Oh Those Bloodlines!

     One of the themes that’s been used to stir controversy and fear in the body politic is the prospect of a political dynasty. I encountered that some years back over the candidacy of George W. Bush for the presidency. His father had been a Congressman, CIA director, and president for a single term. His grandfather had been politically influential in the Republican Party some years before that. Pretty soon the Democrats were muttering darkly about “dynasties” and a “takeover” of the federal government by the Bush clan. God alone knows what they would have said if Jeb Bush had won the GOP nomination.

     If we look back a few years, pairs of related presidents are easy to find:

• John Adams (#2) and John Quincy Adams (#6);
• William Henry Harrison (#9) and Benjamin Harrison (#23);
• Theodore Roosevelt (#26) and Franklin D. Roosevelt (#32);
• George H. W. Bush (#41) and George W. Bush (#43).

     Granted that some of the relations are tenuous, especially the ones among the Roosevelts (fifth cousins). But this lends point to my contention that families are more important to the political Establishment than is generally believed.

     By contrast, no one had much to say about these political relationships:

• John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Edward Kennedy;
• Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton;
• Barack Hussein Obama and Michelle Obama.

     Indeed, if memory serves, the Democrats were enthusiastic backers of all of them. But once again, family relations appear to be more important in politics than we usually allow. (About the various members of the Biden gang, it is unnecessary to comment.)

     Which brings us to this article:

     When President Donald Trump sat down for an interview with Fox News last month, anchor Bret Baier asked what should have been a softball question: “Do you view Vice President JD Vance as your successor, the Republican nominee in 2028?”
     Trump’s response was glaring.
     “No, but he’s very capable,” the president said matter-of-factly. “I mean, I don’t think that it, you know, I think you have a lot of very capable people. So far, I think he’s doing a fantastic job. It’s too early, we’re just starting.”
     The ease with which Trump threw his vice president under the bus came as a shock to observers who expected Vance to carry on the MAGA torch when Trump leaves office in 2028.
     But it came as little surprise to several in Trump’s inner circle, who spoke with Mediaite on condition of anonymity and said the remarks reflected the president’s desire to keep his dynasty alive past the expiration of his own second term in the White House.

     Dynasty? Trump, the Primo Outsider that the political elite did everything but a rain dance to exclude from the presidency, intends a dynasty??

     Three high-level sources told Mediaite that Donald Trump Jr., the eldest son and an omnipresent MAGA evangelist across the internet, is seriously considering a run for president in 2028.
     “Don has been the most politically involved of all the Trump kids and has always kept the lanes open for a presidential run,” one White House insider and close friend of the Trump family said. “He is a valued voice for his father, and a real possibility to be a contender in 2028.”

     Note that the Mediaite article doesn’t name those “high-level sources.” But it’s enough to suggest their existence. The point is to frighten Americans with the possibility of an American Royal Family. That specter didn’t make an appearance at the candidacy of Hillary Clinton or the suggestion that Michelle Obama succeed her husband.

     Even though Donald Trump Jr. denied having any such intention, we can count on other left-leaning outlets to push the story as if it were sound. After all, politicians lie a lot, don’t they? And if Don Jr. is planning a run, that makes him a politician, right?

     Keep an eye on this. It could prove significant as the Trump Administration’s efforts to downsize the federal Leviathan press onward.