25 July—Good news first: Joe Biden is said to be recovering from the novel coronavirus. Whew! Kamala can’t be too happy, but let’s hope the old guy doesn’t suffer a relapse. Only four months till we’re scheduled to turn 80.

More good news: The latest polls imply that Donald Trump isn’t likely to cakewalk into the Republican presidential nomination in 2024. The operative phrase is “polls imply.” We all know how trustworthy polls are.

The bad news is that even though Trump may not be able to slide (as opposed to cakewalk in the previous metaphor) into the treasured nomination, a huge chunk of benighted Republicans still support His Scumness: none of the polls gives him less than 30 percent support or approval.

To drive that dreadfully worrisome point home, here’s yesterday’s Republican-American readers poll, published this morning, asking “Who will be the next president elected?”

Answers: “Donald Trump, 40%; Ron DeSantis, 27%; Someone else, 24%; Joe Biden is reelected, 5%; Kamala Harris, 2%; Pete Buttigieg, 2%”

The RA poll comprehends everything that professional pollsters claim to eschew and dismiss as unscientific and invalid. But it’s every bit as valid as any other poll. On the other hand, Northwest Connecticut—and, doubtless, Republican-American readers—bucked the state and went big for Trump even in 2020.

Back to good news, the editorial boards of Rupert Murdoch’s top two American newspapers, The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post, have finally seen the light and dumped on Trump. While it’s not unlikely the boards of both rags have never been particularly fond of Trump, it’s more than likely, given the coincidental (and opportunistic) timing of the editorials, that Murdoch not only gave his imprimatur but actually commissioned the hatchet jobs.

Rupert (who’s 91, though he doesn’t look a day over 90) evidently realized that Trump had become less than useless to him, a definite liability. So now we’re waiting for Fox News to trundle down the anti-Trump path and flush Trump down Murdoch’s convenience. To save America, of course.

(Rupert Murdoch bought the New York Post from Dorothy Schiff in 1976. Before Rupert converted it, the Post had been a very, very liberal rag that my mother adored. It’s far more interesting and fun to read now. It had been founded by Alexander Hamilton in 1801 as a Federalist organ, Federalists being the conservatives of the day. One of Hamilton’s investors was Litchfield’s own Oliver Wolcott Sr. What was his land is separated from mine by the property owned by one of Rupert Murdoch’s top executives, now retired. How many degrees of separation is that? Any?)