Trump Will Blow Through the 2024 Primaries

Eric Medlin

History instructor. Writer. Rising star in the world of affordable housing.

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83 Responses

  1. Philip H says:

    They have begun to speak of “Trumpism without Trump” and believe that many Republican voters see Trump as a loser, a loose cannon who “tweets too much” and threatens their chances of taking back the presidency.

    These folks are clearly in a circular firing squad – most of the IRL Trump supporters I interact with are running around yammering on about how they’d really prefer cheap gas, Putin in his place and mean tweets. If Trump runs he wins the nod.Report

  2. Oscar Gordon says:

    It might help if the media stopped giving him free press.Report

    • Philip H in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

      They are too afraid of the bias charge tanking their eyeball counts to do that.Report

    • Pinky in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

      The media give him free press, the left likes to run against him, and he’s the third rail on the right.Report

    • Douglas Hayden in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

      What free press? The only press I see him getting is from Twitter, which is natural given he’s Presidente por Libre of the Online.Report

      • Oscar Gordon in reply to Douglas Hayden says:

        If he wasn’t getting free press, then I’d have to looking for news about whatever brain dropping he put out in the public on a given day.

        Instead, even NPR has to talk about what Trump said, or who he’s endorsed, etc.Report

    • Saul Degraw in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

      “But they were just playing
      Twenty-four hours of news and you can call it a day and
      It can’t all be that bad because it’s all so entertaining” – The Paranoid Style/The Thrill is Back.

      Also see the Cult of Savvy.

      The media cares more about their kitchen remodels than the commonwealth. I’m sorry to state this about Mr. Medlin’s post but he seems to have learned all the worst things about reporting and punditry during his time in college.Report

  3. Damon says:

    Trump was a fun diversion. I enjoyed watching a large portion of the nation loose their *hit over him, but his time has gone. Four years was enough.Report

  4. Douglas Hayden says:

    Every now and then I’ll see a Trump flag in the wild, but by and large they’ve all gone into hiding. He’s still got the best name rec in the field, but there’s still a lot of guys in high positions that get anxious thoughts of him campaigning on not shutting up about 2020. The media’s by and large buried him and mainstream social media doesn’t seem in any hurry to re-platform him either.

    In short, maybe he’s still the favorite, but we’ve still got a ways to go and Ron Desantis is not acting like a guy interested in waiting to ’28. He’s more vulnerable than people online think.Report

    • Pinky in reply to Douglas Hayden says:

      For Trump to not win the primaries (should he run), the Republicans have to coalesce around a candidate *now*. And it can’t be seen as an anti-Trump movement, or that will pit their candidate against Trump, causing Donald and his most faithful to attack him. DeSantis is the only possibility, barring something extraordinary.Report

      • Michael Cain in reply to Pinky says:

        DeSantis doesn’t really even have to say bad things about Trump. He can just sort of by-the-way ask, “What has Trump done for you lately?” and then start down his own list. Abbott might have had a chance if the Texas governor’s office was more powerful.Report

        • Pinky in reply to Michael Cain says:

          People have elected Texas governors before. I just don’t see Abbott as an automatic choice, and if you’re trying to get the people to commit to a candidate this early out, it’s got to be because he’s the obvious choice.Report

        • North in reply to Michael Cain says:

          Abbott would have to have fished up a lot less than he has. The Mexico border fiasco is one thing but I don’t think he can escape the Texas power grid fiasco. Especially not (hat tip Pinky) in the shadow of Bush W.Report

          • Chris in reply to North says:

            I think he’s managed to survive the February 2021 freeze by a.) pushing it off on renewable energy, and b.) pretending to have fixed it. However, right now the grid is stretched to its limits, in record heat, and if the power goes off four a couple days this week, or sometime this summer, I suspect Abbott may actually lose to Beto, and his political career will effectively be over.

            That said, I really, really hope the power doesn’t go out. We lost power for 3 days during the freeze, and it sucked, especially with a 13-month old, but if the power goes out with afternoon temperatures of 105+, and early morning lows in the 80s, it’s going to be much, much worse, and much much deadlier.Report

            • North in reply to Chris says:

              As a northerner it is so curious to me hearing power going out in hot conditions being described to me as more deadly than power going out in cold conditions. My rational brain understands it entirely – I’ve visited Texas in spring and noted it sweltered like Minnesota summer- but my raised-in-Canada instincts just laugh incredulously.

