Donald Trump Grows Stronger Even with Countless Problems Looming Large. How? – Back in the Spring, Sixty-three percent of likely Republican primary voters heading into the GOP 2024 Presidential Primary declared they wanted Donald Trump to be reelected—even if he were to be found guilty of a crime.
That’s the state of the Grand Old Party today.
From the party that freed the slaves to the party that wants to elect a potential criminal to the presidency. It all makes sense, in a strange sort of through the looking glass sort of way.
Compare numbers like that to those of Trump’s Republican opponents in 2024 and it is staggering to think that anyone else would waste their time—or their donor’s money—getting into this race.
Even my governor, Ron DeSantis, who is by and far the best Republican candidate since Ronald Reagan on crucial policy issues, is trailing badly behind Donald Trump in the most recent spate of polls.
Teflon Don Rides Again
Nevertheless, Donald Trump appears to be earning his old nickname from the 1980s of “Teflon Don.”
Perhaps this is but the last sudden surge of life force in Donald Trump’s reelection campaign before it ultimately implodes.
That poll indicating 63 percent of Republican voters want Trump to be the 2024 GOP nominee says otherwise, though.
Trump has deftly built a fail-safe position for himself in the minds of most Republican voters.
After years of enduring some of the most unfair political witch hunts that any American president has had to endure; following an endlessly repeating narrative about how the Faceless Men of the Deep State are out to get he and his followers, Donald Trump has built up immunity from the kinds of scandals and missteps that would have taken down more ordinary Republican presidential hopefuls.
There are those in the GOP who are hopeful that Trump’s numbers are but a thin veneer that can be easily penetrated with money and discipline. For those hoping to rid our country of the tiresome gerontocracy, we can only pray that this is the reality. But Trump’s standing with the ordinary Republican voter says otherwise.
When Trump infamously told an audience of supporters in 2016 that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and his supporters would still stand by him, Trump was more accurate than even he likely realized.
Donald Trump wants the nomination. He, like how Joe Biden is with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., on the Democratic Party side, does not wish to engage in any debate. Trump barely even wants a primary (despite the fact that there are at least half a dozen candidates and counting on the GOP side).
The notion that Trump will just implode is fanciful at best. And no strategy put forward thus far by any of Trump’s would-be challengers will prove effective in defeating the forty-fifth president’s comeback tour.
The average Republican voter is fed up. They’re looking for decisive leadership. While Trump’s time in office was anything but decisive or successful (most of his legacy was the result of executive orders that his Democratic Party successor easily undid), the base likes the cut of Trump’s jib. It will take a miracle for any other challenger in the GOP to storm the ramparts and win enough votes away from Trump.
All the other GOP candidates for 2024 waited too long to announce and moved too slowly.
The campaign does not begin when you want it to. It begins when the first, most viable candidate in your party announces and begins defining you and any other challenger to his campaign.
That is precisely what Trump has done since announcing his reelection campaign last November.
Supporting Donald Trump is a Double-Edged Sword
But supporting Trump is truly a double-edged sword. He can sweep the primary with the sheer force of his will and the appeal of his personality. Yet, he polls terribly among independents and other groups who are more likely to vote in a General Election than they are in the Republican Primary.
These voters will squelch Trump because his brand is so badly damaged—and that damaged brand is now welded into the minds of most of these independent voters that they will take an “anyone but Trump” approach to voting in 2024.
Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis. Image Credit: Government of Florida.
The Republican Party must not allow for Donald Trump to bully his way to the nomination. They must ensure that only the most viable candidates can run—notably Trump and DeSantis—and allow for the Republican base to get a real choice. Otherwise, the Republicans will get crushed in the General Election and Trump will lose yet again to “Sleepy” Joe Biden, who is viewed as the “safer” of the two candidates.
The Democrats’ attacks will bounce off and energize Trump in the primary, just as his “Teflon Don” nickname implies. Once in the General, though, Trump’s entire persona will immolate under the sustained attacks that the Democrats and their allies in the media subject Trump to. The Republicans need a better candidate this election cycle. Time is running out to find it, though.
Ron DeSantis. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
A 19FortyFive Senior Editor, Brandon J. Weichert is a former Congressional staffer and geopolitical analyst who is a contributor at The Washington Times, as well as at American Greatness and the Asia Times. He is the author of Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower (Republic Book Publishers), Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life (May 16), and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy (July 23). Weichert can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.
From 19FortyFive
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