Remember the line from the original Top Gun, “Kid, your ego’s writing checks that your body can’t cash?” That’s Donald Trump to a tee, except it’s not his body that needs to cash the big checks his ego is writing, but his mind — and that is a tiny and over strained organ under the very best of circumstances.
Trump’s ego decided it was a really swell idea to declare his candidacy for president the week after the catastrophic midterm election. Nobody was sure why he did that. It was universally thought to be a bad move, and even one to Trump’s financial detriment. He could go on grifting without being subject to FEC regulations. The minute he declared, all that changed.
But declare Trump did, because by his flawed logic, in doing so he would take the steam out of all the investigations that were dogging him. As you can see, the first week of February, some seven weeks post-announcement, not a single investigation has derailed. In fact, another lawsuit was filed yesterday, a wrongful death action by Capitol officer Brian Sicknick’s girlfriend.
All that Trump has achieved by his ridiculously early announcement of a race for the presidency is exposure of his own weakness. He “debuted” his 2024 campaign just this past week with tiny rallies in an office building and a school auditorium, in New Hampshire and South Carolina. It was not exactly a rousing success either place. The New Yorker: “Is Donald Trump Losing His Mojo?”
Establishment Republicans derided Trump’s début. “He’s turning into Mott the Hoople and doing the state-fair tour,” the G.O.P. strategist Mike Murphy, who advised Jeb Bush during the 2016 primaries, told me. “It’s like a half-life. He’s shrinking.” Murphy wasn’t just referring to the small crowds that attended Trump’s events but also to polls indicating that many Republican voters don’t want the former President to be the G.O.P. candidate in 2024. With his legal troubles mounting and more Republican challengers on the horizon, Trump needs to rekindle some of the excitement among G.O.P. primary voters that he did in 2016. But does he have anything new to offer?
No. It’s the same old crap, different day. Everybody is up to their eyeballs in stolen election conspiracy theory and nobody is jumping up and down over the border “crisis” or “Chy-nuh” with or without Coco Chow, and I’m talking about Republicans, not Democrats. They’re sick to death of this already.
Fanning ethnic and racial resentments by using inflammatory language about immigrants and presenting himself as an outsider who could upend the political and economic status quo provided Trump with a distinct platform, the efficacy of which rival candidates, as well as pundits, greatly underestimated. Today, however, Trump is an ex-President rather than an outsider, and many of his policy positions are no longer new and distinctive. On the Republican side, virtually everybody emphasizes immigration and vows to close the southern border. And there is now a remarkable bipartisan consensus about confronting China on the economy, even if this involves violating some of the pre-trade principles that the United States promulgated for sixty years after the Second World War.
“Trump’s problem is there are too many Trumps,” John Sides, a political scientist at Vanderbilt who has co-authored books on the 2016 and 2020 elections, told me. “That doesn’t mean he can’t win. It just means it’s going to be a different type of primary.” Sides pointed to immigration policy as an example. Given its salience to Republican voters and the surge of migrants and asylum seekers at the southern border, which recently prompted the Biden Administration to change policy, it may be wise for Trump to make it a central campaign issue again, Sides said. “But,” he added, “I don’t think he’s going to stand out from the pack on the basis of his anti-immigration rhetoric when maybe his No. 1 opponent is shipping immigrants from San Antonio to Martha’s Vineyard.”
That’s Ron DeSantis’ proud legacy, of course. And maybe, just maybe, if DeSantis bides his time properly, he might see a situation where Trump burns himself out and drops to the wayside and then DeSantis, the designated golden boy of Fox News, can succeed him. That could happen as soon as this summer. It would be perfect timing for DeSantis to get in, the minute that Trump self-destructs.
Here is the lay of the land right now today. PoliticusUSA:
Republicans have a problem. Donald Trump is the frontrunner to win their nomination in 2024, and they have realized he is a loser.
Trump is a certain general election loser in 2024, but he is just popular enough to win the nomination in a crowded field, and now the Republican Party is trying to figure out how to stop him.
Trump Is A Loser
The New York Times reported in a recent story:
Among those who have expressed concern is Paul D. Ryan, the former Republican House speaker, who has called Mr. Trump a “proven loser.” In private conversations, Mr. Ryan has told people that donors and other Republicans need to find ways to ensure that there are not too many candidates splitting the vote against Mr. Trump. But what exact approach they might take is unclear, as is which would-be challengers would be receptive to it.
The dilemma is that if EVERYONE knows that Trump is a loser, and very beatable, the odds increase that EVERYONE in the GOP will decide that they could run for president and win.
The nightmare scenario for the GOP is that the thirty-odd percent of hardcore Trump supporters make up a big enough bloc to win state after state in a large primary field just like in 2016. Trump won the Republican nomination for the first time because Republican candidates were unwilling to drop out of the race and continued to split the vote.
Trump is counting on this happening again so that he can cruise to the nomination.
If Trump wins the Republican nomination, Biden will beat him again. Republicans know this, but they have not yet shown the ability in nearly eight years to stand up to him.
Republicans may be doomed because they created and enabled a loser who has just enough support to win.