              As for Abbott, I don’t disagree with your analysis but there’s a big gap between “surviving politically in Texas” and “Launching a bit for the GOP nomination”.Report

              • Chris in reply to North says:

                Yeah, the way I think about it is, comfort-wise, at the same temperatures, cold inside < cold outside (at least until you get to extreme cold) and hot inside = hot outside.

                And I genuinely don't believe Abbott will ever have a national political career. Since 2020, he's gone desperately MAGA, after his party's MAGA base turned on him, but deep down, he's a business Republican. So the MAGAs are and have always been skeptical of him, and the business/old school Republicans are skeptical of him now, because he's shown a willingness to harm the bottom line to score MAGA points.

                Also, he's just a deeply unlikeable person, which seems to be a thing with Texas Republicans (Perry, Cruz, and Abbott, e.g.).Report

              • Pinky in reply to North says:

                I recall Chicago blackouts that cost lives in summer and winter.Report

            • Koz in reply to Chris says:

              ….I suspect Abbott may actually lose to Beto, and his political career will effectively be over.

              This isn’t right. The statewide races in Texas in 2022 are all about the margin of victory for the GOP. If there is a power grid breakdown before Election Day, all that means is that Abbott wins reelection by 5 points instead of 30. Texas is a reddening state. Its a reddening state because the US is a reddening country and Texas is part of that.

              The idea that Beto O’Rourke kinda maybe looked like he was running close to even for a couple weeks against Ted Cruz is likely the high point for statewide Texas Democrats for 20 years or so.Report

              • Philip H in reply to Koz says:

                According to RealClearPolitics, Abbott was polling as close as 2% to Beto, and is now polling at a mear +6.7. Should he win, it won’t be a blow out.

                And Gallup is consistently polling the largest affiliation in voters is Independents (42%) , with those folks even split between leaning democratic and leaning Republican. We aren’t a reddedning country.Report

              • Koz in reply to Philip H says:

                No Philip. Gov Abbott isn’t as well regarded among Republicans and normies as some other GOP pols in office, but when it comes time to actually pull the lever, no legitimate American is going to empower Joe Biden and the Democratic Party in 2022.

                Therefore Abbott wins by a lot. At least ten points unless there’s some grid failure or other scandal between now and then.

                Probably more than ten at the end of the day.Report

              • Slade the Leveller in reply to Koz says:

                Legitimate American?Report

              • Same as Real American™. You know, bootlickers.Report

              • Chip Daniels in reply to Slade the Leveller says:

                For the record, Koz is not my secret strawman sockpuppet.Report

              • Koz in reply to Slade the Leveller says:

                Legitimate American?

                Yes, legitimate Americans whose primary motivation is the best interest of the United States, as opposed to gratuitously acting out animosities against Republicans.Report

              • Slade the Leveller in reply to Koz says:

                The party of insurrection hates to get its feelings hurt.Report

              • Koz in reply to Slade the Leveller says:

                The party of insurrection hates to get its feelings hurt.

                The “party of insurrection” is pretty clearly ignoring the “insurrection” so this really doesn’t fly.Report

              • Philip H in reply to Koz says:

                Of course they are. They don’t want Americans reminded that 5 sitting Republican congressmen asked Trump for Presidential pardons – which one generally doesn’t need unless one has broken laws. They have no answer to Betsy DeVos publicly telling USAToday this week that she and other cabinet members discussed removing Trump from office via the 25th Amendment with the Vice President becasue Trump did nothing to stop the attack as it was unfolding. And they surly do not want Americans remembering the sea of Trump flags among those who stormed the Capitol since even now they cower in his shadow, hoping desperately to cling to power.

                So of course they ignore it – even as their leading candidate for Governor in Michigan is arrested and charged for his action that day. Admitting the truth of that day, and their complicity in it, runs them out of power, perhaps permanently. Only LIz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger have that kind of courage, and they are being punished by the GOP for it.Report

              • Pinky in reply to Slade the Leveller says:

                I don’t know which is more grandiose, calling the couple hundred people at the riot an insurrection or calling them the party. I mean, historically, we’ve only had one real insurrection in the country, and that was the Democrats, and presently, there’s only one side that can stage nationwide riots, and that’s the left. And if this really was supposed to be an era of returning to decorum, the left wouldn’t be trying to coin phrases like the “party of insurrection”.Report

              • Philip H in reply to Pinky says:

                862 people have been charged so far for the Insurrection. The list grows weekly. If you ever watched the video – last night or at the time, you know it was more then a few hundred.

