Is Trump done?
“For even the very wise cannot see all ends.” ― J.R.R. Tolkien
After each Republican electoral reverse and with every revelation that Trump is: a crook, a seditionist, a fraud, and a seller of state secrets, the political intelligentsia deems the ex-President is a beached whale — whose demise has been sealed and will soon be revealed. And every time, they have been wrong.
Now, however, after the 2022 midterms, perhaps it is different. Or not.
History
The GOP today has one stark fault line — the MAGAs vs. the Republicans who wish they could live without them (but are too scared to try).
The divide started soon after it became apparent in 2016 that the unimaginable had happened — a pussy-grabbing, convicted fraud had survived serial bankruptcies, a meritless personal life, and a staggering display of hubristic ignorance and butchered English to be elected President of the United States.
The old guard was gobsmacked. They reacted to this dismal development by either running away or learning to coexist with the new disorder. Most notable among the quitters was Paul Ryan, the up-and-coming Speaker, and former VP candidate. He took a powder when the GOP lost the House in the 2018 midterms and fled to the Fox Corp. Board of Directors' warm financial embrace.
Since Trump’s thrashing in the 2020 election, political experts have serially reported his demise with all the accuracy of God-hearing prophets predicting the end of the world. The Mar-a-Lago madman survived an incitement to sedition when the GOP’s top brass, the carapaced MitchMcConnell, and the equally spineless Kevin Mccarthy overcame nascent decency to embrace the anarchy of Trump’s post-presidential domination of the GOP.
For two years, muttering that Trump’s end was near proved wishful thinking as the Teflon Don kept the base’s loyalty through charges of leaking state secrets, attempted election rigging, financial fraud, and ceaseless whining the world had done him wrong. He was immune to the political wounds that would have doomed anyone else.
Then came the 2022 midterms and their coda, Georgia — The Runoff.
Today
Trump entered the 2022 contest bestowing endorsements on those who backed his election-rigging claims — regardless of their electability. It was disastrous. The voters looked at his slate of misfits and malcontents and said “no.”
The predicted red wave proved chimeric. The left defied prognostication. Every incumbent Democratic Senator won while the GOP lost a seat in Pennsylvania. The Republicans barely flipped the House as their dreams of double-digit supremacy evaporated. And the Democrats picked up two Governorships.
Then, as the world watched, Georgia’s voters handed Republicans their coup de grâce. Trump’s champion, the violently unqualified stumblebum Herschel Walker lost. The Republican establishment lay broken. And this time, the opposition to Trump seems to have solidity.
Rupert Murdoch, the wind beneath Trump’s 2016 wings, withdrew his media empire’s support. Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Post all told Trump to bugger off. Some Republican politicians — not just from the ‘never-Trump’ faction — said it was time to move on.
Mike Pompeo, a heretofore publicly loyal soldier, tweeted shade after one Trump tirade on Truth Social.
“Conservatives are elected when we deliver. Not when we just rail on social media. That’s how we can win. We fight for families and a strong America.”
Sen. John Thune (R-SD) blaming Trump for the GOP’s failure, identified candidate quality as the GOP’s Achilles heel.
“A lot of the candidates that had problems in these elections were running on the 2020 election being stolen and I don’t think Independent voters were having it.”
Previously worshipful Trump pundits have turned. Stuart Varney observed,
“In the midterms, Trump-backed candidates lost in vital races. Dr. Oz in Pennsylvania, Don Bolduc in New Hampshire, Tudor Dixon in Michigan, Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania, Kari Lake in Arizona.”
Even a former Trump Chief of Staff, Mick Mulvaney, sees the writing on the wall.
“there's a growing group of Republicans that supported Donald Trump in '16 and 2020, like myself, worked with him in the administration, who think he's our weakest candidate in 2024."
The Future
Many will dismiss this antipathy to the Dear Leader as just more of the same inconsequential opposition that Trump has repeatedly swatted away as the base displayed its goose-stepping loyalty to the MAGA cause. It is a political truism that, as long as the cult embraces its Messiah, Trump will bend the GOP to his will, regardless of what the establishment thinks about it.
They are right. As long as the base backs him, Trump is golden. But does that remain the case? Are the MAGA morons still the monolithic foundation of Trump’s hegemony over the political right wing? Nobody can say for sure. What to historians in retrospect seemed inevitable, to eyewitnesses can appear opaque.
However, consider this — and give it the weight you deem appropriate. In a look-ahead, the Texas GOP polled Texas Republicans to ask who they would vote for in 2024. DeSantis beat Trump by 11% — 43% to 33%.
The Club for Growth asked the same of Republicans in Iowa, New Hampshire, Georgia, and Florida. DeSantis led in all four states — with his lowest margin in Iowa (11%) and his highest in Georgia (16%)
Does this mean Trump is doomed? Absolutely not. These were internal polls by conservative groups with who knows what axes to grind. And for every poll showing Trump’s sand has run out, there is another “proving" he is flying as high as ever.
On the other hand, there are stories of discontent and worse, boredom in the ranks. Let Bob Vander Plaats, head of the Iowa-based social conservative group Family Leader, testify,
“The former president presents our biggest risk of losing for 2024, and conservatives are tired of losing. Even the former president’s announcement is being greeted like it never happened. There’s no buzz amongst my network at all.”
Trump's political future is a play in three acts addressing three questions. Does he make it to the primaries? Does he win the nomination? Does he win the election?
Who the hell knows?