Two media moments in the recent newscycle are worth a second look. The first was an interview in which former Bill Clinton advisor and ABC This Week host George Stephanopoulos relentlessly grilled New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu in an attempt to shame him over his late-stage endorsement of Donald Trump. The second moment was an appearance at a New York City convenience market by the GOP nominee.
The personalities in the two episodes reflect the insanity that is Election 2024: rabidly partisan Get-Trumper, a conflicted Johnny-come-lately Republican, and Trump himself, forced by Democrat lawfare to hit the campaign trail seeking votes in a state for which most political analysts conclude he has no chance.
In the ABC interview, Sununu by turns evaded, parsed, offered an inferred apology, and danced on the strings of Trump-hater Stephanopoulos like a marionette vacillating in the wind. The Governor’s sin? He’s come round to Trump after condemning Trump’s role in the January 6 fiasco. Sununu’s defense? He’s no MAGA fan, had supported Nikki Haley, but believes that Biden and the Democrats are so bad he has no choice but to endorse Trump. Given Biden’s destructive term in office, Sununu’s calculation sounds plausible and imperative.
Stephanopoulos concluded the interview by throwing Sununu’s litany of sins back in his face, having succeeded in painting the New Hampshire governor as a vacillating, immoral turncoat. Somewhat flummoxed, Sununu kept playing his only card, how much worse Biden and the Democratic Party are, and signed off reiterating his Trump support, saying—to paraphrase--that 51 percent of the American people agree with him.
Meanwhile (conceptually if not concurrently,) Trump was in classic campaign mode, pulling up at Harlem’s Sanaa Convenient Store in a convoy of black SUVs that dwarfed the market. From a Newsweek report: “Trump aides said he chose the store because it was the site of a male customer's attack on an employee in 2022, according to the Associated Press (AP). Store clerk Jose Alba, 61, was originally charged with second-degree murder following an encounter with a violent patron but was later cleared of all charges.”
During the visit, footage of which has gone viral, Trump glad-handed at the counter and fielded media questions as secret service agents scanned both street level and the windows in the buildings above. The assembled crowd, at least half of which was represented by people of color, thronged and chanted.
The tableau created by these ostensibly dissimilar occurrences tell the tale of a kitchen-sink leftist assault on an increasingly popular former president, and the post-primary abjection of moderate Republicans like Gov. Sununu. Also highlighted is a brilliant political stratagem that spices the bitter stew of a desperate hush-money trial with the image of a candidate on the move, playing the hand dealt him, and speaking directly to the people in a state for which the effects of Biden Administration policies on immigration and crime have been catastrophic.