                Just between 29 May and 6 June 2020, there were over 13,000 arrests reported to the DoJ by local police across the US from protests related to George Floyd’s death. Plus Democratic politicians at the time – and since – have openly, publicly and repeatedly condemned the riots that sprang from those protests. Republicans condemned the Insurrection in the day or two after their lives were threatened, but now call it a peaceful political protest.Report

              • Pinky in reply to Philip H says:

                OK, so Democrats are universal in their condemnation of the race riots, and Republicans are universal in their defense of 1/6? I hate this kind of party-line fiction.Report

              • Philip H in reply to Pinky says:

                Other the Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger – who are both being drummed out of their party – no GOP politician remains who is publicly condemning the attack on the US Capitol. The RNC in February passed a resolution calling it “legitimate political discourse.”

                So sure, call it fiction. Call it whatever you want. Keep hiding your head in the sand. I’m clearly not going to stop you and no amount of evidence is going to change your mind.

                This is not a BSDI issue however, not by a long shot.Report

              • Pinky in reply to Philip H says:

                Yeah, the RNC never called the attack “legitimate political discourse”, they said that the 1/6 committee is a “persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse”. And what do you mean that “no GOP politician remains who is publicly condemning the attack”? Plenty did, and remain in office. They’re not condemning it *now*, like every second, because they’re not trying to make political hay out of it.

                This is a variation on the gun control thing, where if a Republican says he feels bad about what happened but doesn’t adopt the preferred liberal policies, they’re accused of hypocrisy. A person can look at 1/6, say that those who broke the law deserve to be punished, and then talk about other things.Report

              • Philip H in reply to Pinky says:

                Those who broke the law apparently include 5 sitting congressmen who are documented to have sought pardons from Trump.

                Your phrasing of the RNC’s response is a distinction without a difference – there can’t be “political persecution” of the Capitol attackers for “engaging in legitimate political discourse” unless you think the attack was legitimate political discourse.

                The rest of yoru response is the sad tired conservative attempt at misdirection. the GOP has made plenty of Hay out of the 1/6 attack – in fund raising, in new state laws about elections, and as a means to resist all manner of legislation proposed by Democrats. Like them, you want us to not connect the dots, much less notice the existence of the dots.Report

              • Philip H in reply to Koz says:

                no legitimate American is going to empower Joe Biden and the Democratic Party in 2022.

                Good to know where you stand on my citizenship.Report

              • Koz in reply to Philip H says:

                Good to know where you stand on my citizenship.

                What can I say pertaining to your citizenship, other than you’re doing a piss poor job of stewardship for it.

                Somebody has to call you out for it, and I drew the short straw.Report

              • Philip H in reply to Koz says:

                I vote based on issues that are important to me. I write my congressman and senators regularly. I write here. I’d say my stewardship of my citizenship is just fine.

                Yes, legitimate Americans whose primary motivation is the best interest of the United States,

                That has always been my primary interest. I believe it requires a different path and different decisions then you do. That doesn’t make you more or me less legitimate as a citizen.Report

              • Chris in reply to Philip H says:

                Look, say what you will about Koz (and there’s much to say), but I appreciate his honesty in this. Putting aside the surface content — a silly nationalism that I can’t possibly be offended by, because I think of myself as an American by thrownness alone — but because I think he thinks the way anyone who is serious about their values and their political implications ought to: that disagreement is not some trivial matter, because the people who oppose those values are causing real harm, and we should not tiptoe around that. The idea that we can disagree about actual life and death issues, or issues that affect the quality of life of hundreds of millions of people, or more, and then at the end of the day break bread as friends or mutually respectful colleagues or whatever, is actively harmful, and I wish more people talked the way Koz does. Well, without the ridiculous nationalism, I mean.Report

              • Philip H in reply to Chris says:

                Oh I appreciate his honesty. And I’m not seeking some Kumbyya moment with him. I’m just throwing back what he throws out.

