The Democrats' opening moves in the 2024 presidential election remind me of a funny story about a man bursting into a doctor’s office.  “Doc!” he shouts, “I think I’ve broken my arm in three places!”   The doctor looks up from his crossword puzzle and says, “Avoid those places.”  

Joe Biden’s regime has broken America in many places.  Rather than fix the problems they created, the Democrats are telling America to avoid “those places.” 

Where are those places?  Anything related to the Biden crime family is one such place. Another is how, under Joe Biden and the Democrat party, personal income has dropped, inflation is at a forty-year high, and the middle class is slipping into poverty.  Yet another is how defunding the police, the homeless, and open borders have created a nationwide crime wave.  In Philadelphia, kids step over the dead to go to school, and fast food joints require armed security. Chicago is now more dangerous than Afghanistan during the war, and piracy is now a thing in California.  (Yes, you read that right. California has a pirate problem).   

Unwilling to fix the problems they’ve created, Team Biden has fallen back on denial, spin, and outright lies.  Joe Biden claims to have done more to secure the border than any other President.  Biden claims he cut the national debt by $1.7 trillion when he increased it by 3.7 trillion dollars. Government agencies hype fake numbers for economic growth only to revise them downward when the feds think no one is looking. 

The Democrats can’t change Biden’s record, but they can change the topic of conversation.  This is why the Democrats have begun the 2024 election by slapping Donald Trump with 91 criminal indictments.  Time spent before the trials arguing over Trump’s legal status is time not spent discussing “those places.”  Time spent by Trump in court is time not spent campaigning.  But the real damage comes when Trump is found guilty.  Polls show much of Trump’s support evaporating if convicted. 

What are the odds of this happening?  Trump must win 91 times to clear his name.  The people of the lie only need to win once.  The odds of dealing with this are looking pretty good.

The wild card in the Democrat response is how Republicans will respond.  Never-Trumpers will argue that we can skip the legal shenanigans by nominating someone other than Donald Trump. This line of reasoning gives mediocrity a bad name.  Trump’s trials aren’t about justice.  The trials are about controlling the political narrative.  The media hype will happen regardless of who the Republicans nominate.  What else can the Democrats do, run on their record? 

This is not to say Trump should be the nominee.  That decision will be made by the Republican rank and file in due course.  But if the Republicans are serious about winning the party’s leadership needs a way to keep the media hype over Trump’s trial from shutting down all other conversations. 

So, what can Republicans do?  The best defense is a good offense.  Convince Americans that the Trump trials are a cruel abuse of power, and Republicans need not fear a hundred convictions.  Such delegitimization is already happening.  Republicans need only fan the flames a bit, and the Democrats efforts at controlling the narrative will burn to the ground.

Once the legal shenanigans are dealt with, Republicans will be free to move the political conversation back to “those places.”  This shouldn’t be difficult.  All the Republicans really need to do is ask America if she is better off today than she was four years ago. 

To ask the question is to know the answer, but to ask the question requires breaking through a wall of hype.  Can the Republicans break through the wall, or will the Democrats successfully avoid “those places?”

Image: Gage Skidmore, via Flickr // CC BY-SA 2.0