My Answers to Your Questions

On everything from how the midterms look to who the Democrats should nominate to why Trump can't run again

Thanks so much for all of your great questions. Let’s dig in.

Jeff Fisher, whom I’ve known but not seen enough of for 50 years (we were interns together in the Senate office of Adlai Stevenson III), wants to know what’s on the minds of many: Who should run for president on the Democratic side, and what will be the effect of all the gerrymandering on the midterms?

I’m interested in moderate governors like Andy Beshear of Kentucky, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, and possibly J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, who is throwing some heat lately, but would have to defend being a billionaire in a party that doesn’t like them. Gavin Newsom of California is running to the middle and may have the chops for it. Often, the slickest, best politician (e.g. Bill Clinton) wins. I’d like to see Rahm Emanuel run because he’s talking sense and would be good in the debate. I’m also interested in Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, who is sounding some sensible populist notes. I don’t see Ro Khanna and other so-called progressives (I say, “so-called” because I define progressivism more broadly than they do) getting much traction this time, though they are sounding more reasonable than they did in 2020. Much of the party now understands that to win, Democrats need to move to the center. In that sense, 2028 reminds me of 1976, when moderate Jimmy Carter beat a liberal field in the primaries with a reform message after Watergate.

Re the redistricting: Dems will pick up five seats in CA. Newsom’s ballot initiative is so far ahead that they’ve stopped taking donations. I think there’s a good chance that MAGA will lose one of their five new seats on the Rio Grande in Texas, where Trump’s immigration policy is no longer popular. (Hearing that your cousin got spread-eagled at Home Depot dampens enthusiasm to vote Republican). Republicans might might gerrymander three or four seats in Missouri, North Carolina, and other states, and Dems grab one or two. So, unless SCOTUS blows up the Voting Rights Act in the next four months, which is possible but unlikely, Dems will be in a strong position to win the House. If SCOTUS trashes the VRA in June (when the next decisions are usually announced), it will be after the primaries and thus too late to draw new maps with a bunch of new Republican districts. So I don’t think that will happen. This looks to me like a classic midterm election, where the party out of the White House picks up at least ten seats and often many more. There are only three first midterms in the last century where the president’s party has gained seats (1934, when the New Deal was super-popular; 1962, just after the Cuban Missile Crisis caused voters to rally around the flag; and 2002, in the wake of 9/11). 2026 will not be a fourth.

George Sheets asks: “Do you think that there is anything Trump could do or condone that would definitively and fatally fracture the MAGA GOP?”

Condone, no. He can say anything, and at least one-third of the country will stick with him. But if he is shown to have had sex with an underage girl at Epstein’s place, he’s in much deeper doo-doo than he dropped from that plane in the AI video.

Betsy de Parry, who has done so much for cancer survivors, asks: “Are you optimistic or pessimistic that democracy can and will survive Trump and his thugs, and why?”

Neither. But I am hopeful. Anyone who isn’t is playing into Trump’s hands. He wants his critics to be in the fetal position. We’ve never seen an evil man as president before — a man with contempt for the Constitution he swore to uphold. But our country has survived some terrible things, and our democracy will survive this. In the last half-century, more than 40 countries have moved from autocracies (or communist regimes) to democracies. We will eventually be rid of this wannabe strongman, though some of the damage he’s doing will take a while to fix. But the fixes can start right away. For instance, after Nixon wrecked the DOJ and corrupted the FBI, it took Gerald Ford’s new AG, Edward Levi, only a matter of months to restore the department. It will take longer this time, but not forever. Three years is a long time, but we’ll somehow muddle through until the repair job begins.

Jean Hanlon offers a great idea: Hire auditors to find Trump’s corruption.

This is something the House oversight process can do 14 months from now if the Democrats win control. But Jean’s call to prosecute Trump isn’t possible because SCOTUS last year, in one of the worst decisions ever, gave presidents immunity from prosecution, even after they leave office. That leaves impeachment, which I believe will happen after the election in late 2028. Dems will want a record of Trump’s extortion racket and other abuses of power, even if Republicans acquit him in the Senate.

Joseph Vincent, who has offered terrific comments on Old Goats stories over the years, writes: “Now that the cat is out of the bag, we all know that der Führer Adolf Trump is following the playbook written and performed by the players of the Third Reich (1933-1945).

Perhaps the finest analysis of the day-to-day events of that period is William L. Shirer’s stark eyewitness account Berlin Diary (1941). Not to be outdone by his earlier work, Shirer later authored a complete history of the Nazi regime in his acclaimed worldwide best-selling tome The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1960). These two incisive histories should be required reading for all progressive, truth-loving defenders of democracy who are alive in America during the reign of the MAGA autocracy.”