                And frankly his “ridiculous” nationalism is a huge part of the problem, because it doesn’t allow for any consideration of the humanity of “others.” Which you actually need to have in order to propose and defend solutions to problems plaguing America. He only wants to propose “solutions” that benefit certain people whom he narrowly defines as “American.” That’s as harmful as anything else he proposes.Report

              • Koz in reply to Philip H says:

                And frankly his “ridiculous” nationalism is a huge part of the problem, because it doesn’t allow for any consideration of the humanity of “others.”

                This is backwards, for reasons that follow pretty closely from my response to Chris a couple hours ago.

                What I replied to him was a summary of how we are situated with others, specifically how the larger polity empowers us as individuals, but also imposes, legitimately imposes, duties of loyalty on us.

                Libs’ idea is basically to say that I can do whatever I want as long as I get away with it. Which is not only wrong as an abstract ethical proposition, but also the fact that libs are constituted that way means as a practical matter they’re (and you are) less likely to get away with it.Report

              • Koz in reply to Chris says:

                ….. I think he thinks the way anyone who is serious about their values and their political implications ought to: that disagreement is not some trivial matter, because the people who oppose those values are causing real harm, and we should not tiptoe around that.

                I appreciate this comment, but nonetheless I disagree strongly with it, and my intentions are almost exactly backwards from what you’re describing here.

                The idea that we can disagree about actual life and death issues, or issues that affect the quality of life of hundreds of millions of people, or more, and then at the end of the day break bread as friends or mutually respectful colleagues or whatever, is actively harmful, and I wish more people talked the way Koz does.

                This is a wrong turn, basically for being too egocentric.

                The way out of this dead end is to back up, and then to acknowledge that as our political/cultural aspirations are presently constituted, we are both empowered and circumscribed.

                That is, that we are for the most part entitled to believe any number of things, some of them wild and outlandish, maybe even wild, outlandish and true in some abstract sense even. But still, we are are not necessarily at liberty to implement them as government policy.

                Between us as individuals (or groups) and the statute book, there are the American nation, its people and its interest.

                In this way, it is the American nation and its people that we, lib and conservative, are both subsidiary to and accountable to.

                And it is the existence of this polity, the American nation and its people which creates the space for us, as lib and conservative, to live in peace together, to be friends, to break bread, etc etc, without devolving into a Hobbsean war of all against all.

                And it is specifically in the context of this polity whereby Philip ought to be stewarding his citizenship in a way that’s much better than what he’s doing now.Report

              • Pinky in reply to Koz says:

                But he has a legitimate citizenship, even if he’s exercising its rights to undermine the national principles, correct?Report

              • Koz in reply to Pinky says:

                But he has a legitimate citizenship, even if he’s exercising its rights to undermine the national principles, correct?

                He does for now.Report

              • Pinky in reply to Koz says:

                The Founders knew there could be people like Philip, but they made no provision for removing their citizenship. They’re one of the threats to self-rule. Threatening to take away citizenship is another one. I don’t know if self-rule can survive either of them, but neither of those sides is offering something more appealing than the Founders’ vision.Report

              • Mike Schilling in reply to Pinky says:

                The bootlickers put on such airs these days.Report

              • Koz in reply to Pinky says:

                The Founders knew there could be people like Philip, but they made no provision for removing their citizenship.

                Push comes to shove, that could be finessed around. But frankly, for now and for the forseeable future, that’s pretty tangential and fringe-y.

                What’s much more relevant, what’s happening now, in fact, is that the voters are, in a de facto sense alienizing or stripping citizenship away from libs, at least as it pertains to meaningful participation in the political process.

                Ie the Democrats, at least operationally are controlled by a lib activist class, whose mentality with respect to the voters is give-an-inch,-take-a-mile. So the voters adapt to that by simply never giving the libs an inch.

                I’m not completely up to speed with Israeli politics, so I might be corrected. But it’s my understanding that that’s how it works there.

                Ie, there are Arab minorities in Israeli, and they have some representation in the Knesset, the legislature there.

                But they are viewed by all other parties as illegitimate, so that the Knesset will not take any action with majority support, if Arab members are required to make the majority.

