by Roger Kimball
Donald Trump, despite the many plot twists he has been central to, is the overwhelming favorite to win the presidency in 2024.
Aficionados of old-style mystery novels savor the skill with which their authors ravel and then unravel the plot twists that fuel their books. The simple rule that the culprit is generally the least likely person can be spun out in so many different ways. A large part of the pleasure afforded by the genre is in trying to unscramble the puzzle that the writer has constructed for us. Agatha Christie was a great master of the clever plot twist, as readers of Who Killed Roger Ackroyd? (to take just one example) will know.
True, the magic is not universally effective. The critic Edmund Wilson, for example, hated mystery novels, as he explains in his essay “Who Cares Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?” and elsewhere. But, to adapt Lincoln, for those who like that sort of thing (and I include myself in that group), Christie offers the sort of thing one likes.
Padding about London for the last week or so, I have been struck by the sense of impending plot twists. There are some local entertainments. Most of those are offered by Keir Starmer, the new, well-groomed, neo-Socialist Prime Minister.
As with the left-wing National Front in the recent election in France, Starmer’s Labor Party did not actually get a very large percentage of the vote. But because of the first-past-the-post proportional scheme that both Great Britain and France employ, he enjoys a huge majority in the Commons. Among the plot twists Starmer has in mind are nationalizing the railroads, abolishing the hereditary peerage, raising taxes, and, in general, making government bigger in order to serve the government.
Starmer is also a conspicuous friend of the EU, which is another way of saying that he is a Brexit skeptic. Opinions differ on what he will be able to do about Brexit. Most people I have spoken with, including a few EU enthusiasts, believe that, on that score at least, his influence will be modest. Indeed, many people see the next five years as a sort of penance enacted by Tory incompetence on the country. The optimists believe that when the next election rolls around, the Tories will roll back into office and straighten out the mess Labor will inevitably leave in its wake.
I am not so sure, not least because England is rapidly becoming a Muslim country, replete with demands for Sharia courts and all that follows. My own hope is that Nigel Farage or some kindred spirit who succeeds will introduce his own, more salubrious plot twist and save Britain for the British.
I hope, but I am not holding my breath.
The news from home has been full of plot twists.
Contemplate, if your constitution is up to it, the spectacle of Joe Biden, the first certifiably senile leader of the soi-disant free world.
Some commentators have suggested that Biden went to his home in Rehoboth, New Jersey, not to recover from COVID, as the official line would have it, but to prepare himself for his political ostracism. Some say it will happen as soon as this weekend.
The volume and size of the democratic chorus calling for Biden to withdraw have been growing. Senator Chuck Schumer, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Madame-Tussaud stand-in Nancy Pelosi—these and other top Democrats have called on Biden to “preserve his legacy” and resign.
No one knows what plot twists await us in the unraveling of Joe Biden. Even as cries for his departure grow, his own communications indicate a resolve to carry on. It’s not even clear, short of invoking the 25th Amendment, exactly how the Dems could engineer Biden’s political defenestration.
The biggest plot twist waiting in the wings where Joe is strutting and fretting his hour upon the stage is carried by no one named Biden, not even dear old son Hunter, but Madam Vice President, person-of-color Kamala Harris. Everyone knows that Harries could not win against Donald Trump (or even against Donald Duck). But no one I have seen has put forward a plausible plan to replace Harris in the unlikely event that Biden exits stage left.
Of course, the biggest plot twist of the last couple of weeks was the attempted assassination of Donald Trump last weekend at his rally in Butler, PA.
Thomas Matthew Crooks managed to get off six shots before being taken out by a sniper in Trump’s security detail. He killed one innocent rallygoer and seriously injured two others. The shot that mattered, the shot “heard round the world,” was the one that grazed Donald Trump’s right ear, delivering him the campaign’s historic photograph and changing the fundamental metabolism of American politics.
What plot twists followed? There was Trump’s extraordinary speech at the Republican National Convention.
Other twists are unfolding before us. One was articulated by the most intelligent and politically wily Democratic pollster, Doug Schoen. Writing in FoxNews about the former president’s speech, Schoen noted that Trump “may well have sealed the outcome of the 2024 election with a performance . . . that has largely been unmatched in recent American political history.”
The former president eschewed the polarization and division that has marked much of his rhetoric in the past. In his speech officially accepting the Republican Party’s nomination there were only a couple of references to the 2020 election. Trump was able to hit on key messages when speaking about topics like inflation, and especially immigration, in ways that were compelling and arguably responsive to the fundamental concerns of Americans.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Eight months ago, many pundits had written off Trump. But here he is, leading everywhere in the polls. Schoen is not, as he notes, a Trump partisan. On the contrary. But he is a partisan of reality. And the reality is that Trump is on the cusp of a historic victory. The election is just over three months away. One can imagine plot twists that result in a Trump loss. But probability—the “very guide of life,” as Bishop Butler put it—suggests that Schoen is right. Donald Trump, despite the many plot twists he has been central to, is the overwhelming favorite to win the presidency in 2024.
Roger Kimball
Source: https://amgreatness.com/2024/07/21/plot-twists-and-power-plays-the-changing-face-of-global-politics/
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