Alan Zendell, December 20, 2023

With twelve days remaining in 2023, it was clear that this was not going to be a typical December. The financial markets were completing a nine-day winning streak with record levels of the major indices, while the extremist wing of the Republican Party, bolstered by right-wing news outlets, continued to scream that our economy was on the verge of collapse and the Biden administration was destroying the country. This, in spite of unemployment remaining at fifty-year lows, our infrastructure being rebuilt, and the terrible inflation that resulted from COVID and the war in Ukraine having finally eased.  

Many food prices remain high, but staples like milk, eggs, and most produce are back around pre-COVID levels. And although Russia still holds Europe hostage over oil and natural gas supplies, war rages in the Middle East, and Iran-sponsored terrorists are attacking commercial shipping including oil tankers in the Red Sea, gasoline prices have plummeted. I paid $2.69 a gallon a few days ago.

All this is a backdrop to the rapidly approaching primary season which will be unlike anything we have seen in our lifetimes. Precedents are being set every day that history will record as the opening act of a desperate fight to preserve American democracy and our Constitution. After eight years of divisive rhetoric and warnings of existential threats to our country, it’s finally happening. There’s no turning back, and everything we’ve held dear about America hangs in the balance.

Within the next two weeks, overshadowing the Christmas and New Years holidays, the U. S. Supreme Court will likely decide our political future. At issue is whether Donald Trump’s actions since the 2020 election make him ineligible to serve as president again. The Court will have to rule on whether the Colorado Supreme Court was correct in ruling that Trump should be removed from the ballot in that state because he incited the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the Capitol. Simultaneously, it will have to respond to Trump’s argument that he has total immunity for any crimes he committed while serving as president.

The Court obviously recognizes the need to resolve these issues before the Iowa caucus on January 4^th. No one has to be reminded that the current Court has a 6-3 Conservative majority with three of the right-leaning justices having been appointed by Trump, who expects them to be loyal to the man who put them there.

I find it particularly noteworthy that on the day the Colorado court ruled that Trump was ineligible to run for president, the Dow Jones average was up 260 points, capping an unprecedented rise in value. Anyone who understands our financial markets knows that winning streaks like the one we are seeing generally reflect the moods of major corporations and the wealthiest Americans who are the real movers of our economy. I believe that despite the noise on Fox News, the silent majority of wealth and power in our country would prefer that Trump disappear.

Whatever the Supreme Court rules, we are in for a perfect storm of chaos and unpredictability between now and next year’s election. If the Supreme Court rules that Trump is ineligible to ever hold federal office again, the Republican Party will find itself without a putative leader. The new frontrunner would arguably be Nikki Haley, with Ron DeSantis and Chris Christy nipping at her heels. (I cannot take Vivek Ramaswami’s candidacy seriously.) One of those three would face off against President Biden in November, which will certainly invite a challenge from one of the groups hoping to run an independent centrist candidate against them. This election will likely determine whether the Republican Party exists as a viable cohesive force beyond 2024.

Americans want to celebrate Christmas with their families, party on New Years Eve, and spend the next day watching football or shopping the post-holiday sales. But the mess we’re facing isn’t going away, and unless you spend the holidays in an underground bunker with no internet, it’s going to tarnish all that for many of us, and it should. The best investment we can make in our families’ futures is to remain engaged, because what happens in the next two weeks may determine the course of their lives. The only thing we can be certain of is that whatever we defined as normal American life will no longer exist if we’re not vigilant about protecting it.

Two months ago, Israelis were pursuing their lives, much as we were here in America, although they knew that could end at any moment. One serious act of unimaginable terror that eclipsed our nine-eleven changed everything. A country of ten million people now has almost seven percent of its population actively fighting a war that could determine their ultimate survival. Do you think that couldn’t happen here?