                I think that may have changed a little in order to depose Netanyahu but for a long time at least that’s how Israeli politics went.

                Ok, so that was a bit of a tangent. Back here, as it relates to Philip and the Democrats, they are going to eat a bad cycle. But if it’s just one bad cycle it’s no biggie, both parties have eaten bad cycles before and come back.

                That’s where 2024 comes in. If Demos have a bad cycle in 2024 too, then we can start to think about the Democrats as the non-playing characters of American democracy.

                And somehow, if that actually does happen, you can’t say they don’t deserve it.Report

              • Pinky in reply to Koz says:

                First off, the Democrats will win at minimum 40% of their races, so you can’t really consider them banished. Secondly, I’m fairly sure that Philip is the extreme that’s dominating the agenda over the liberals. Beyond that, though, his biggest trigger is being accused of treason, so you should back off anything close to that. He’s just horribly wrong. And if you want to see what it looks like when a fringe gets ignored, keep threatening people with banishment and see how many friends you lose.Report

              • Koz in reply to Pinky says:

                First off, the Democrats will win at minimum 40% of their races, so you can’t really consider them banished.

                It’s not a matter of how many races they win, it’s a matter of how many veto points they have.

                It’s very possible that after 2024 they won’t have any. That will create apprehensions for a lot of voters who wouldn’t necessarily be friendly to the Democrats to start voting for them again. Even voters who might like Republicans could still want significant checks on their collective power.

                Still, I think it’s the right way to go. When push comes to shove, there’s not much difference between giving the Demos one veto point and giving them all of them.

                Normie voters would like the Demos to work constructively with the Republicans, to sand away some excesses from becoming actual policy. But of course, that’s not on offer. Any meaningful power the Demos get will simply be leveraged to antagonize Republicans and grab whatever power they don’t have already.

                As things stand, we as Americans are full of animosities against each other. Animosities which started in the political/cultural sphere, and has now filtered into America as a whole. So, apprehensions or otherwise, the way to dial down those animosities is simply to vote Republican and roll with it.Report

    • Saul Degraw in reply to Douglas Hayden says:

      DeSantis (aka Florida Orban) is not something to look forward to.Report

    • North in reply to Douglas Hayden says:

      I agree. No one ever lost money by NOT relying on Trump. I won’t believe he’s running until he actually files the paperwork and even then I’ll be dubious. You can be sure, however, that running or not he’ll act like he’s running to pump the money out of the right wing aquifer right up to the due date though.Report

    • Within a mile of my house in coastal Mississippi are 6 houses flying Trump 2024 flags. There are dozens of signs touting him in various ways all around me. My incumbent congressman is running as his ally. He’s still VERY popular with his base.

      The MSM has not buried him – there are three stories on CNN’s web page right now (1141 CDT) that feature him prominently – and none of them are tomorrow’s January 6th Committee hearing.

      As to the GOP leadership not wanting him to run? that may be their deeply held position, but public cowards that they are none of them is going to say that outloud. DeSantis may be a better candidate, but Trump got the 2016 nod in a plurality, and right now he’s a walk off home run hitter for 2024.Report

      • Pinky in reply to Philip H says:

        Leadership saying they don’t want Trump to run wouldn’t decrease his chance of running; if anything it’d increase it a bit.Report

        • Jesse in reply to Pinky says:

          The RNC could pass a rule tomorrow, if they wanted to, they would ban Trump from running in the primaries.Report

          • Michael Cain in reply to Jesse says:

            Which people are on the presidential primary ballot in each state is determined by the state, most often by state law rather than party rules. The RNC can order the Colorado Republican Party to not put Trump on the ballot. But if Trump’s organization files the paperwork with the Secr of State and pays the fees, his name will be on the Republican primary ballot no matter what the RNC says.

            The inverse of this happened in 2012, when various not-Romneys appeared to be gaining some momentum, then missed the next few primaries because their organization had not filed timely paperwork in those states. To some extent, Romney won the primaries by having enough money early enough to dot the i’s and cross the t’s everywhere.

