Once upon a time there was a very powerful Republican politician who climbed to that power by claiming the government was infested with communists. He issued more smears than anyone could fact check, and people believed him. It got so that even those in his own party dare not criticize him, because those who did became victims of his inquisition. His claims started with the State Department but then spread to other branches. But then one day he made the mistake of taking on the United States Army. And within a few months the Army destroyed him. That was the end of his political career.

I was thinking of Joe McCarthy yesterday when I read that Trump’s campaign manager Chris LaCivita doubled down on dissing the Army. After the Army issued an official rebuke of the Trump campaign and its continued smears of the Arlington staffer they assaulted, LaCivita re-posted the campaign video made at Arlington with the words, “Reposting this hoping to trigger the hacks at @SecArmy.”

Of course, the normal thing for a campaign manager to have done was to issue some bland statement about regretting the misunderstanding or the miscommunication or whatever. I don’t expect the Army to respond to LaCivita. But there are already congressional inquiries.  LaCivita had better be hoping his client wins the bleeping election, because if he doesn’t I expect there to be public hearings on Arlingtongate in the next Congress. And then the Army will destroy him, and his client too. This is not something that can be allowed to stand.

I’m just now learning that shortly after the incident, J.D. Vance actually scolded the media and said, “You’re acting like Donald Trump filmed a TV commercial at a gravesite.” And then Trump posted the campaign video/TV commercial he had made at a gravesite.

He literally posted a video using the footage. pic.twitter.com/H94qjkdRaV

— Dr. Temper Tantrum, PVT (@DrTemperTantrum) August 28, 2024

The other relic of the 1950s that came to mind this week was the song “Oh Sinner Man,” which was first recorded in 1956. You might remember that the song describes some poor damned soul who could find no refuge on Judgment Day. This week Donald Trump may have begun to learn there is no safe place to stand on the abortion issue. He keeps trying to find some sweet spot, some middle ground, that will get the issue off his back. But ain’t no such place.  There is no position that will keep the anti-abortion zealots happy that won’t also cost him support among nearly everybody else. Again, anyone familiar with the issue could have told him that.

I doubt Trump cares one way or another about the abortion issue. I doubt he has paid close attention to all the ways other politicians have tried to finesse the issue over the years. He seems to have believed that being the guy who finally killed Roe v. Wade would earn him everlasting campaign victory.

And then when the inevitable and long-predicted backlash began, he fell back on saying that abortion should be left to the states. That was the forced-birth movement’s disingenuous favorite talking point for years; let the states decide. It shouldn’t be a federal matter. Anyone who had watched them closely over the years knew that “back to the states” was just a first step, and that they would not rest until abortion was criminalized nationwide. But they wouldn’t admit that until the Dobbs decision really did “let the states decide.” Now, of course, all the anti-abortion organizations are calling for a nationwide ban. This was utterly and obviously predictable.

But it wasn’t predicted by Trump.

He’s using all his magic powers to make abortion go away. By early August he was declaring that abortions are “not a big factor” in elections any more, so we don’t have to talk about it. Nice try.

Over the past few days he’s been like the guy in the “Sinner Man” song, running to one place after another to escape the Judgment. Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan wrote in the New York Times how Trump Contorts Himself on Abortion in Search of Political Gain. I think it’s more like he’s trying to find the position that will do the least damage.

For example, several of his surrogates lately have declared that Trump would never sign a federal abortion ban. Now the wrath of the anti-abortion zealots is upon him to reverse that. A couple of days ago he vagely signaled he might vote yes on Florida’s abortion access referendum, because a ban after six weeks was too short. After hellfire rained down on him for a couple of days he appeared to have changed his mind. And he brilliantly promised free IVF for everybody! I’m not sure he understands why the anti-aborts are down on IVF.

See also Trump’s Latest Move to Avoid Abortion Is His Strangest One Yet by Michael Schaffer at Politico. This one features a conflict between abortion access in the District of Columbia and Trump’s promise to take over running the District himself. “We will take over the horribly run capital of our nation,” Trump himself said at a Florida rally this summer. “We’re going to take it away from the mayor. And again, that doesn’t make me popular there, but I have to say it.” You might remember that Trump’s beef with D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser goes back to the Black Lives Matter protests, if not before.

The District also has very liberal abortion laws. It’s one of the few places with no gestational limits. And the Fetus People want Trump to change that. But recently Trump has decided that abortion is the one thing that the District can decide for itself. Politico:

“Democrats want to gaslight Americans and sow fear, but President Trump has long been consistent in supporting the rights of states, and the District of Columbia, to make decisions on abortion,” Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.

The “and the District of Columbia” part of that sentence marks a jaw-dropping departure from decades of GOP orthodoxy.

In Congress, GOP majorities have intervened to stop the locals from voting to legalize marijuana, administer a needle-exchange program, allow noncitizens to vote in city elections, update the municipal criminal code, and use hometown tax dollars to pay for low-income abortion care. The Project 2025 blueprint calls for prohibiting D.C.’s public schools from teaching critical race theory. There are ongoing Congressional efforts to do away with physician-assisted suicide and permit concealed carry in the city.

And, finally, see Cleanup on Aisle MAGA: Trump Bends to Conservative Abortion Critics by Marc A. Caputo and Andrew Egger at The Bulwark.

In other news:  See Trump Wants to Hide His Attempt to Assassinate Mike Pence from Voters by Marcy Wheeler.