If it looks like it’s going to be close enough, Democrats will make plans to steal Presidential elections. This is especially true when they roundly despise the Republican candidate. They loathed “Tricky Dick” Nixon in 1960, and in 2020 they were consumed with hatred of Donald Trump. They stole the 1960 election in Illinois and Texas, and it may prove out that they stole 2020 as well. They would have stolen 2016, but it was going to be a sure Democrat win, so they weren’t ready. If it’s close enough in 2024, and Trump is the Republican, they’ll certainly try to steal it again.
If Republicans are going to be sure of a win, they need to win big, big enough that it can’t be stolen. That’s one reason why, in the end, it’s very unlikely that they’ll nominate Trump again. Half the country hates him, and would vote for Donald Duck before they’d vote for Donald Trump. This why savvy Republican candidates like Virginia’s Glenn Youngkin try to keep Trump out of their campaigns. Mainstream Democrats are dispirited and apathetic. Only Trump hatred can get them to the polls.
This will be just as true, if not more so, in 2022 and 2024. Association with Trump may help win Republican primaries, but it’s a major impediment in a general election. As more information about the events of January 6, 2021 comes to light, the Trump appeal will continue to fade. Not because of the dubious “insurrection” at the Capitol. That was a farce. The real scandal was Trump’s attempt to pressure Vice President Pence into unilaterally overturning the electoral vote in states where there was evidence of fraud, and using a mob to do it. (This is reported in “Peril” by Woodward and Costa, pp.238-239, and the people who they claim witnessed it — Ivanka Trump and National Security Adviser Keith Kellogg — have not denied it.)
This was unprecedented in American history. What Trump wanted Pence to do was tantamount to a coup d’etat, an illegal seizure of power. The media has downplayed this aspect of January 6, because, while it makes Trump look bad, it makes Pence look good. They know that if Pence is the 2024 nominee, he’ll be favored to win, and win big. He has the Trump agenda, without the Trump baggage. His performance on January 6 distanced him from Trump, but not from Trump’s issues.
Trump was a terrible candidate, but a great President. His administration provides a template for the Republican who follows him. He was, essentially, a turnaround manager, an outsider brought into a moribund organization to provide a new direction. Turn around managers have to be willing to take on the corporate establishment, and ruffle some feathers in the process. They aren’t there for the long haul, and they can get a lot of people upset. This is what Trump did for this country, and he deserves the gratitude of the American people for what he accomplished on their behalf.
He also revolutionized the Republican Party, repudiating its slavish devotion to the economics of free trade, and making it, once more, the party of the people who actually make this country work. Politically, Trump was a hedgehog, not a fox. He didn’t know a lot of things, but he knew one big thing, the most important thing in politics: give people what they want.
But as a candidate, Trump was a near disaster. Any conventional Republican would have easily beaten Hillary Clinton. She was a truly awful candidate, in a Republican year, with no message, who ran a truly awful campaign. Only having Trump as an opponent allowed her to keep it close. In 2020 Biden was, if anything, worse than Clinton. But his campaign and the media, working in tandem, were able to disguise his inadequacies just enough to squeak out a win.
Trump fatigue will continue to build, as he obsesses over the lost 2020 election, and continues his vendettas against those who failed to support his efforts to overturn it. In 2016 he famously declared he could commit homicide in broad daylight, and still maintain his appeal to his core supporters, and that still may be true. But that core is shrinking, and his recent behavior is emboldening his Republican critics. Other than Don Jr., his family seems uninterested in his political comeback, and he’d be 83 years old at the end of his next term in office, if he wins.
When Trump’s father passed his fortune on to him, the Trumps were in the Forbes 400 wealthiest families in America. That’s no longer true, and it no doubt bothers him. His family, his party, and his country would be better off if he devotes himself to what he does best, and enjoys doing: making money.
As Trump the Improbable fades from the spotlight, conservatism, the Republican Party, and the United States of America have a bright future awaiting them.
reaganproject.com 