Jake Tapper and Dana Bash of CNN will moderate the presidential debate today, Thursday 6/27/24 at 6PM Pacific time.

No less a figure than the MAGA Extraordinaire, Marjorie Taylor Greene who wrote on X, “Dana Bash’s husband is one of the 51 spies who in 2020 lied by signing his name to the intel community letter claiming Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian disinformation,” and “Jake Tapper hates Trump so much and has called him Hitler.”

So, why the Republicans agreed to the debate and the choice of Tapper and Bash of CNN, a bastion of “woke” according to MAGA, as the moderators?

A brand-new star of MAGA politics opined on Fox News that “Biden’s debate-prep artifice is as fake as his presidency: projecting an artificial projection of a leader who is nothing more than a puppet for the managerial class that controls him”. So true if you replace “Biden” with “Trump”.

The same also said that “Donald Trump has already won the debate” by just showing up.

Setting aside this wisdom for now, there could be a chance, despite being aided by AI, that the former president would repeat his erratic meandering speech as he did in recent rallies. And if that happened during the debate, the independent or undecided voters would realize that the former president’s antics, name calling, etc. were no longer amusing or entertaining but unserious, and would vote for the Democratic ticket.

So, why do the Republicans take the risk?

One of the possible answers is that they WANT him to lose.

JOHN P. LE PHONG, ESQ.

A lot of talk in the media and in the Biden campaign circle that the former president is incoherent in delivering his speeches. It sounds bizarre but it may be, albeit unusual, a possibly effective campaign strategy.

According to The Nation, the 45th president delivered a speech in a 105-degree outdoor in Las Vegas meandering from sharks to boats to batteries that his audience did not know what he was talking about. His detractors conclude that he was incoherent and thus incompetent to govern. They hope the voters can see that and not vote for him coming November 2024.

A case can be made that it has been the Republican strategy all along.

The former president has always conducted himself in a haughty manner. Whether it is his nature or acting, he has treated everybody with disdain as if he were a Kaiser or a Windsor (unlikely, as it would be unimaginable for Mr. Trump to walk with his hands behind his back). That is the image the MAGA Republicans want the public to see: a King moving along in his carriage, smiling and waving to the onlookers without uttering a word let alone meaningful sentences. That was enough to command respect and loyalty of his subjects.

MAGA wants Mr. Trump to do the same in a modern-day American version of royalty, appearing in public often so that his people can SEE him. They are not worried about his “incoherence” but seem to encourage him to talk about anything, even incoherent things. After all, true Kings and Emperors hardly made sense. Even the formidable King of France, Louis XIV, could be incoherent who famously said “L’etat c’est moi (the nation that’s me)”. That of course is nonsensical.

The strategy requires that he can say things like “Somebody didn’t pick up hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of cocaine (in the White House). I wonder who that could’ve been. I don’t know. Actually, I think it was Joe.”

Perfect. Just don’t try to make sense.

The former president has persistently denied against all evidence that he lost the 2020 election. The Republicans have openly and steadfastly sided with him.

Then, he was convicted in a court of law by a jury of his peers. He has defiantly accused the judge presiding over the trial of being biased against him, the jury rigged, and the trial a disgrace. With no evidence to support his accusations, the Republicans have fiercely defended him and emotionally and approvingly repeated his unfounded accusation.

We all were flummoxed, asking the question in bewilderment what was going on with the Republican Party?

After four years of witnessing Mr. Trump performing as president of the United States, it became obvious that the presidency was not in his natural portfolio. A president of one country, let alone the most powerful country in the world, does not fawn, even in private, over a leader of another country. Just doing so would have disqualified him for the job. But seventy-six million assumably Republicans voted for him in the 2020 presidential election.

What did that signify? -Mr. Trump was not the leader. He was not the commander in chief. But like the soldier in Iwo Jima, he was holding the MAGA flag rushing up the hill of American politics and planted the flag there for the glory of MAGA. He has done it well and deserves to be protected.

