Marble Falls     Following the news, a lot of people are less than ecstatic about the 2024 presidential election being a rerun of 2020, with the same old guys, Trump and Biden, in yet another death match.  Those folks who want to look at next year’s model are going to be disappointed.  It is what is, of course, but what may be more disconcerting is that most of the big issues in the campaign won’t focus on the future of the country as much as they are likely to hunker down in the past.

Trump for example doesn’t seem to be able to get past the 2020 election, whether campaigning or in court appearances.  To the consternation of unnamed Republican Party officials, he seems to want to use his candidacy to revise the history of his defeat, not simply to exonerate himself by winning, but to make the bizarre, unfounded case that he never lost.

To normal people, that just seems crazy and delusional, but Trump may be simply aligning himself with Republican primary and general election voters.

Close to 70% of Republicans believe that President Biden didn’t legitimately win the election, several polls show, despite multiple federal and state investigations, as well as court decisions, finding no evidence of fraud extensive enough to have changed the result. Democrats are nearly uniform in believing Biden won fair and square.

Of course, he’s not following them.  Through constant repetition he has led to them to these opinions and in an ongoing refrain locked that vast majority into his point of view, facts be damned.

The odds right now, more than a year out, would cast the key campaign issues for the Republicans as the 2020 election, abortion, and immigration with maybe throwing in Hunter Biden and the deep state, whatever that is, as distractions, all of which have serious age to them.  Covid is probably off the shelf finally, except for someone like Robert Kennedy, but he’s even claiming he was never against vaccinations, taking a page from Trump in the “let’s pretend there are facts and we can make up history” in politics.

On the other side, Biden will make a case for the improvements in the economy and what he’s delivered.  With any luck, as fears of recession recede, he might have a good case, although inflation and debt will be something to argue about.  The climate and the economy, maybe even Ukraine and China, might be interesting contrasts, but that would mean this was a real campaign about the future of America and the world.  So far, it doesn’t look like that’s going to be happening.