            The great weakness of various proposals to restructure how primaries are scheduled is that it requires all of the individual states to cooperate. (Or the federal government to overrule them, of course.)Report

            • Jesse in reply to Michael Cain says:

              I mean, the national RNC tomorrow could pass a proposition saying, “any state primary that allows any candidate who was previously impeached by Congress to run in their primary loses all their delegates, and automatically moves to the end of the primary calendar in the next Presidential election cycle,” or something like that.Report

  5. Koz says:

    Supposedly Trump in going to announce for President before the midterms which to me at least is significantly bad news for the GOP if it happens.

    As to actually winning the nomination, I’m not buying it. Trump has more ego investment from the base and not as much actual support. One thing in Trump’s favor is that when the votes start, he doesn’t need a majority of GOP primary voters. In a divided field, he could win with a consistent 35-40%.

    Against Trump, there’s a long time between now and then. I don’t think Trump can win the nomination without running an actual campaign, and I don’t think Trump intends to to campaign.

    Related to that, Trump is in objective terms a really bad candidate and the longer this process goes on, that will be more and more apparent.Report

    • Philip H in reply to Koz says:

      Related to that, Trump is in objective terms a really bad candidate and the longer this process goes on, that will be more and more apparent.

      Many of use said this in 2016. How’d that turn out?

      Trump has more ego investment from the base and not as much actual support.

      60% of Republican polled by CBS in May of this year supported him. According to Morning Consult, among Republican voters, Trump’s favorability rating is 86% in Georgia, 87% in North Carolina, 80% in Ohio and 77% in Pennsylvania. That’s not ego from the base, and it doesn’t bode well for the GOP if they really want someone new.Report

      • Koz in reply to Philip H says:

        Many of use said this in 2016. How’d that turn out?

        In 2016 Trump had important things to say, and moreover was the only one who would say them. None of that applies now.Report

        • Mike Schilling in reply to Koz says:

          It’s true. No one else talked about how Mexico would pay for a wall.Report

          • Nor did anyone else talk about how when you were a celebrity you could sexually assault any woman you chose with impunity. Good times.Report

          • Koz in reply to Mike Schilling says:

            No one else talked about how Mexico would pay for a wall.

            Nor did anyone else talk about how when you were a celebrity you could sexually assault any woman you chose with impunity.

            That’s true. But for a lot of Republicans, those things were basically irrelevant and could be ignored. On the other hand, Trump also opposed any meaningful cuts in Social Security or Medicare, opposed outsourcing American labor to China, and opposed the tendency toward kinetic foreign policy in a way that was relatively unique or more credible among Republicans.

            And it was _those_ things that won him the nomination.Report

    • Pinky in reply to Koz says:

      That’s part of why I think a single candidate like DeSantis would be a strong primary opponent. A crowded primary would have everyone running against Trump, which puts him on the attack and puts his name in every headline. Keep it at Ukraine, inflation, and the trans agenda (or whatever the big three will be in two years), don’t try to relitigate 2020. Bonus points if you can make him say that he ran a huge deficit and created the vaccine, because that would be hilarious.Report

      • Koz in reply to Pinky says:

        That’s part of why I think a single candidate like DeSantis would be a strong primary opponent. A crowded primary would have everyone running against Trump, which puts him on the attack and puts his name in every headline.

        It could work out that way, but you can’t really choreograph that in advance. But also, there’s some reason to think it cuts the other way as well. As non-Trump candidates enter the race, they are going to be talking about current events and not 2020. The drama and narratives around that are something that Trump will have to keep up with and adjust to, and I don’t think he necessarily can or be willing to.Report

        • Pinky in reply to Koz says:

          That’s a good point. More candidates talking about contemporary crises would make him look like he’s been sitting on his hands for four years. My concern is that issue-oriented campaigns rarely win primaries, particularly in crowded fields. Also, any issue that can be tied back to his administration, he’s going to do that – and that’s something that could break for or against him too.Report

          • InMD in reply to Pinky says:

            My suspicion is it will depend on whether the Republicans have the discipline and stomach to consolidate. Hindsight is 2020 but I think Biden won the presidency the second Jim Clyburn’s endorsement prompted the DNC and the other insiders to elbow the rest of the moderates out of the race. My understanding is the DNC exercises more leverage in the primary process than the Republicans do but I’ll defer to others who know more.

