Donald Trump, Ollie North, and All Just a Little Bit of History Repeating

Col. Oliver North (R-VA)

1994 was an unusually brutal election cycle for Democrats.  Anchored by Bill Clinton's low approval ratings, a strong national campaign from Newt Gingrich, and Clinton badly fumbling his rollout of healthcare reform, Democrats across the country lost.  Longtime incumbents like Tom Foley, Jim Sasser, & Dan Glickman ended up losing their seats despite decades in public office.  One man who did not, however, lose reelection in 1994 despite representing a seat that Clinton lost (twice) and losing himself in 2000 was US Senator Chuck Robb of Virginia.  Robb had been a wildly popular governor of the state in the 1980's, and won every county in Virginia in his initial Senate campaign in 1988.  But Robb had become unpopular in the years since, marred by scandal.  He had an alleged affair with a former beauty queen despite being married to Lynda Bird Johnson (daughter of former President Lyndon B. Johnson), and several members of his staff were forced to resign after pleading guilty to illegally recording conversations with then-Gov. Doug Wilder (who was considering a primary bid against Robb at the time).  All of this meant that, if you knew that 1994 was going to be a bloodbath, you would've bet that Chuck Robb was going to end up in the losers column.

But Robb was reelected in 1994, and there was one reason, and one reason only-his opponent was Ollie North.  North was the central figure in the Iran-Contra Affair, which if you're not familiar, was essentially a late Reagan Era scandal that involved North using profits from weapons sales to Iran to fund the Contras, a rebel group who were fighting the Communists in Nicaragua...which was illegal thanks to the Boland Amendment which had been passed by Congress in 1982.  If this sounds like treason, it's because that's basically what it was.  North ended up getting off with a suspended sentence, mostly because his secretary Fawn Hall (who got immunity) had shredded almost all of the evidence, but North was considered a deeply polarizing figure, more so than even Chuck Robb, and when it came down to it, he couldn't win a Senate race in Virginia even in the best of circumstances.

Former President Donald Trump (R-FL)

Why am I giving you a history lesson about the 1994 Virginia Senate race?  Because it's pretty clear Republicans are risking something similar right now.  Joe Biden, despite a decent midterms, is not popular-his approval ratings have stayed in the low 40's for much of his first term, he's very old (which most of America, even those who will vote for him, is not super comfortable with), and while the economic story is fair, inflation numbers still haunt a lot of people's checkbooks coming out of the pandemic.  He is very vulnerable to a loss...but the Republicans seem intent on nominating the 2024 version of Ollie North: former President Donald Trump.

Trump's most recent round of charges are absolutely insane, and honestly weirdly similar to North's in that both mishandled public documents.  It's probable that Trump ends up in jail as a result of these charges, though it's not clear when that would happen (court cases in the US move slowly, and Trump's lawyers have a knack for delaying them).  It's possible (if not probable) that Trump will not be charged until after the 2024 election, but this is now a ticking alarm that could go off at any point in the next year, a threat to the Republican Party's chances in 2024 because, well, their nominee could go to jail at any point.  And there will come a time where it's too late-you can't pull a major party's presidential nominee at the last minute in an election...that has to happen months beforehand.  We aren't at the point for a while, but every day another alternative doesn't arise is another day of wasted opportunities...and a day closer to where the GOP will basically be stuck with Trump, even if he's campaigning from jail.

And to be honest, it's not clear that the Republican Party has what they need to take down Trump as long as he stands defiant (one of the few political skills he clearly towers over his competitors on).  Only Chris Christie of the major Republican candidates for president has been willing to attack Trump, and he's polling so low that it's not clear he'll ever have the chance to stand on a stage with Trump (or that Trump would consent to debate him).  Ron DeSantis is publicly admonishing the Biden administration for charging Trump, even though this is clearly his moment to make a move, and the same goes with other major Republicans like Mike Pence, Tim Scott, & Nikki Haley.  Even the people who would gain most from Trump being indicted aren't willing to go after him, and as a result...the Republicans seem intent on repeating their mistakes of 1994 in Virginia.  They're nominating the one guy that we all know Biden can beat.