Will Trump Really Be Stupid Enough to Run Again?
Revenge of the Donald
Nostalgia and resentment could be enough to catapult Trump dorsum into the presidency.
Most the author: David Frum is a staff writer at The Atlantic.
Losers don't usually get a 2d take a chance in mod U.S. presidential politics. Dorsum in the days of nominating conventions and party bosses, an Adlai Stevenson or a Thomas Dewey could proceeds two consecutive nominations. Richard Nixon actually won the presidency in 1968 subsequently losing in 1960. But since the coming of primary contests, it'due south win—or retire. Even Al Gore, who won the pop vote in 2000, was debarred in 2004.
Donald Trump, who upended so many previous presidential precedents, at present seems likely to upend one more. Trump has to be considered the massive front-runner for the 2024 Republican nomination. He's already running hard, and he'southward already dominating the field. Play a joke on News'southward intense promotion of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis as an alternative to Trump is not working out whatsoever better in 2024 than its similar effort on behalf of and so–New Bailiwick of jersey Governor Chris Christie in 2016. Trump dominates in the polls. He has the lead in fundraising. Down-ballot races plough on loyalty to Trump. Potential rivals vow they will not run for president if Trump does.
It's an amazing spectacle, because Donald Trump was no ordinary political loser. He was a huge political loser. He lost the popular vote in two consecutive presidential elections, the second time by a margin of 8 million votes. He led his political party to a brutal midterm defeat in 2018 amid the strongest economic system since the late 1990s. He was the first president to accept been impeached twice, the 2d time for inciting a mob to invade and attack Congress to overturn a national election consequence. He now faces more than criminal and ceremonious jeopardy than Richard Nixon did ahead of his presidential pardon in 1974.
Trump is campaigning on two themes: nostalgia for the strong pre-pandemic economy, plus resentment over the upshot of the vote in 2020. It's not much, but it's enough—enough to force DeSantis, the would-be Trump replacement, into desperate stunts to prove himself Trumpier than Trump: handing out $5,000 rewards to cops who refuse vaccination; identifying himself with a state surgeon general who advises anti-vaxxers to trust their "intuitions."
But nobody is Trumpier than Trump. In that location's no Trumpism that'southward bigger than Trump. "It's nigh a movement, not a homo" is a venerable platitude applied to populist politics. In this example, though, it'south virtually a man, not a movement. In 2016, Trump endorsed assuasive transgender people to "utilize the bath they feel is advisable." In 2017, he crammed through a huge revenue enhancement cutting for the rich. On the eve of the coronavirus pandemic, Trump was negotiating a giveaway merchandise bargain with Mainland china. Those are all supposed populist no-no's. Trump followers paid no mind. If Trump does it, it'southward okay. They don't much care most the content of his politics. They care nigh its mood.
Anybody who follows politics even casually can see the Trump comeback emerging. Well-sourced reporters carefully detail the comeback's mechanics. But almost nobody is prepared for the malicious destructiveness of what is to come.
In a 2011 voice communication, Donald Trump explained his unmarried top dominion in life: "Get even with people. If they screw you, screw them back 10 times equally hard. I actually believe it." He's repeated the same thought over and over again in speeches, tweets, and books published nether his byline. In 2024, the targets of Trump'southward revenge are American law and American democracy. At a September 25 rally in Perry, Georgia, Trump excoriated state Republican officials who failed to subvert the state election for him. In Iowa two weeks later, Trump delivered more attacks on the 2020 election process, focusing this fourth dimension on land Republicans who failed to steal Arizona for him.
In 2016 and through the early part of Trump's presidency, there was often an border of Friars Club comedy to Trump's rally performances: non very nice comedy, a footling out of style in tone and sensibility, but comedy all the same. Non in 2021. Now it's all night and bitter.
Here's video from a Georgia goggle box station of the entirety of Trump'southward Perry rally. Trump'southward own speech starts at 1:37:38. Watch equally much as you lot can stand and tell me if y'all detect fifty-fifty a moment of humor, Friars Club or otherwise. The most quoted flake—Trump's quasi-endorsement of the Democrat Stacey Abrams equally a amend governor for Georgia than the Republican Brian Kemp—is non whatever kind of joke. It's a deliberately delivered claiming, lower jaw jutting beyond the upper teeth, eyes slitted with anger.
That's the guy who wants to return as the 47th president.
In Trump's kickoff term, the country was protected to some degree by his ignorance and ineptitude. He kept trying to do bad things, but it took him a while to figure out how the controls operated, where the impale-switches were located. By the time of his attempt to extort the Ukrainian president, in 2019, Trump had achieved a higher caste of mastery. But past and then it was also late. Then the pandemic struck, and Trump bumped into a new wall of failure. In a second Trump presidency, however, the burglars will arrive already knowing how to bypass the alarms and disable the locks. He'll understand that information technology's non plenty to install an ally as attorney general—he must control the secondary and tertiary ranks of the Justice Department too. He won't allow himself to be talked into some other chief of staff with an independent sense of duty, such as John Kelly, who averted much harm from the middle of 2017 to the get-go of 2019. It'll be Marking Meadows types from solar day one to day final. And he'll bring with them a new generation of Republican officeholders whose top priority volition be rearranging their states' election laws and so that Republicans do non lose power even if they lose the vote.
That's the hereafter Trump is preparing.
Be ready.
Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/10/trump-running-president-2024-election/620502/
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