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GELFAND’S WORLD - It may not be too early to start thinking about a replacement for Donald Trump as president. Ignoring the usual processes of human mortality and the unlikely prospect of a well deserved impeachment and removal, the next big chance is November 2028. California presents a likely challenger in Gov. Gavin Newsom. But he’s not the only challenger out there. Curiosity and a family relationship cause me to mention another possibility who is coming to town this weekend.
I have to give disclosure here. I have a family connection to the director of Writers Bloc, which will host Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear this coming Saturday in Santa Monica. The advantage to you goes beyond the disclosure though. If you click on Writers Bloc here, then click on the picture of Andy Beshear (with interviewer Brian Tyler Cohen), you can get a CityWatch complementary free ticket by providing the promo code AB2025.
So what’s of interest about Beshear? The most obvious is that he is a Democrat who has managed to win statewide office consistently in a Southern Republican state. This is what gets Democratic Party organizers drooling. They think about Bill Clinton and the chance to take an ordinarily Republican state out of the R column.
But it goes beyond the simple geography. In this era, every normal, sane sort of Democrat who shows any likelihood of running successfully for president is immediately targeted for destruction by the right wing propaganda machine, starting with nastiness by the commenters at Fox News and going from there. The current president has carried the process further, with more anger and hatred than his predecessors, but the right wing noise machine is going to go after Gavin Newsom in a way that would have astounded previous generations.
But when a Democrat manages to win consistently in an otherwise staunchly Republican state, it is a lot harder for the Republican establishment to attack him as some sort of socialist. What I hear from one colleague who has lived in Kentucky is that people generally like Beshear. I don’t know whether that also translates to respect, but he is known to be a likable guy.
I’m going to make a guess here: By the time 2028 rolls around, people will be ready for a change from Trump’s chronic anger and sense of despair. Most of us will be ready for a “Morning in America” guy. You know, positive about America’s future.
All this having been said, it’s up to the rest of you to evaluate Beshear, Newsom, and the others in terms of their fitness for office. What I do know about Beshear (and attested to by that once-Kentuckian colleague) is that he defended health care and Medicaid for the people of his state and, as a result, it was particularly easy to sign up for coverage in Kentucky, and it worked pretty well for the people who used it.
The other virtue I see in Beshear is that he understands that global warming and climate change are real, and he has supported attempts to adapt Kentucky (a coal mining state) to the new era, even if the Republicans in the state legislature are more hostile to the idea.
Now it’s true that we are barely 9 months into Trump’s term, so it may seem a little early to begin the 2028 presidential campaign. For those of us who have been awake during these past months, I think I can say with some confidence that even now, we ought to be thinking hard about how the replacement is going to happen and how to make it happen.
One other mention: On Friday, October 24, Timothy Snyder will be the guest of Writers Bloc. Snyder is the guy who led the movement against Donald Trump’s fascistic tendencies at the beginning of his first term. He is the author of best selling On Tyranny, which explains the techniques that tyrants use to take over a country’s normal functioning and become dictators, and is now the author of On Freedom. Snyder will be interviewed by local television legal authority Jessica Levinson.
Addendum
Who plays in the World Series against the Dodgers will come down to the final game between Seattle and Toronto, which will be played at about the time this column goes online. As a Dodger fan and National League rooter, I don’t have a big stake in which team wins, but I do have a thought about how we should treat a Toronto visit. I think that this is a chance for Dodger fans to say, out loud, the following: We are rooting for our team to win a second straight title, but we are also taking the opportunity to welcome our Canadian friends and neighbors to California. We are particularly thankful to Canadians for their hospitality to stranded U.S. citizens during the 9-11 crisis (look up the story of what happened in Gander) and we want to point out that we have not forgotten. We wish to take this chance to repudiate all the silly, hateful things that Donald Trump has said about Canada and its people.
(Bob Gelfand writes on science, culture, and politics for CityWatch. He can be reached at [email protected])
