The Daly Weekly (7/10)

Trump v. Barbara, Graham Platner, Colorado politics, and more.

Hi everyone.

Welcome to this week’s Daly Weekly, where I answer whatever questions you throw my way.

Before we get started this week, I’d like to invite you all to Reagan Caucus Action’s new Substack. I co-host their weekly podcast, on which we feature a different guest every week to discuss numerous issues from a Reaganite perspective.

It’s totally free, and you can sign up here (I hope you do):

Now, let’s get to your questions…

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So what’s your take on the IMO hot potato take I have seen on the Right, that Trump v. Barbara is the new Roe v. Wade, an egregiously bad SCOTUS decision that will eventually be overturned once the New Right manages to get enough Justices on the Court to overturn it? Even the overall cooler heads at The Dispatch are considering this might eventually happen, even though I don’t get the impression they think it’s a good thing.

My gut feeling is that none of this is actually going to happen. That the Matt Walsh and Sean Davis types will howl about it for a few more days, but quickly move on to the next Woke Outrage. But I certainly could be wrong. — Aylene W.

I’m with you, Aylene. I don’t think anything is going to come from this, and even in the week or so that has passed since you submitted this question, the issue seems to have largely fallen off everyone’s radar. Frankly, I think that those who had an absolute meltdown over the SCOTUS ruling are either professional grifters (who reliably peddle such performative outrage as part of their revenue model), or are truly mentally deranged. I’m convinced Sean Davis is both, and Matt Walsh is just full of it.

To review, the Supreme Court merely — as everyone expected — upheld how our country has interpreted the 14th Amendment for over 100 years. The notion that their decision was somehow “treasonous” or marked the “end of our country” (as some clowns argued) is beyond absurd. And the personal attacks on Amy Coney Barrett, some of which were racist, were disgusting.

If people don’t like the amendment, it can be changed through Congress.

Do you have any sympathy for people who supported Graham Platner up until the latest accusation that ended his candidacy, and do you object to Maine Democrats holding a convention to replace Platner on the ballot with a different nominee? — Ben G.

No and no.

Platner was a glaringly unfit candidate long before his nomination and the rape accusation. I have no sympathy for those who overlooked (or tried to whitewash) his unfitness and horridness right up until the eleventh hour.

As for Maine’s Democratic primary, political parties are not public utilities. Voting in a primary isn’t a Constitutional right. As we saw with Biden and Harris, a political party can make up its own rules for how to select a nominee. Conventions were the typical method for that up until the 1970s, and my own state was still doing it less than a decade ago.

Greetings Sir John — you write that Colorado candidate Victor Marx has a slight lead over Barbara Kirkmeyer in the primaries, and that Melat Kiros (progressive Democrat leftist) beat incumbent Diana DeGette. Okay so HOW THE HELL did it even get to this point!? Seriously! Did the idiots come of legal voting age to put the Democratic Socialists in power!? Do normal conservatives sit out the primaries so that only the fringe dwellers come out to vote!? WHY do people abstain from voting in the primaries and then gripe when the dud candidates WIN primaries but then crash & burn during the general election!? —“BOTH Parties Need An Exorcism!” regards from The Emperor

Hi Emperor. This was my response to someone who asked a similar question in the comment section:

Trump broke the Colorado GOP in 2016 when he accused us of rigging the primary for Ted Cruz (who won it). When Trump won the nomination, scores of grassroots conservatives ended their volunteerism for the party, roughly 20,000 Republicans statewide dropped their Republican affiliation, and a bunch of MAGA nuts took over the state party, and drove it into the ground. We went from trending red again in 2014 to going dark blue. That led to the Dems becoming more emboldened and powerful, and moving even father left.

Interestingly, we still vote conservative on a lot of ballot issues, but the dwindling GOP has made itself so embarrassing that Republican candidates can only win local races here and there.

Regarding your point about primary voting, Colorado has an open primary, which means: 1) Registered Republicans get to vote in the GOP primary; 2) Registered Democrats get to vote in the Democratic primary; 3) Unaffiliated voters can choose to vote in either party’s primary, but not both. In other words, any registered voter can vote in the primaries.

There are around 4 million registered voters in Colorado. About a million and a half of them (roughly a third) participated in this year’s primary-voting for the state’s governor. So yeah, as is the case in probably every state, not enough people vote in the primaries. It’s typically the most engaged voters who do, and they also tend to be the most radical. That leads to absurd, unserious party-nominations.

Is it fair to say that after seeing how quickly Trump gave away the store with the MOU, the Iranian regime became keenly aware of just how desperate Trump was, and decided they held enough leverage to refuse to uphold their end of the deal, and hold out for even more? — Alex D.

I think that’s largely true, Alex. What surprised me is how quickly the regime blew up their end of the deal. The Trump administration immediately front-loaded a lot of the MOU-specified benefits to Iran (including unlocking billions of dollars for them), while the U.S. got nothing in return. I figured the Iranians would milk that situation (and string Trump along) a little longer before reneging. With the regime’s attacks on commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz this week, however, it seems they were indeed hoping for (and believing they could get) even more immediate concessions. The Trump administration is, at least for now, re-blocking Iran’s oil sales (which they shouldn’t have unblocked in the first place), and going back to some military strikes.

Who knows where things will go from here, but my guess is that this war will drag on for a long time. What’s clear is that the Iranian regime is thinking about long-term goals, while the Trump administration just wants this conflict over ASAP. Thus, the regime has a strategic advantage… unfortunately.

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Thanks everyone! You can send me questions for next week by leaving a comment in the comment section.