The Right Resistance: Donald Trump won’t repeat 2020’s mistakes in 2024 (let’s hope)
Can Joe Biden and the Democrats count on Donald Trump to beat himself, again, in the 2024 presidential race?
As the days go by and poll after poll exposes serious popularity weakness for the doddering president who shocked no one a few weeks back by announcing his reelection bid for the White House, desperation seems to be growing among senile Joe Biden’s supporters and advisors. And congressional Democrats too – don’t forget them. Everyone realizes that a party’s future lies in the hands of its most visible leader.
Put it this way. I wouldn’t want to be a Democrat whose electoral viability depends on Joe Biden, especially when the evidence is mounting that Biden – and his family – are an interconnected crime operation. The aged idiot can only deny complicity for so long before his own people learn of the undisputable facts and turn on him.
Further, the headlines stand to worsen for Biden and his liberal cohorts. The Ukraine quagmire shows no sign of ending, the economy is shaky at best, Americans’ confidence in his administration is at a personal all-time low and the rationale for granting him a second term is rapidly disappearing into a morass of scandals.
Is there hope? Optimists suggest that maybe Donald Trump will “help” Biden simply by being himself. In a strangely pessimistic piece (considering the source) titled “Can Trump cure all of Biden’s ills? Some Dems aren’t so sure.”, Eugene Daniels and Jonathan Lemire wrote last week at Politico:
“…The assumption that Trump’s continued presence on the scene — and his likely ascension to Republican nominee — will cure a lot of the current ailments is a recipe for complacency. That is especially problematic amid an economy Americans still feel unsure about, and as investigations into the president and his family have the potential to further complicate the election.
“’After 60 years in politics, he’s surrounded by people who are insular by nature. And so it’s not a huge surprise that the White House doesn’t feel receptive to messages other than the ones that they want to believe in,’ said Stephanie Murphy, a former moderate Democratic House member. ‘It’s easy to blame the media but what is important is being able to listen to what the American people are saying to you. I mean, it’s not that every poll is wrong.’
“Aides close to Biden bristle at the criticism and even the critics themselves, arguing their track record should allow them some leash.”
The “leash” the Biden people seek might actually be a rope if they fail to acknowledge the proverbial writing on the wall. Senile Joe Biden isn’t nearly as popular as they make him out to be, and his “accomplishments” are fully responsible for the inflation eating into everyone’s family budgets and retirement savings. It won’t be hard for Trump to make the case that Biden’s awful policies tanked the economy and destroyed America’s cities and completely dissolved the southern border.
How would Americans answer Ronald Reagan’s immortal question now: “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?”
For Democrats counting on Trump to ride to their rescue, it won’t happen if the former president learned from his own 2020 slip-ups. And those who object to my use of the terms “beat himself” and “again” to describe Trump’s effort in the last presidential election, perhaps they’d best revisit the multitude of blunders our candidate committed prior to the election. Leave aside, for a moment, the arguable notion that Trump didn’t “lose” the election at all and the presidency was taken from him by coordinated leftist efforts in those six toss-up states that all moved towards senile Joe Biden in the pre-dawn hours of the morning after Election Day.
Pop quiz: Can you still name the six? Here’s my attempt: Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and Nevada. All but Nevada chose Trump in 2016, and all mysteriously opted for Biden in 2020. We can spend hours debating… but the rest is history, and we ain’t going back.
So much media emphasis is placed on what happened after all the votes were cast, but it seems Trump was on a downward trend before November even arrived.
The infamous “Zuckerbucks” aside, Trump didn’t perform up to speed in the final month of the campaign, which was further compounded by early voting having started in September in many states and Trump was running pretty far behind with those who’d already cast a ballot by the time the World Series came around (which was shortened and played at a neutral site without fans because of COVID restrictions in 2020. Anyone inclined to count that one as legitimate?).
Myself and many of the folks I talked with at the time believed Trump “lost” the 2020 campaign during the first presidential debate. You recall, the one where ex-Fox News personality Chris Wallace “moderated” and treated the president as though he were a petulant child in an elementary school classroom who talked out of turn too much, all the while allowing the aggressive Biden to spout falsehood after falsehood without so much as a corrective peep from the obviously biased middleman.
Trump didn’t do well that night. He may have been correct in his objections to Biden’s incessant fibs, but the incumbent came across as tired, frustrated, angry and … rude. I had relatives who were huge Trump fans say afterwards that they were astonished at how badly Trump conducted himself while expressing fears that our candidate might’ve just blown the election because anyone who was yet undecided about reelecting Trump probably made a beeline to make a change in the White House by mailing in their vote the next day.
Yes, Chris Wallace – and the rest of the media talkers who commented on the event – was heinous and outwardly out to get Trump and sabotage the Republican cause (along with the CIA, FBI, deep state and the rest of the swamp). But simply put, for his own sake, Trump had to control himself. The fact that the second debate (which was actually the third scheduled forum, the second having been cancelled because of Trump’s COVID diagnosis and recovery period – and the fact Trump refused to participate remotely, which was a good decision) went so much better for the incumbent proved that Trump had it in him.
So why the flubbed first debate? Trump’s performance was akin to striking out all four at-bats as his team’s cleanup hitter with the bases loaded each time in the seventh game of the World Series – and then losing by one run.
I don’t know if it’s ever been proved, or even delved into, but I believe Trump was sick that night (September 29). It was first revealed that the president and first lady tested positive for COVID on October 2nd, which meant he could’ve begun to feel “off” a few days prior. Or his immune system could’ve been weakened from other factors such as his schedule and the stress of a national campaign.
In a nutshell, Trump wasn’t himself in the first debate. Normally upbeat and always willing to use humor, the president was instead testy and irritable the entire hour and a half. It was cringeworthy.
The second major error Trump committed in 2020 was the COVID diagnosis itself. Why? Because the setback provided the establishment media and the Democrats the opening they sought to pin the entirety of the pandemic sham on Trump himself rather than realistically assessing the absurdity of the counter-measures Anthony “Fuzzball” Fauci and company dictated to us.
Who can forget how Trump held a reception for Justice-to-be Amy Coney Barrett (on September 26) and everyone in attendance was walking around without stupid masks in front of the cameras. Ah hah! See, you COVID denier! The cloth diaper would’ve saved you from the Chinese plague if you’d only just done what the CDC told you to do! You cad! Joe Biden wouldn’t ignore it. He promised to protect us!
The fact Trump recovered fairly quickly from COVID (thanks to a brief stay at Walter Reed) didn’t help his political cause. The damage had been done. The whole episode made verbally stumbling and physically bumbling Joe and cackling Kamala Harris look like responsible health caretakers while bombastic and confident Trump “ignored” the signs and caught the ailment. Trump’s post-sickness wave off the White House balcony probably didn’t help matters.
The question now is, will Trump blow it – again – next year? As I’ve repeatedly argued, winning the GOP nomination and the general election is all Trump cares about now. Both are vital to his overall drive to secure his place in history as the one who made America great again while also preserving the Trump family brand for his posterity.
Thus far, except for Trump’s off-base and tasteless jabs at Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis, the former president has pretty much stuck to doing the things he needs to do to replicate his success in 2016. As long as he continues to articulate the real problems (economy, illegal immigration, cultural decline, energy exploration), Trump will do well and avoid the disastrous steps that cost him an outside-the-margin-of-fraud win in 2020.
Donald Trump isn’t inclined to help Joe Biden beat him – again. For America’s sake, let’s hope Trump cooperates.
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