A Trump Revival?

It was designed to be a grand theatrical gesture. It was designed to be the coda on Tuesday’s elections, elections that President Trump surely imagined were going to be the bell that signaled his reentry into presidential politics. 

Such was not the reality. As we scanned the news we discovered that Trump had lost the support of big Republican donors, from Rubert Murdoch to Ken Griffin. He had also lost the support of senior officials who had worked with him, from Mike Pence to Mark Esper to Mick Mulvaney. He also lost the support of Congressional Republicans who kept saying that they were tired of losing with Trump. 

More than a few normally sympathetic Republicans accused Trump of having lost his touch. At a time when Georgia was gearing up for an election for senator, Trump risked sucking the oxygen out of the room. Now, Herschel Walker, not the most adept wordsmith, was going to be dogged by questions about Donald Trump.

And yet, the polls do not look all that bad. Trump is still leading all other contenders. Still, if ever those contenders decide on a single opponent, Trump’s good fortune will evaporate. Most Republicans are now touting the greatness of a proven winner and a proven executive by the name of Ron DeSantis.

And yet, were we to look at the Trump record, it is generally positive. It is certainly more positive than the Biden debacle. Victor Davis Hanson sums it up:

Trump’s actual four years of governance were characterized, before the advent of the pandemic, by robust growth, low inflation, energy independence, low unemployment, a rebuilding of the US military, eventual curbing of illegal immigration, the Abraham Accords, and forcing NATO to spend far more on defense. Trump saved the Supreme Court and lower federal courts for a generation.

Unfortunately, Trump more often stepped all over his record. He allowed his oversized persona, his flair for the dramatic, to overshadow his work as president. True enough, he was more sinned against than sinning, but the press and the deep state were so completely hostile to him that he must have felt that he had little choice between crawling into a cave somewhere and crying out against them.

As it happens, there are other ways to deal with such flagrant hostility. Note that when Ron DeSantis is being attacked, whether by his political opposition or by Donald Trump, he becomes ironic, turning the assault against the assaulters. Unfortunately, Donald Trump has no sense of irony, or even of sarcasm. And he barely controls his communications.

For all of his many successes, Donald Trump was done in by his oversized personality, and, yes, by the mean, incoherent, rambling tweets. You might find this to be a gross injustice, but that does not make it true. American citizens seem to want a president who is presidential. Trump was anything but. He reveled in the fact.

Of course, Trump’s 2016 opponent was a grossly incompetent fraud. Hillary was anything but presidential. And yet, consider the fact that Trump lost to our current president, a Tin Man… and your perspective will receive a much-needed corrective.

Trump’s great virtue, in 2016, was that he was the only Republican who could have beat Hillary Clinton. Today, however, if we are to believe Mick Mulaney, Trump is the candidate most likely to lose to a Democrat. Not because of the issues or the record-- but, because of the show. After four years America chose not to be entertained.

The reason is simple. Trump has allowed himself to be consumed by grievance. It is not a presidential look. It is a sore-loser look. In the most recent elections, Trump sought out candidates who claimed to share his grievances. Most of them underperformed. And he seemed to prefer candidates who were near-amateurs, who did not have very much experience at the highest levels of government.

Ironically, this was what damaged the Trump presidency-- inexperience. Lacking same, Trump could not step away from the brawl. He often seemed to be flailing, like someone who had been brought in to pinch hit, but who barely knew how to play the game.