was the MAGA Trump. The man running for office had become the Slow Covid Trump….