Is Trump Running Again in 2020
Revenge of the Donald
Nostalgia and resentment could be plenty to catapult Trump back into the presidency.
Virtually the author: David Frum is a staff author at The Atlantic and the author of Trumpocalypse: Restoring American Democracy (2020). In 2001 and 2002, he was a speechwriter for President George West. Bush.
Losers don't usually become a 2d hazard in modern U.S. presidential politics. Dorsum in the days of nominating conventions and party bosses, an Adlai Stevenson or a Thomas Dewey could proceeds ii sequent nominations. Richard Nixon really won the presidency in 1968 after losing in 1960. But since the coming of primary contests, it'southward win—or retire. Even Al Gore, who won the popular vote in 2000, was debarred in 2004.
Donald Trump, who upended so many previous presidential precedents, now seems likely to upend one more. Trump has to be considered the massive forepart-runner for the 2024 Republican nomination. He's already running hard, and he's already dominating the field. Play a trick on News's intense promotion of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis every bit an culling to Trump is not working out any meliorate in 2024 than its like effort on behalf of then–New Bailiwick of jersey Governor Chris Christie in 2016. Trump dominates in the polls. He has the lead in fundraising. Downwards-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 ii consecutive presidential elections, the second fourth dimension by a margin of 8 million votes. He led his party to a brutal midterm defeat in 2018 amid the strongest economy since the belatedly 1990s. He was the first president to have been impeached twice, the second time for inciting a mob to invade and attack Congress to overturn a national election result. He now faces more criminal and civil jeopardy than Richard Nixon did ahead of his presidential pardon in 1974.
Trump is candidature on two themes: nostalgia for the strong pre-pandemic economy, plus resentment over the outcome of the vote in 2020. It's not much, but it'due south enough—plenty 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 full general who advises anti-vaxxers to trust their "intuitions."
Only nobody is Trumpier than Trump. There's no Trumpism that'southward bigger than Trump. "It's about a movement, not a man" is a venerable cliche applied to populist politics. In this instance, though, information technology'due south virtually a man, non a motion. In 2016, Trump endorsed allowing transgender people to "employ the bathroom they feel is appropriate." In 2017, he crammed through a huge taxation cutting for the rich. On the eve of the coronavirus pandemic, Trump was negotiating a giveaway trade deal with People's republic of china. Those are all supposed populist no-no's. Trump followers paid no mind. If Trump does it, information technology'southward okay. They don't much care most the content of his politics. They care most its mood.
Anybody who follows politics fifty-fifty casually can see the Trump improvement 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 speech, Donald Trump explained his single top rule in life: "Go fifty-fifty with people. If they screw you, screw them back x times as hard. I really believe it." He's repeated the same idea over and over again in speeches, tweets, and books published nether his byline. In 2024, the targets of Trump's 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 land election for him. In Iowa ii weeks later, Trump delivered more attacks on the 2020 election process, focusing this time on state Republicans who failed to steal Arizona for him.
In 2016 and through the early office of Trump's presidency, at that place was often an border of Friars Club one-act to Trump'southward rally performances: not very nice comedy, a picayune out of manner in tone and sensibility, but one-act all the same. Not in 2021. Now it's all dark and bitter.
Here's video from a Georgia television station of the entirety of Trump's Perry rally. Trump's own oral communication starts at one:37:38. Scout equally much as you can stand and tell me if you lot discover even a moment of humor, Friars Society or otherwise. The most quoted flake—Trump'south quasi-endorsement of the Democrat Stacey Abrams as a improve governor for Georgia than the Republican Brian Kemp—is not whatsoever kind of joke. It's a deliberately delivered challenge, lower jaw jutting beyond the upper teeth, eyes slitted with acrimony.
That's the guy who wants to return as the 47th president.
In Trump's first term, the country was protected to some degree by his ignorance and ineptitude. He kept trying to do bad things, merely information technology took him a while to figure out how the controls operated, where the kill-switches were located. Past the time of his attempt to extort the Ukrainian president, in 2019, Trump had achieved a college caste of mastery. But by then it was as well late. Then the pandemic struck, and Trump bumped into a new wall of failure. In a 2nd Trump presidency, withal, the burglars will arrive already knowing how to bypass the alarms and disable the locks. He'll understand that information technology's not enough to install an ally as attorney full general—he must control the secondary and tertiary ranks of the Justice Department too. He won't allow himself to be talked into another chief of staff with an contained sense of duty, such as John Kelly, who averted much damage from the middle of 2017 to the beginning of 2019. It'll be Mark Meadows types from twenty-four hours one to twenty-four hours last. And he'll bring with them a new generation of Republican officeholders whose top priority volition be rearranging their states' election laws so that Republicans do non lose power even if they lose the vote.
That's the future Trump is preparing.
Be fix.
Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/10/trump-running-president-2024-election/620502/
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