The moment of truth for Donald Trump’s disastrous Mehmet Oz debacle
I’m not going to try to predict who will win today’s Republican Senate primary in Pennsylvania. Mehmet Oz, Kathy Barnette, and David McCormick all have a realistic shot at winning the nomination. I’m more interested in the immediate fallout from whoever wins.
If Barnette wins, it’ll be terrible for the Republicans, as she’s a scandal-plagued extremist candidate who would have a very difficult time in the general election. It would also be catastrophic for Donald Trump, who endorsed Oz while he was ahead, only for Oz to then become less popular and lose.
If Oz loses today, will the media finally admit that even Republican voters don’t care about Trump anymore? If so, the media would be throwing away the ratings friendly “Trump 2024” narrative a year before they were expecting that narrative to run out of gas.
If Oz does win, but by the same two points that he was already ahead by before Trump endorsed him, that’ll also mean Trump’s endorsement was worth zero votes. But the media will falsely spin Oz’s win as “proof” that Trump is still calling the shots in politics.
This would require the media to pretend that Trump’s endorsement helped Oz, when it in fact caused zero additional people to vote for him. But we’ve already seen the media fictionally spin the impact of Trump’s JD Vance endorsement, so why would it stop now?
If McCormick wins, it’ll be terrible for Trump. It’ll also be catastrophic for the media, because he’s not a candidate they can get ratings out of. But it might be the best outcome for the Republicans. McCormick is corrupt scum, but he knows how to “sound” reasonable.
Remarkably, no matter what today’s outcome ends up being, most of the mainstream media will automatically spin it as proof Trump is in control, and somehow bad for the Democrats, because those are the two narratives that currently drive ratings.
Kudos in advance to whatever small fraction of mainstream media outlets and pundits who end up framing today’s outcome based on the facts. Sadly, audiences will mistakenly see those fact-based truthful takes as contrarian hot takes. Sadly, we live in an era where simply pointing out what actually happened is a rare enough occurrence that it’s seen as “controversial.”
By the way, fun fact about the Pennsylvania Senate race: every one of these Democratic candidates is vastly superior to, and would likely beat, every one of these Republican candidates. Let the voters speak today, then let’s all strongly get behind the Democratic nominee. We need this seat!
