Some commentary I’ve picked up over the last year: “Alabama Liberal, you said [in a February 2021 video] that Trump’s base would quietly leave him just like W. Bush’s fanatics left him, but that hasn’t happened at all. Were you spectacularly wrong or what?” …Myself: “Not at all, and it’s actually happening faster than I expected it to.” [In the video, I really didn’t give a specific timeline, but I didn’t think it would happen before midterms, and the party would at least take a few years to reset.]
What?! How can this be? The media tells us everyday that Trump is as popular as he’s ever been within the Republican Party (not true), and that he’s the most likely candidate for them in 2024 (not true), and that his iron grip on the party is as strong as it’s ever been (not true), so how can they be wrong?
Please keep in mind these are the same people that have been wrong about everything up this point. They have never understood–or cared to understand–“rural American” (anywhere that’s not NYC, DC, or LA) or Trump voters, and just as they’ve incorrectly guessed what will happen in Trumpland 1,000 times (Scaramucci was a part of Trumpland and he’s wrong so often, you can practically guarantee that whatever he says is what’s least likely to happen), they’re wrong now. These are people who largely talk to each other about each other (Bill Maher talks about Whoopie Goldberg, Whoopie Goldberg talks about Joe Rogan, Joe Rogan talks about Trevor Noah, Trevor Noah talks about Tucker Carlson, and so on), and so if a Daily Beast or New York Times reporter has dinner with Andrew Sullivan, Bret Stephens, or Steve Schmidt (the only “Republicans” they know) and they say Trump’s support is still sky-high, then that’s all they need to know.
The media doesn’t want to let Trump go (and this includes social media, where he is talked about constantly–mostly by people who hate him). He’s their cash cow or their bread-and-butter. They need him to scare more than half the country into staying glued to the news and driving up clicks and/or inspire his cult to also drive up those clicks.
But when you actually talk to Republicans in real life (not just online), I’ve noticed they’ve gradually gone from “The election was stolen from my man Trump!” to “I can’t wait until DeSantis shows Joe Biden what-for in 2024!”
Trump has only been out of office for about a year, and there haven’t even been midterm elections yet. Keep in mind, this is always the period when an ex-Republican President is most influential—just like W. Bush was for a little bit before the Republicans quickly threw him to the side for the Tea Party wave.
And given his extremely public profile, and open desire to run again in 2024, it’s kind-of incredible that so many actual Republicans appear to be pivoting away from Trump, albeit more slowly than may be perceptible if you aren’t paying close attention. People claim the Virginia Governor’s race shows how popular Trump still is, but it actually showed the exact opposite as the gubernatorial candidate asked Trump not to campaign for him there. Likewise, many of the candidates Trump is promoting in this year’s midterms don’t seem as likely to win as the Republicans he’s not endorsing. [One revealing example will be if the Trump-backed David Perdue gets beaten pretty badly in the Republican primary for Georgia Governor against their incumbent Governor running for reelection. Perdue just lost a Georgia senate seat when he had Trump’s backing, so that should tell you something.]
People take it as a given that Republicans who aren’t for Trump will get wiped out in their state’s elections (that’s also the general theory for why so few Republicans are willing to tell Trump to jump off a bridge), but that’s actually not evident in actual results: Mitt Romney hasn’t been recalled in Utah, Ben Sasse handily won reelection in Nebraska during 2020, Susan Collins outperformed Trump in 2020, and we really don’t know how people like Liz Cheney, Rep. Nancy Mace, Rep. Dan Newhouse, Rep. Fred Upton, Rep. Tom Rice, or Brad Raffensberger will fare this year, but they haven’t lost yet—despite how the media paints it.
Even in a place like Alabama, where Trump’s endorsement does carry real weight, his actual record is a mixed-bag: he endorsed Luther Strange for a senate seat in 2017, but Strange lost to Roy Moore; then Trump endorsed Moore, but Moore lost to Doug Jones. Even though Trump despised Jeff Sessions and would’ve gladly preferred Bradley Byrne, Sessions still made the run-off against Tommy Tuberville. Sure, Tuberville eventually won the general, but that’s hardly impressive given Republicans control Alabama completely in statewide races, and that’s the only time in 4 where he backed the winner of one senate seat. [Trump is also trying to oust incumbent Alabama Governor Kay Ivey, and we’ll see how successful that goes in a few months, but I have a feeling this will be one of the many times in 2022 where Republican voters quietly choose to ignore Trump.]
The only reason we’re still seeing so much about Trump in the news is because the news media loves driving up those clicks, including the unreal amount of bad publicity he’s generated since leaving office: Poorly attended rallies, making sure few powerful Republicans actually want him back in office (crapping on Mitch McConnell, Charles Koch, Ron DeSantis, Mike Pence, Ann Coulter, Bill Barr, various GOP senators), alienating some of the few remaining allies he had left (cursing out everyone from Netanyahu to Lindsey Graham, reportedly trying to screw Guiliani on legal fees), various reports about criminal activity (shredding or even eating documents while in office), some of his biggest toadies falling on hard times (Matt Gaetz’s nauseating sex trafficking charges, Steve Bannon’s endless legal problems), Chinese funding for his recent business endeavors, saying he’ll pardon Jan. 6th insurrectionists, etc. [That last one shows how Trump has completely lost his political skills. People who might’ve wanted to see the insurrectionists pardoned wonder why he didn’t do it before he left office if he actually wanted to, and everyone else is disgusted he even brought it up. Even the QAnon Shaman feels like he was manipulated and “used” by Trump, and this only confirms his suspicions.]
The Republican power base doesn’t want him making a comeback at all, the majority of American voters have never voted for him (first POTUS since Benjamin Harrison to lose back-to-back popular votes), his poll numbers have slowly fallen with rank-and-file Republican voters (when they’re not taking a quiet pass on attending his increasingly absurd rallies), and this is all before the midterms have taken place, which is the normal period when a losing party regroups with new branding.
But if you watch cable news, Trump’s big, fascist takeover of America is practically a fait accompli, and we should all just not even bother voting or lifting a finger to stop it. Plus, they repeatedly tell us that no other Republicans should even attempt to run against him in 2024 because “the base” cannot wait to vote for a twice-impeached, dementia-suffering, heart-attack-waiting-to-happen 78-year-old who is about the only person alive they could lose with.