Donald Trump gets desperate as things collapse for him
The overwhelming theme for the entire 2022 primary election season has been that Donald Trump has struggled to move the needle with his endorsements, even among Republican voters. It’s been a clear sign that his influence is vanishing. But even as Trump’s candidates have struggled to gain traction, the mainstream media had been sticking with the narrative that Trump’s endorsements were worth their weight in gold – until his candidates got blown out in Georgia this week.
Now the media is beginning to acknowledge that Trump’s influence is indeed vanishing. The New York Times is running with the headline “Trump’s Primary Losses Puncture His Invincibility.” That’s underplaying the situation to put it mildly, but at least it’s getting closer to the factual reality. More notably, the Times subheader openly acknowledges that Trump could be too irrelevant by 2024 to be a viable candidate.
The most interesting part of the NY Times article is the acknowledgment that Trump knows his influence is vanishing – and that he’s now considering launching a campaign or exploratory committee this summer.
Of course the article doesn’t acknowledge the real truth of the situation, which is that Trump’s ongoing “hints” about running in 2024 are aimed at motivating his base to make donations to him, which can go directly into his pocket without any regulatory oversight because he hasn’t launched a campaign. Trump surely wants to keep hinting for as long as possible that he’s going to run in 2024, so the money will keep coming in. And Trump has already publicly stated that he won’t run in 2024 if his health becomes a factor. In other words, he’s already laying the groundwork for pretending he’s going to run, raking in the bucks, and then using his health as an excuse for why he ultimately decides not to run.
The problem for Trump is that he’s losing steam so rapidly, and has been for awhile, he’s now in danger of not being able to keep milking his imaginary 2024 campaign all the way through 2022 and 2023, as he’d surely been hoping. So now he’s talking about making some kind of formal move this summer, in the hope of getting more would-be donors to believe he’s actually going to run in 2024. But if he does that, he’ll be inviting far more regulatory scrutiny of the money that’s coming in.
Of course it’s a matter of time before Donald Trump is indicted in Fulton County Georgia, and it appears increasingly likely that the DOJ will inevitably get him as well. That’s before getting to New York Attorney General Letitia James, who appears intent on taking his assets, and could potentially bring criminal charges as well.
Trump would surely love to make some kind of formal 2024 move before the indictments and judgments begin landing against him, so he can insist they’re politically motivated. That won’t keep him out of prison, but he still seems to be locked into the outdated mindset that he can somehow magically stay ahead of his crimes if he portrays them all within a partisan context. That might have helped him back when he was shielded by the office of the presidency. But these days he’s just a civilian and a pretend candidate. None of this is going to help him.