I wrote last year in American Reckoning that if Trump won, my book would read like Berlin Diary. As Mark Twain famously said, history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme. Joseph is right that we can learn something from the Nazi analogy as long as we don’t assume Trump’s demagoguery and assault on the Constitution will inevitably end in World War III and genocide.

Lea Sund asks: “Going back to What’s the Matter with Kansas — why do people keep voting against their interests?”

The short answer is that voters don’t just vote on their economic interests. They are also swayed by cultural issues. I will deal with this complex question more in a future Have at Me.

David Patchen asks if I’ve heard anything about the idea of boycotts in the wake of “No Kings.”

This is an excellent idea, and the millions who canceled their Disney+ subscriptions played a big role in keeping Jimmy Kimmel on the air. A Yale study showed that Elon Musk taking a chain saw to the government meant Tesla sold between 1.0 million and 1.2 million fewer cars so far this year, and EV competitors surged. So there’s great potential here, but it depends on the specifics. I hope clients avoid Paul Weiss and other law firms that bent the knee, and that the smartest law school students make it their business to learn which law firms capitulated and avoid them. A group of patriotic Georgetown Law students is helping with this.

Everyone should look for similar opportunities to show that Trump isn’t the only one with leverage. The Chinese learned that and messed him up good by restricting the export of rare earth minerals that are necessary for….basically everything. Trump quickly folded on his idiotic tariffs on Chinese goods.

Dave Friedman, who has done so much to build a community of former Newsweek people and preserve the legacy of a great magazine, wants to know what we’ll see after January 20, 2029.

I honestly believe we’ll have a Democratic president and a Democratic Congress go to work on restoring our country. That could be wishful thinking, but I doubt it.

Scotty Greene of the great state of Alabama asks: Comedian Marc Maron recently commented in his new special that “the left effectively annoyed a portion of society into supporting fascism.” Putting aside the tongue-in-cheek about a very serious topic, to what extent, if at all, do you believe excesses of the Left fed, caused, or contributed to the plain excesses of Trump and the MAGA right?

I would say that woke politics on the Left definitely contributed to the growth of MAGA. Let’s take the ridiculous ACLU questionnaire asking about sex change operations for illegal aliens in prison at taxpayer expense (I’m using MAGA language from its killer ad against Harris). Harris checked yes. That’s what you call a four-fer: four horrible issues for Democrats in one.

Judy P wants to know what can be done to stop Stephen Miller and Russell Vought from being “in charge of everything.”

The answer is to talk about them and their gross abuses as often as possible—everywhere. To friends, on social media, in Comments like this. Everywhere. Every American must be involved in accountability.

Cynthia Bishop wants to know about a Trump third term.

Rest easy. It’s not gonna happen, and not just because Trump is now saying he won’t run. That’s worth nothing, of course. But the plain fact is that Trump has zero chance of getting on the ballot in enough states to win. Ballot access is determined by the states, and even GOP judges won’t go for this flatly unconstitutional idea. Nor will SCOTUS. This is Trump and Steve Bannon trolling the left.

Carley asks how the Democratic Party can be reframed to meet the exigencies of 2025 and beyond.

This is a very complicated and important question, Carley. I write about it often on Old Goats and will be doing more on it in the future. The short answer is that it must be a pragmatic, moderate but still passionate party that addresses affordability and the other issues voters care about with a touch of responsible populism and a genuine effort to avoid woke virtue-signaling.

Tom Minet doesn’t think polarization will end in the short or medium term.

I agree,Tom.This is a long-term project. But after Trump, we might make more progress on it. A lot of people are sick of all the partisan finger-pointing.

Leigh Horne wants to know what I’m hearing about plans by blue state governors to counter moves by Trump & Co. to interfere with the elections next week and in 2026?

Nothing, Leigh. I’ll look into it.

Sandra Chamberlin, a talented sculptress from Montclair, NJ, worries that Trump‘s ICE army is on its way to building a loyal group of military-style warriors to carry out his worst instincts.

This is one of the biggest problems we face, and I won’t sugarcoat it. But people are fighting back—with cell phone videos and in court. One lesson of history is that when autocrats shoot people or beat them up in the streets, it doesn’t go well for them. Trump’s best issue had been immigration, but he’s now underwater in the polls on what ICE is doing. That won’t stop them, but it’s good to know that resistance is well underway and the public is on the right side.

Looking forward to doing this again soon!

Jon