But why do they publicly and vehemently chorus his obviously unfounded and poisonous complaints? -The Republican Party has transformed.

It was a party, which elected a leader who thundered “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” and is now demanding a wall to be built on the border with a friendly neighboring country.

It was a party, which fiercely fought dictatorship of any form, is now courting Russia and North Korea, fawning over its leaders and wannabe dictators such as Viktor Orban of Bulgaria. It has taken a confused attitude on the Russia-Ukraine war even though politically and morally there is nothing confusing about it.

It was the Party, which voted to allow the Vietnamese to emigrate to the U.S. after the Viet Nam war despite strong voice opposing such legislation. Now it wants to ban immigrants.

It was the Party, which steadfastly advocated a strong NATO with deep commitment by the U.S. It is now hinting at withdrawing from NATO.

The transformation is now complete. By supporting his lies about rigged election that was allegedly engineered by the deep state, the Party is openly rejecting a fundamental principle of Democracy by refusing to accept the result of free election. By vocally and irrationally supporting Mr. Trump’s emotional denouncing of the jury verdict of his guilt, not just one, not just two, but 34 counts, the Party is openly rejecting our legal system, which is the nervous system of the American democratic society.

There is no longer a MAGA faction in the Republican Party. MAGA has infected the Party and is now in complete control of and is one with the Party. Mainstream Republicans from Mitch McConnell to Nikki Haley, have receded or surrendered to MAGA.

In 2020, MAGA was in a sense caught off guard. The chaos and violence were limited to the Capitol and a few raucous but sporadic denouncements in Congress. They have had four years to regroup and organize. If the election result has not been accepted to this day by MAGA, and only a few “patriots” marched up the Capitol steps, what would be the scale of the revolt after the 2024 election and Joe Biden won? MAGA has signaled what would happen: It would not respect the democratic institutions and it would not respect the legal system.

So, what is its intention? If it wins in 2024, with a stroke of the pen, it will revolutionize the political system. If it loses, it will create chaos to seize power. Clearly, Democracy and the current legal system don’t serve its purposes.

The question every Republican must ask is, what are the Republican Party’s purposes?

    Hamas has received massive international aid for years, billions of dollars. The majority of the money did not go into bettering Gaza or its citizens but into the building of almost a hundred tunnels along the border of Israel, stockpiling weapons, and filling up the coffers of its leaders. Their intention was clear: all their effort and money had gone into carrying out their promise to destroy Israel.

    Of course, the Israelis knew about this, for years.

    But they did not take any preemptive action, which any security expert must admit to be necessary to secure Israel against such an out-in-the-open threat to its national security. They were patient and calm about the situation, minding the weird mindset of the world that Israel was always in the wrong, too aggressive and too militant.

    Until October 7, 2023, when Hamas launched their surprise attack unprovoked, savagely killed, raped, and took Israelites hostage.

    From Israel’s point of view, and the view of ANY national security strategist, Hamas must be attacked. Even that was not enough, Hamas must be eradicated and the campaign to clean up Gaza must continue until that strategic goal is completed.

    Then, what will the world do in the aftermath? Clamoring for Israel to pay for reconstruction. And what will happen after reconstruction? If history tells us anything, that is that Hamas II led by leaders dead set on revenge and the termination of Israel will emerge, and the cycle of crossing the border to kill, rape, and kidnap will start again.

    You can clean up Gaza but you can’t uproot Hamas. Sooner or later, another Hamas-inspired, ruthless, and violent group of terrorists will form in Gaza after Israel “pacifies” and returns it to the Palestinians.

    So the solution is to take and separate Gaza from Hamas, annex and make it a province of Israel. In exchange, Israel will agree to a two-state political framework and cooperate with the Palestinians to make a Palestinian State a viable reality, with some concessions on the issue of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

    Of course, there will be loud swearing and cursing. The alternative is the Palestinians will be without a country for a long time, and the Israelites will not just be open to savage attacks by the likes of Hamas. They will be unable to develop their full and proven incredible potential to work for the benefit of mankind.