            Anyway if they unite behind someone without tons of baggage who can play nice and normal on TV and the inflation situation hasn’t improved significantly it would be hard to bet on Biden winning re-election. However even in a compromised economy, now that we’ve seen 4 years of the Trump melodrama, I’d have to think a lot of unhappy people would be really reluctant to go back to that. It will certainly be tough to cast Trump as a solution now that he has a track record, and I think that will be even more apparent if his campaign is all about relitigating what by then will feel like ancient history.Report

            • Koz in reply to InMD says:

              My suspicion is it will depend on whether the Republicans have the discipline and stomach to consolidate.

              Yeah, consolidation is _an_ issue, but I don’t think it’s the biggest issue.

              The percentage of Republican primary voters who intend to vote for Trump in a primary or caucus is a much bigger deal, and the variance of that is really big, depending on what happens between now and two years from now.Report

            • Pinky in reply to InMD says:

              I was going to reply with something starting “I can’t picture…”, but the truth is I can’t picture any of it. I can’t picture Trump or Biden running, I can’t picture either of them winning their primaries, and I can’t picture one of them attaining the White House. None of that sounds believable.Report

          • Koz in reply to Pinky says:

            My concern is that issue-oriented campaigns rarely win primaries, particularly in crowded fields.

            Its more orientation than issues. I mean, orientation is constituted by issues, but still it’s the orientation that matters.

            Trump’s orientation is Stop The Steal. That’s not the case for grassroots Republicans, even Trumpy ones.Report

            • Pinky in reply to Koz says:

              I always think of primaries in terms of pro wrestling. When you say orientation, are you talking about wrestlers’ personas?Report

              • Koz in reply to Pinky says:

                Sometimes yes, in this case no.

                This is mostly about time-orientation. That is, that DeSantis or whoever is going to be the next nominee not because voters are particular invested in his plan to lower inflation. But rather because he is addressing inflation in a credible way (or CRT or immigration or mask mandates/closed public schools, etc) which are things that the voters care about.

                As opposed to Stop The Steal which to be frank even Trumpy voters don’t really care about.Report

              • Pinky in reply to Koz says:

                I can agree with that to a point. And actually, I can tell you exactly where the point is – the second before the first question in the first primary debate. Because if Trump’s on the stage, you know what the first question is going to be, and I don’t know how they can keep it from devolving from there. I mean, it’d be tough to keep things on track even if Trump were well-mannered and thick-skinned.Report

              • Koz in reply to Pinky says:

                Because if Trump’s on the stage, you know what the first question is going to be, and I don’t know how they can keep it from devolving from there.

                No, I don’t know what the first question will be, and frankly I’m not understanding you that well.

                Maybe that the moderator will ask about Stop The Steal and nobody will talk about anything else?

                I don’t see it. I don’t think it’s an especially difficult circumstance for the other candidates to handle. All they need to do is talk about one or more of the many things that have happened since Trump left office that Trump hasn’t done or said anything meaningful about.Report

              • Philip H in reply to Koz says:

                As opposed to Stop The Steal which to be frank even Trumpy voters don’t really care about.

                They attacked the capitol last year over that.

                Two-thirds of GOP respondents agree with the verifiably false claim that “voter fraud helped Joe Biden win the 2020 election” — a key pillar of the “Big Lie” that the election was stolen from former President Donald Trump.

                https://www.npr.org/2022/01/03/1069764164/american-democracy-poll-jan-6Report

              • Koz in reply to Philip H says:

                They attacked the capitol last year over that.

                Well yeah, that was 18 months ago. More Republicans cared about it then.

                But new events change things, and Trump isn’t in office and isn’t instigating any meaningful narratives.Report

              • Slade the Leveller in reply to Koz says:

                The party of insurrection has a short memory.Report

              • Pinky in reply to Slade the Leveller says:

                This meme of yours won’t persuade anyone; if it catches on among the left, it’ll only cement for everyone else the image of Democrats as hacks. Unless they’ve already convened a committee to investigate threats on SCOTUS.Report

              • Mike Schilling in reply to Pinky says:

                If you can prove Biden conspired to attack Kavanaugh, do it. Otherwise that looks like a weak attempt at deflection.Report

              • Mike Schilling in reply to Koz says:

                The Cogressspeople who begged for pardons are still in office.Report

  6. Trump wold be a disaster both during his term and, going forward, to the future of representative government. Thinking he won’t get the nomination is underestimating the malice of the GOP.Report