by Bob Ehrlich
You might recognize “The Look” when you see it. It made its debut on the faces of American television and media pundits during the early evening hours of Nov. 8, 2016, as the undeniable specter of a Trump presidency began to take hold.
Today, “The Look 2.0” is back. The most recent iteration is a mixture of resignation tinged with intense discomfort – a sanguine sense of impending doom born of the many dysfunctions of the Biden administration and the increasing realization that the lawfare campaign waged against Donald J. Trump is backfiring.
Accordingly, that constipation-type look is everywhere these days. It can be found on the faces of the alphabet soup of cable TV anchors at six o’clock, on Democratic Members of Congress, or (most recently for me) an attorney friend I ran into after a long absence.
For sure, The Look can be – and often is – a conversation stopper. No surprise here. Those displaying The Look are by and large Trump detractors/haters, politically engaged types who had been assured that the Orange Menace from Queens was gone for good. Jeez, isn’t that what the “fair and balanced Jan. 6 Committee” was supposed to ensure?
To boot: everybody knows that political comebacks from defeated presidential aspirants are rare. And, truth be told, Number 45 did not do himself any favors with his post-election challenges and rhetoric. Add the Jan. 6 fiasco and the odds of ever seeing Mr. Trump back on the national stage were infinitesimal.
Which brings us back to the constituent elements of The Look. Element One is the exuberance-fueled memory loss that accompanies any dramatic victory. Here, many Democrats were so ecstatic about The Donald’s loss that it was easy to forget it was Joe Biden who had won. Yes, that same Biden – a well-known and allegedly lovable political figure – who couldn’t put 150 people in a room while stumbling toward a primary disaster … until Democratic elders rescued him because they could not stomach the thought of Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren taking the party down for good. The same Biden who had been so consistently wrong on foreign policy issues that Obama Defense Secretary Robert Gates had famously dismissed him as “wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.” The same Biden whose mental acuity had notoriously degraded since his days as vice president.
In retrospect, the second element was probably predictable given the width and depth of Trump Derangement Syndrome. Here, simply defeating Trump was never going to be enough. He had to be impeached (again), indicted, and thrown in jail if possible. After all, what was the downside? It wasn’t like Trump could come back after an entire kitchen sink had been thrown at him, could he? Alas, in the short term at least, the answer appears to be “Yes.” To date, Trump has vanquished all challengers (with the exception of Nikki Haley’s campaign, on life support), built up a commanding lead in the polls, and is indisputably in control of the GOP going forward.
The result of these two monumental developments is … what I saw on the face of my legal colleague when he asked who the GOP’s nominee was really going to be – and whether the Republicans really had a shot in November.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. If so, that look may indeed portend another against-all-odds victory by The Great Disruptor.
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Bob Ehrlich is a former Governor of Maryland, Member of Congress, and State Legislator. He is the author of five books on American politics and opinion pieces that have appeared in America’s leading newspapers and periodicals.
Photo “Biden Administration” by The White House.
