Alan Zendell, March 23, 2024

When President Biden first uttered the phrase inflection point, I wondered how many Americans knew what it meant. I’d only heard it used in mathematics, where it is described as the point on a curve that separates concavity from convexity, where its second derivative is zero, or where curvature changes from falling to rising or rising to falling. None of those was what Biden meant.

He was acknowledging that when he took office, with COVID still a fearsome threat and our economy reeling from the pandemic induced shutdown, Americans feared for their health and quality of life. He intended to change their outlook from pessimism to optimism, a goal he achieved more effectively and quickly than even his most ardent supporters anticipated. In a typical election year, rising consumer confidence, record low unemployment, wages increasing faster than inflation, and soaring equity markets almost assure an incumbent president’s re-election. But this election is anything but typical.

This year, the incumbent president is running against a twice-impeached predecessor who is under indictment for more than ninety felonies and has been found guilty of fraud and sexual assault by New York Courts, for which he faces fines of over a billion dollars. Biden is running against a man who supports Russia’s attempt to destroy Ukraine and rebuild the Soviet Empire, whose threats have enabled a minority of extremists in Congress to prevent vital legislation from being passed, and who openly intends to attack our democracy and the separation of powers required by our Constitution.

Trump’s complete takeover of the former Republican Party is a model for the autocracy he plans to create, in his own words, with himself as dictator “on day one.” The Party is using campaign funds to pay his legal fees, which have thus far exceeded $8 million. More importantly, he has made the U.S. House of Representatives a dysfunctional laughing stock in which Republicans held captive by Trump have been clinging to a slim majority that threatens border security, our support for NATO and Ukraine, and our ability to support Israel and mitigate its deadly advance into Gaza.

With Trump overwhelmingly winning the Republican nomination for president, the trends felt ominous for Biden’s re-election and, in the minds of a majority of Americans, the future of our country. Despite that clear majority, Trump’s MAGA movement has proved adept at capitalizing on the flaws in our Constitution, which have allowed rampant gerrymandering, voter suppression laws, and most importantly, an Electoral College system that makes a mockery of democracy. All of the above enable an angry, aggressive minority to rule over the majority.

Things looked hand-wringingly bleak a couple of days ago, the trends definitely negative. The threat Trump poses to our democracy is real – he warns of a bloodbath if he loses the election. Even Hollywood joined the fray, rushing a new film, Civil War, for release right in the middle of an election year. I watched the trailer a couple of days ago – the film portrays our worst fears with terrifying credibility.  If ever the country needed an inflection point!

But wait. With another government shutdown looming, the House of Representatives passed its appropriation bill last night. In order to do so, a strongly bipartisan majority of House members scuttled poison pill amendments attached to the bill by MAGA extremists, and the bill passed with more than half the Republicans voting against it and 85% of Democrats supporting it. Immediately, one of Trump’s most extreme supporters, Marjorie Greene (R-GA) introduced a resolution to remove Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA.)

At the same time, two moderate Republicans, Mike Gallagher (R-WI) and Ken Buck (R-CO) announced that they’re stepping down early, leaving Republicans with a majority of only one seat for the remainder of this Congressional session. Their timing was not coincidental. On his departure, Representative Buck threw his lot in with Democrats who filed a Discharge Petition to override Speaker Johnson’s refusal to bring aid to Ukraine and Israel to a vote. The Petition so far has 191 signatures. And yesterday, Trump’s rage over having to come up with more than $550 million dollars by March 25^th to avoid having his properties seized by the State of New York exploded onto his Truth Social network.

We’re told it’s always darkest before dawn, another way of saying nighttime always leads to an inflection point at which things start getting brighter. We’re at that point now. The future of America may depend on the integrity of a few remaining genuine Republicans in the House. If two more of them sign on to the Discharge Petition, Trump’s hold on the House will be shattered. Democrats will support a bipartisan Johnson speakership if Representative Greene forces an ouster vote.

We can only be sure we’ve passed an inflection point in retrospect, so we’ll have to wait a couple of weeks to be sure.