You see where this is going: either Trump is going to be alone in the field by himself and all other contenders stay away because they’re scared (which is what we’ve seen so far, but now Nikki Haley is going out on the ice and declaring in two weeks, we are told) or, there will be a crowded field and Trump will use his base support to do what he did in 2016.
Trump is just fine with either scenario. He doesn’t care, he just wants the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
But here’s the situation: he may not be able to hold onto even the remaining echoes of his luster long enough to stay in the race. He is fading and fading fast.
Murphy, the former Jeb Bush adviser, said Trump’s support is declining, and he pointed to state polls showing Trump trailing DeSantis in Florida and elsewhere. “In the places where Republicans have already tasted another dog food, he’s not doing well,” Murphy said. “It’s true that’s not happened yet in places like Iowa, Oklahoma, and Texas, but it’s still early.” For this reason, among others, Murphy said the national polls showing Trump well ahead, such as the one he brought up in his New Hampshire speech, are likely to prove unreliable. Quoting Milton Gwirtzman, a Washington fixture of old who advised the Kennedys, Murphy said that in Presidential primaries national polls don’t mean anything until after the first state contest has taken place.
That won’t be for nearly another year, a fact that should give anyone pause before making predictions. One thing that does already seem clear, though, is that a good deal will depend on how many other Republicans enter the contest. The more candidates that follow Haley’s lead, the more likely it is that the non-Trump vote will be divided (as it was in 2016). After the first few G.O.P. primaries, where delegates are allocated in proportion to votes, many of the rest are winner take all, which means a candidate could win many delegates with a mere plurality of support. Murphy conceded that this is a potential advantage for Trump, but he insisted that the former President is in serious trouble. “He can’t take six months more of decline,” he said. “If he does, the whole narrative will turn against him.”
How many more Republicans enter the race is a key point, but not a crucial one. Here’s what I think is going to happen. I think Trump will hold onto his solo act, or near solo act, with Haley as the only other declared candidate, as long as he possibly can. Don’t make a lot out of the Haley entry into the race, she may be vying to be on Trump’s ticket, either as her primary reason for announcing, or most certainly as her secondary reason for doing so. Haley seeks to elevate her stature nationally, and within the party. That’s the bottom line, let the chips fall where they may.
I think it’s very possible that as cowardly as the other candidates are, that they may make a little noise here and there and then not declare. We’re going to see.
Trump can do nothing without a foil and so far he doesn’t have one. He might have one in Mike Pence, if and when Pence formally declares. Pompeo would be a joke, along the lines of Pence, same caveat, if and when he declares. Both Pence and Pompeo have floated trial balloons about a candidacy and the response has been underwhelming, shall we say?
That leaves Ron DeSantis. I don’t think DeSantis is going to do anything until he sees Trump flame out into nothingness. I think that’s what DeSantis is waiting for. You’ve heard of his PAC named Ron To The Rescue? That’s how he’s going to stage it. DeSantis will race in to save the Republican party and Fox News will jump right on board to give him 24/7 coverage.
But I don’t think you’ll see any of this until at least six months from now and by that time, according to this strategist quoted in the New Yorker, Mike Murphy, Trump will be dead in the water politically. That seems right to me.
And believe me, as we sit here and stir the political tea leaves and seek to divine the future, so do they. The GOP has no direction, and a vacuum of leadership. They’re the epitome of the saying, “in the valley of the blind, the one-eyed man is King.” Their Orange Overlord is the one-eyed man and he’s looking in the rear view mirror, at 2016. That is no way to lead.
Wait and watch Trump self-immolate as the winter snows melt and spring begins. By summer he may be out of it completely. He will be out of it if he continues on his current Nowhere Express, mouthing the same talking points from the past. He’s got to come up with something new if he’s going to survive.
And if he doesn’t survive, Ron To The Rescue. And all this could happen well before the Iowa Caucus and the New Hampshire primary slated for January of 2024, eleven months from now.
What a long, strange trip it’s been and it’s going to be a long strange trip between now and next January, as well.
The next move on the chessboard is Joe Biden’s. He’ll very likely announce his candidacy at the State of the Union address. Then we’ll see what Trump, or any of the others do at that time.
It will be interesting if Haley does in fact formally declare. I say that because it puts pressure on the other wannabes. If she’s out there on her own taking shots from Trump for any length of time it’s going to wind up costing all the KKKowards who hung back. Because their cowardice can be used against them come primary and especially general election season.
The real mystery to me is how Trump had any political mojo in the first place. This was far more about the voters, and about a highly sophisticated disinformation campaign built up for him (not by him), than about Trump himself, an obvious con artist, ignoramus, and all-around lowlife. Everything would-be Trump voters are now starting to grasp about him, millions upon millions of Americans, including many not especially partial to Hillary, understood immediately, without any thinking, just from the most ordinary street smarts.
His “new” schtick is the same one all the Republicans are riding: trans hatred. Just like the Nazis, who also murdered gender non-conforming people alongside all their other targets — Jews, Poles, Romany, and of course anyone who dared to dissent.