I’m predicting that Donald J. Trump — unless he’s dead or in the slammer — will be the 2024 Republican nominee for president. And maybe even if he’s at the Club Fed; after all, Socialist Party candidate Eugene V. Debs took nearly 1 million votes in the 1920 election while he was Prisoner 9653. That was when the United States’ population was more than a third smaller.
How? He’s going to use the same strategy he used in 2016. Had the 2016 Republican field been small, Trump wouldn’t have had a prayer. But it wasn’t. The other nine candidates divided the sane vote, allowing Trump to capture the David Duke vote.
Don’t believe me that Trump has the plurality in the Republican Party? Here’s a real expert talking to The Washington Post:
Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster, says the party’s electorate can be divided into three key buckets. A small group, roughly 10 percent, are “Never Trumpers,” Republicans who have long and vocally opposed Trump. A far larger group, about 40 percent, are “Always Trumpers,” his hardcore base that will never abandon him.
The remaining 50 percent or so, Ayres said, are “Maybe Trumpers” – Republicans who voted for him twice, who generally like his policies, but who are now eager to escape the chaos that accompanies him.
“So they are open to supporting someone else who will do much of what they want without all of the baggage,” Ayres said. “So then the question becomes: Who?”
There’s no doubt that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former VP/Trump sycophant Mike Pence are running. Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie are pretty sure bets, too. Virginia Governor Glenn Younkin is probably going to get in, and Senator Josh Hawley will likely run into the race almost as fast as he fled the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. That’s six right there! Both former CIA Director Mike Pompeo and South Carolina Senator Tim Scott have made some comments that invite presidential speculation. That would bring the field to eight. And think of all the candidates in 2016 on the Republican side and 2020 on the Democratic side that no one even considered two years earlier! It’s likely to be another 10- or 12-ring circus.
And clowns always do well at the circus. Trump will take his 40% while the others will divvy up the remaining 60%. Political pundits claim that Trump’s terrible hand-picked candidates will persuade his cult members to abandon him. Don’t make us laugh!
They stuck with him with the Mexican rapist comment, the Access Hollywood tape, the two impeachments (one for bribery and one — for God’s sake — for the attempted treasonous overthrow of the United States), and they’re going to be put off by Blake Masters and Kari Lake losing? They’ll just chalk that up to Democratic election fraud and double-down on the need to get Trump in as president to keep “them Dems from a-cheatin’!”
And their darlings, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, convicted felon and filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza, and Pillowman Mike Lindell, will provide them with conspiracy-theory-laced word salad to spout. Don’t expect any of these lemmings to veer off course, stunning election losses be damned.
Just remember: You heard it here first. You haven’t heard the last of Donald J. Trump.
--30--
