For the President, Things Are Starting to Move in the Right Direction

And the wrong direction for Donald Trump

There are still 227 days until election day, and anything could theoretically happen between now and then. The odds, however, are that nothing major will happen. It will simply be another election between Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

Here’s the good news: Since Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, things have started to move in the right direction for the President and the wrong direction for Donald Trump. For instance, the polling, which still doesn’t matter this early, has improved for Biden—he has led in five different polls since the State of the Union, and he has maintained a one-point lead in the average of polls over the last two weeks, according to The Economist.

Again, this early, it doesn’t mean a lot, and the polls are not of swing states, but it’s also OK to take some small comfort in it. There are a few other data points that continue to work against Trump. On Tuesday, for instance, many people who went to the polls in Republican primaries decided against voting for Trump, even though he’s the only GOP candidate who remains in the race. Voters in the Democratic primaries were far more united behind Biden.

While the indictments against Trump early on seemed to galvanize his supporters, news headlines about his inability to pay a $464 million bond certainly can’t help. The fact that Trump is melting down about it probably doesn’t help much, either. If Letitia James is able to start seizing his assets on Monday, that meltdown might be tame compared to how Trump will react if James sells Trump Tower.

Trump’s financial situation is not helping his fundraising numbers, either. Why? Because donors — both big and small — know that any money they give to Trump right now is going straight to his legal bills instead of his campaign. With Trump taking over the RNC, donors may be hesitant to donate there, too, since that money may be funneled over to Trump’s legal bills, as well. It’s led to a fairly significant financial advantage for Biden.

It has not really caught on outside of liberal media, but John Gartner — a psychologist and former professor at Johns Hopkins University Medical School — has been convincing in his assessment that the evidence of Trump’s cognitive decline is “overwhelming” (and there is increasingly more video evidence to support it).

“Not enough people are sounding the alarm, that based on his behavior, and in my opinion, Donald Trump is dangerously demented. In fact, we are seeing the opposite among too many in the news media, the political leaders and among the public. There is also this focus on Biden's gaffes or other things that are well within the normal limits of aging. By comparison, Trump appears to be showing gross signs of dementia. This is a tale of two brains. Biden's brain is aging. Trump's brain is dementing.”

Finally, the situation in Gaza is not improving. However, the protests and the uncommitted votes have worked as intended: They got Biden’s attention. While staying loyal to Israel’s right to exist, he’s moving away from Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli government. Chuck Schumer’s speech was helpful, too, because it reflected the feelings of most American Jews, namely that Netanyahu has got to go and that a ceasefire, a two-state solution, and lasting peace will not happen unless Israel dumps him.

Netanyahu, like Trump, is not personally a particularly conservative person. He has cynically consolidated behind the far-right political parties in Israel. Now that Schumer has blasted Netanyahu, Bibi is now appealing to the far right in America, too. Netanyahu met with Republican Senators yesterday, criticized Schumer, and appealed to them for additional aid so that he could fund an invasion of Rafah, to which Biden objects.

I don’t know how progressives feel about Netanyahu cozying up to Republican Senators, but it only further alienates Bibi from most mainstream American Jews. And look: Even Ilhan Omar — arguably Biden’s biggest critic among Congressional Democrats — admitted that she will vote for Biden in November despite their difference.

“Democracy is on the line, we are facing down fascism. And I personally know what my life felt like having Trump as the president of this country, and I know what it felt like for my constituents, and for people around this country and around the world,” Omar told CNN a few days ago. “We have to do everything that we can to make sure that does not happen to our country again.”

Amen.

It’s going to be a squeaker in November, but with eight months to go, it’s at least nice to see that things are starting to break in Biden’s favor. Hopefully, that will continue for the rest of the campaign.