I think he might do it, but I think he will need to re-establish a twitter-like national presence to be as effective, and I don’t know if that’s going to happen. A “conservative-twitter” alternative isn’t going to cut it, everybody has to see it. His use of social media was hugely instrumental in getting where he did.
Nope,
if he’s alive in 2024, he’s running. And if he runs, he’ll get the GOP nomination.
If Trump decides to run in 2024, I think his voter base is large enough for him to win any Republican Primary. I don’t see any other Republican that could beat him, and I don’t know if any have the guts to try to actually stand up to him in a primary. Maybe Lynn Cheney, maybe Nikki Haley. But the GOP voters are hardcore Trumpists at this point.
So, if I had to lay money on it, I’d say Trump runs again in 2024 against Biden. The Republican Party will be more radical than ever at that point. I think Biden will trounce him in terms of the popular vote (again), and likely win the Electoral college comfortably (again). But I’m worried what the State-level GOP folks will do in 2024 in places like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin if Biden takes those states…maybe they’ll refuse to certify or something crazy.
I think we’ve now entered an era where State level GOP operatives will actively assist Trump in greater numbers than ever in his efforts to thwart the will of the people.
And don’t forget all the voter suppression bills that Red States are looking at right now. Democrats had better be ready for a battle in 2024, because the opponent will be crazier and more entrenched than ever.
This is my concern as well—Trump announces that he’s running again in 2024, and GOP-controlled state legislatures go nuclear. They ban early voting and voting by mail, and engage in massive purges of voter rolls. They make sure Trump loyalists are controlling all the levers of the election system. They do everything they can think of to make voting next to impossible in urban areas. Or, at worst, they pass laws giving the legislature unlimited power to toss out the vote and pick their own electors.
In his announcement of his 2024 candidacy, Trump will tell his supporters, “Don’t let what happened in 2020 happen again.” And they’ll do their best to obey him.
Jeeyzus. Nightmare scenario.
People need to understand the hold he has on that Party. We’ve never had anything like this in the US. It seems impossible that something like this could happen, where state legislators just throw out results. But what just happened in 2020 also seemed impossible, and look what happened. And if not for a few very brave Republicans in a few states, we might have had an Electoral College that was unable to establish a winner because states weren’t certified. The Trump Party won’t allow this to happen again in states with Trump-Party-held legislatures if they can stop it.
Democrats need to understand what they are up against.
Indeed. A handful of people stood up to Trump and didn’t back down when he put the thumbscrews on them. Next time around, the GOP will make sure those pests have been replaced with people who are more cooperative.
Remember how the Texas GOP decided that there should be one drop box per county? Maybe in 2024, red states will go to in-person voting only, and one voting location per county. Oh, you’re still waiting in that mile-long line in bitter November cold when the polls close? Sucks to be you!
I don’t want to be too pessimistic. My hope is that Trump will be too lazy and too preoccupied with his legal and financial problems, and decide that it’s not worth the hassle to run again. Maybe he’ll content himself with running (or trying to run) the party from Mar-a-Lago between rounds of golf. But we need to be ready if he doesn’t.
Yes, as critical as this past election was – and as hard it was to win – it will be even more critical and even harder to win again in '24, mostly because of the voter suppression efforts noted by others. A couple of gerrymandered states are trying to switch to Nebraska/Maine style of awarding their electoral votes by House district, which will give Trump a few extra votes and make it even more important to flip North Carolina as a counterweight.
We’ll need to figure out how to get the yoots back out to the polls. They turned out at about a 55% rate last time, not bad for that age bracket, and a repeat performance could add three million more desperately needed votes for the Dem candidate.
Can you honestly say you’re surprised. At least he took longer to flip back than Graham did. That counts for integrity in the GOP. I mean, look at 'em. You can see their lizard eyes behind the masks.
He really doesn’t need Twitter anymore. Everyone knows who he is and his political personality.
I suspect that if he can get the attention and approval he craves without running for office again, he’ll stay where he is and play puppetmaster. He doesn’t want the actual job and never did.
But he loves the power and the protection of the office. Work is something lesser schmucks do.
I’m hoping the lawsuits and financial disclosures and lack of rallies (and social media) all wear him down. To the point that he won’t run, or run as a shell of his former self.
Or start a third party (a half-assed MAGA party that splits the 'Pubs…).
Except for the really important stuff like deciding what shade of blue AF1 is painted and looking at drapery swatches for the Oval Office.
I think at this point the protections are gone. I’m really not seeing any of his problems magically going away even if he managed to get back into office again. His Twitter account is gone forever.
And he’s still got plenty of power - look at how he’s been able to get his sycophants to come to FL and line up to kiss his ass. He can pull their strings and watch them dance, all from the comfort of his resort. He’s probably got it as good right now as it’s going to get from here on out.
Also, his favorite child apparently has no further interest in politics. I cannot find the exact article now, but there were assertions in it from people who know her that she is over it.
Well, we may disagree on a little there, but it’s all good.
I also saw an article recently about Ivanka’s disinterest. Trump now seems to be reluctantly shifting his focus over to Junior, who is all in on decrying the evilness of socialist libtards and might not have anything else of substance to do for the next couple of years.
Jarvanka grifted hundreds of millions over the past four years, they can afford to play at being Idle Rich for a while.
For what? What could we do about this?
I think if we throw away all concerns about governing and respecting law and order, we could fight like they do, but we are not experienced at that and seem to have a large share of people who would not want to do that. Moreover, there’s still a huge Republican advantage in the Electoral College, and at least presently also in gerrymandering and in the Supreme Court.
And even if we could pull that off, I’m not sure I’d want to. I have serious doubts about the US remaining a fairly democratic country, nominally a democracy, but I’d rather see our two party democratic system die with one party still trying to be democratic, rather than everybody giving up.
Maybe there’ll be prison or incapacity for Trump, or who knows what else. Perhaps voting rights will start taking off successfully (at least we can hope). Four years in politics is a long time. But I don’t see a whole lot else the Democratic Party can do that would be worth doing.
Battles are different and require different tactics. World War II was different than Vietnam, different cause. If it comes to fighting for democracy, I would hope that people get the stakes.
If Team R starts jailing people, killing innocents, what do you do?
What I try to keep hanging my hat on is that he will be a 78-year-old man who’s had a bout with severe COVID-19, is about 20-30 pounds overweight, doesn’t sleep well, and aside from avoiding alcohol, doesn’t seem to take great care of himself. His legal battles will stress him out.
OTOH, his parents were long-lived, and he seems to draw enormous amounts of energy out of nowhere when he’s fighting high-profile wars with people. I think that the former will eventually wear him down and that he’ll be discouraged from hitting the campaign trail again in 2023, but I’ve been wrong before about Trump. He has proven himself to be really good at grabbing attention and pimping himself.