Like many of you, no doubt, I’ve been following the wide-ranging debate about the domestic political implications of the British terrorist bust of last week. It has come as no surprise, of course, that Republicans and their conservative allies have seized on the foiled plot to claim, for the thousandth time, that it shows how important it is to have a party focused on national security in charge in Washington, even if the consequences of its Iraq policies are looking more disastrous every single day. (The GOP’s comcomitant campaign on the theme that Joe Lieberman’s loss in Connecticut proves there’s only one party committed to fighting terrorism, absurd as it is, is Part B of its longstanding implicit argument that however much Bush is screwing up, he’s screwing up with the right intentions). But I do wonder if the revelation of an advanced plot to replicate 9/11 on a large scale isn’t going to unravel the whole line of “reasoning” that has reinforced the persistant gap between public feelings about Bush’s performance in Iraq, and the GOP’s general reliability on national security. We’re all familiar with the “flypaper” theory, so often articulated by Bush himself, that whatever else is going on in Iraq, the insurgency there is drawing jihadist attention and resources away from attacks on the U.S. (“We can fight them here or we can fight them there,” as Bush routinely says). And I personally think this factually crazy contention has been far more important to Bush and the GOP than most of us would like to accept. Back during the last presidential campaign, I became convinced, mainly through conversations with undecided voters back home in Georgia who would up voting for Bush’s re-election, that the most powerful thing the incumbent had going for him was a rough and unsophisticated argument that went like this: Some Arabs came here and killed a bunch of Americans. George Bush went over to Iraq and killed even more Arabs. Since then there have been no attacks. He must be doing something right.Anything and everything that reminds Americans that the Iraq War has not done a thing to reduce the terrorist threat against the United States will erode that argument, and with it, the GOP’s belief that any and all concerns about national security will benefit it at the ballot box. To the extent that clearly focusing on what they would do to deal with the actual terrorist threat undermines both parts of the Republican argument, while connecting public unhappiness with Iraq with residual concerns about terrorism, Democrats should hammer away on this subject every day. This administration has been a national security disaster. The “flypaper” has worn out, leaving us with a horrific mess in Iraq, an energized and growing jihadist threat, and a country more exposed than ever to terrorism. It’s time for a dramatically new direction.
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Editor’s Corner
By Ed Kilgore
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July 18: At Root of Epstein Crisis Is MAGA Thirst For Democratic Blood
Any Democrats who are chortling and popping popcorn at the intra-MAGA blowup over the ghost of Jeffrey Epstein should be aware that what MAGA really wants is a witch-hunt against Democrats that Trump may well give them, as I explained at New York:
Observers seeking to understand the intense furor that has swept the right in the wake of Donald Trump’s efforts to dismiss the “Epstein files” are now wondering if millions of people really do believe Epstein was at the center of a global cabal of pedophile elitists and that the “files” the federal government collected about him were a sort of Rosetta Stone for understanding a host of political and cultural evils.
But in MAGA-world, you don’t have to be a full-on rabbit-hole dweller who buys into the more cosmic interpretations of Epstein’s significance to be bitterly disappointed by Trump’s “nothing to see here” dismissal of a long-awaited moment when the veil hiding the many crimes of the opposition would begin to lift. Perhaps for many, the files were just an appetizer for the revelations that would bring the heavy hand of justice down on the many devils of the MAGA imagination.
The underlying reality is that for all of Trump’s audacious actions since taking office, he has failed, so far, to fully undertake the campaign of retribution he promised his supporters again and again and again on the campaign trail. The Bidens are at liberty. So are the Obamas and the Clintons. So are the members of the January 6 committee. So are the prosecutors in New York and Washington and Atlanta that persecuted Trump personally. Not a single “enemy of the people” journalist has been jailed (though some have been silenced by their employers or intimidated by Trump and his lawyers).
Now, perhaps those who go too far in taking Trump “seriously but not literally” figured all these threats were just political theater. But his most avid supporters heard them many times, as Politico’s Ankush Khardori observed at the height of the 2024 campaign:
“In the most volatile presidential campaign of the last 50 years, one thing has remained remarkably constant: Donald Trump’s stated intention to prosecute a wide swath of his opponents if he wins the White House.
“The list of targets has been growing for years. It includes an array of Trump’s political and legal antagonists — real or perceived — ranging from President Joe Biden and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to Anthony Fauci, the members of the Jan. 6 committee and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Just a few weeks ago, Trump put hundreds — maybe thousands — more of his political opponents in his prosecutorial crosshairs by threatening unnamed Democratic lawyers, political operatives, donors, voters and election officials.
“Trump has talked about his plan for a prosecutorial revenge tour in public speeches, press interviews and a litany of social media posts. It is subtly embedded in the official Republican Party platform, which proposes to ‘hold accountable those who have misused the power of Government to unjustly prosecute their Political Opponents.'”
And it’s not just a matter of Trump holding grudges against those who allegedly “weaponized government” against him. Throughout his political career, but most intensively during his last campaign, Trump has not just promised to “make American great again.” He’s promised to punish those who ruined the country before he came on the scene to redeem it. So naturally, MAGA folk are dissatisfied at his accomplishments so far. Yes, it’s wonderful to see the federal government undertake the mass deportation of immigrants. But in a conspiracy theory fully and formally embraced by Trump, his campaign, and increasingly his party, they were told repeatedly that the people running and supporting the Biden administration had deliberately and with criminal intent “opened the borders” in order to enroll millions of aliens as illegal voters to perpetuate their disastrous regime. Are these traitors to escape any reckoning for their crimes?
This may be the fear underlying the angst over Epstein. Trump had given them every reason to believe the “files” might be a Pandora’s box that could begin the “retribution tour” with a bang. Now the claim they are a nothing-burger must feel to many MAGA activists like conquering the enemy castle only to find that the evil king’s treasure chest is empty.
That’s why the most likely way out of the political trap Trump has laid for himself is to scratch the itch that underlies the Epstein furor. Yes, he needs a distraction to change the subject. But for his base, the best distraction would be some investigations, arrests, perp walks, show trials, and consequences for the terrible villains who wrecked the country for so long. If you’ve ever been on a Trump “enemies list,” it would be a good time to hunker down and lawyer up. Trump needs some heads on pikes, some trophies for his base. And he needs them now.