It’s a little awe-inspiring to see how Trump vanquished his opposition in the Republican primary. One might think that he had lost his credibility with his meekly-conservative presidency and his total abandonment of the J6 prisoners. But the voters have gone for him in droves in the primaries, and here we are.
One theory, and it convinces me, is that the Republicans are angry over the lawfare being waged against Trump, so they’re supporting him in reaction. If true, it doesn’t speak well of the MAGA voters. But when has anyone spoken well of them?
DeSantis’s positions were at least as good as Trump’s (from a MAGA perspective), but he could gain no momentum. Trump generates enthusiasm. It was when I saw the rallies in 2016 that I decided that he could very well beat Hillary, despite her 98% favorable rating in the polls. I said to myself and a couple of friends, “They’re not telling us the truth.” But as I wrote earlier, Trump squeaked to a victory by carrying some blue-collar districts that normally went Democrat. I’d say he captured their imagination.
Trump wins through gasbaggery. Someone in the New York scene said back in 2016, paraphrasing an old piece of sales advice, that Trump would sell the sizzle when he didn’t even have any steak! He hammered his “build a wall and make Mexico pay for it” at every single rally he he held. Ted Cruz warned us that he didn’t mean it and wasn’t going to do it. [Cruz speaks generally on Trump’s pathological lying here.]
Those who remember the 2016 campaign can listen to Trump give a speech now and hear the same old gasbaggery, one promise after another about things he could have done the first time. And, for what it’s worth, we hear the same enthusiastic responses from the audience, whose shortness of memory is a thing to behold. Still, it isn’t the ten thousand in the audience who will decide which way the election goes. A huge rally represents only a tiny percentage of the voters.
The Dims seem intent, kamikaze-like, to ride the Biden-Harris ticket all the way down. That’s got to help Trump. Now RFK, Jr. is in the race with a running mate who offers everything Biden-Harris can’t, so he’s bound to hurt Biden, which will help Trump.
But I think, personally, that Trump can’t generate the former enthusiasm again. Multitudes of his first voters who were elderly are now dead, and there’s little indication that he’s picked up many of the new ones who have reached voting age. Another big chunk of his former voters are now singing “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” He barely had enough in 2016; he doesn’t have as many now.
The 2020 election was rigged — not in the 2,000 Mules way, but through collusion between the mass media and social media to violate free speech standards and to lie about it the whole time, which qualifies de facto as election interference. They can do it again, and I expect that they will.
These things combined give me little hope that Trump can overthrow the Dims.