WHY HAS DONALD TRUMP REMAINED POPULAR?

This from the Florida Times-Union examining the popularity of Donald Trump:

Trump reflects a populist revolt against the establishment.
There is a vacuum at the top of the party.
Trump is a media creation.
Trump is quotable to a fault and has managed to make himself the story of the week without any apparent negative effects in Republican primary polls.
A national poll conducted by the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and reported in Politico found two common traits among Trump supporters: authoritarianism and a fear of terrorism.
Polls conducted by the Pew Research Center show a continuing and building sense of anger.
Stress on the middle class is real.

The above editorial was published on 8 February 2016!!!

It has been almost eight years since the above was written. Since then, the following has occurred:

Was a terrible and dangerous President.
Attempted a bold coup on 6 January 2021 that failed, where people were killed in an attack on the U.S. Capitol, with 632 defendants pleading guilty, while another 110 defendants have been convicted at trial. A total of 586 defendants have been sentenced as of July 2023.

He has already lost to E. Jean Carrol, where a Manhattan jury ordered him to pay $5 million in damages. He insulted her again, and the next trial for more money will be on 15 January 2024.
He chose not to testify today in his New York civil fraud trial, where a judge determined decision will most probably ruin him financially some time early next year.

Trump has been charged in four criminal cases.

For the first 234 years of our nation's history, no American president or former president had ever been indicted,
Over a five-month span, Trump was charged in four criminal cases, these are in addition to the above verdicts and trials.

Washington, D.C.: four felony counts for trying to overturn the 2020 election.
Georgia: 13 felony counts for election interference. for which he is already indirectly being tried in Georgia, where four of 18 defendants, three lawyers and a bail bondsman, pleaded guilty to abetting a conspiracy to subvert the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.
New York: 34 felony counts in connection with hush money payments to a porn star.
Florida: 40 felony counts for hoarding classified documents after he left office, plus impeding their retrieval.

So how is Donald Trump doing today?

The latest poll from likely Iowa caucusgoers in the first Republican presidential nomination contest.

Donald Trump 51% (was 43% in October of 2023).
Ron DeSantis 19%.
Nikki Haley 16%.
This is the largest Republican lead ever, fueled by evangelicals and first-timers.
Three quarters of Republicans believe Trump can defeat President Joe Biden next year.

A recent Wall Street Journal poll about the 5 November 2024 presidential election.

Donald Trump 47%.
Joe Biden 43%.

HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE? WHAT IS WRONG WITH AMERICA?

Let the above stew a bit, but I'll later this week try to explain what has happened. Is Joe Biden in big trouble? Maybe, but could, possibly, wise Democratic plotters actually be quietly thrilled by all the above. Has Donald Trump and Republicans fallen into a well-planned trap, but can't do anything about it?

In the meantime, Special Counsel Jack Smith has undercut Trump by today asking the Supreme Court to take up and rule quickly on whether Trump can be prosecuted on charges he plotted to overturn the 2020 election results. Smith is attempting to bypass the appeals court with this filing to keep his 24 March 2024 trial date on track.

I can't open the week just with the above. Let me end with Russian comic Yakov Smirnoff. Start with his Only in America. Oh heck, also watch Part 2. Looks different, but here is one of his 15-minute stand up comic videos.

Saturday Night Live this weekend had Adam Driver and Olivia Rodrigo. Here is the full hour. Did you know she is only 20 years old? He? 40.

A NEXT COVID SUBVARIANT?

By now most know that the Omicron BA.5 subvariant has become the dominant infectious agent, now accounting for more than 80% of all COVID-19 cases. Very few are aware that a new one, BA.4.6, is sneaking in and steadily rising, now accounting for 13% of sequenced samples . However, as BA.4.6 has emerged from BA.4, while there is uncertainty, the scientific sense is that the latest bivalent booster targeting BA.4 and BA.5 should also be effective for this next threat. One concern is that Evusheld--the only monoclonal antibody authorized for COVID prevention in immunocompromised individuals--is not effective against BA.4.6. Here is a reference as to what this means. A series of two injections is involved. Evusheld was developed by British-Swedish company AstraZeneca, and is a t ixagevimab co-packaged with cilgavimab . More recently, Los Angeles County reported on subvariant BA.2.75.2 . which Tony Fauci termed suspicio...

Part 3: OUR NEXT AROUND THE WORLD ODYSSEY

Before I get into my third, and final, part of this cruise series, let me start with some more newsworthy topics. Thursday was my pandemic day for years. Thus, every so often I return to bring you up to date on the latest developments. All these subvariants derived from that Omicron variant, and each quickly became dominant, with slightly different symptoms. One of these will shock you. There has been a significant decline in the lost of taste and smell. From two-thirds of early patients to now only 10-20% show these symptoms. JN.1, now the dominant subvariant, results in mostly mild symptoms. However, once JN.1 infects some, there seem to be longer-lasting symptoms. Clearly, the latest booster helps prevent contracting Covid. A competing subvariant, BA.2.86, also known as Pirola , a month ago made a run, but JN.1 prevailed. No variant in particular, but research has shown that some of you will begin to lose hair for...

HONOLULU TO SEATTLE

The story of the day is Hurricane Milton, now a Category 4 at 145 MPH, with a track that has moved further south and the eye projected to make landfall just south of Sarasota. Good news for Tampa, which is 73 miles north. Milton will crash into Florida as a Category 4, and is huge, so a lot of problems can still be expected in Tampa Bay with storm surge. If the eye had crossed into the state just north of Tampa, the damage would have been catastrophic. Milton is a fast-moving storm, currently at 17 MPH, so as bad as the rainfall will be over Florida, again, a blessing. The eye will make landfall around 10PM EDT today, and will move into the Atlantic Ocean north of Palm Bay Thursday morning. My first trip to Seattle was in June of 1962 just after I graduated from Stanford University. Caught a bus. Was called the Century 21 Exposition . Also the Seattle World's Fair. 10 million joined me on a six-month run. My first. These a...

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