This year's presidential election is shaping up to be a rematch of 2020's contest, and the weirdness of that election and its aftermath will almost certainly carry over into this one.
The pandemic upended everyday life four years ago, and Donald Trump disrupted the peaceful transition of power by refusing to accept his election loss to Joe Biden. He tried a variety of schemes to remain in power and incited his followers to attempt a violent insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021 — and he's made it plain those efforts are unfinished, wrote Salon columnist Heather Digby Parton.
"So here we are," Parton wrote. "Unless something highly unexpected happens, we will face a rematch between Donald Trump and Joe Biden in November. Current polling shows that it is very close, so if Trump doesn't win, I think we can probably expect more disruption and violence just as we saw three years ago."
"It feels like the entire political system has been frozen in that moment and we're right back where we started."
Trump remains the Republican frontrunner despite 91 criminal indictments and other legal problems related to his post-2020 election actions, and both he and Biden placed Jan. 6 front and center in their campaigns for 2024, with the current president highlighting his predecessor's threat to democracy and that predecessor throwing support behind the Capitol rioters who did his bidding.
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"So the battle lines have been drawn," Parton wrote. "On the anniversary of Jan. 6, the presumptive presidential nominees both spoke. Joe Biden told the truth, reminding the country of what really happened. He asked that Americans recognize the threat that a second Trump presidency presents to all of us."
"Trump continued to lie, even more brazenly than usual, once again insisting that he actually won the 2020 election and exhorting his followers to 'finish the job."'
"Those words hold true for the rest of us as well," she added. "It's time to end this standoff once and for all."
