2024
Good news for Democrats:
Trump is running for re-election. Biden is not.
This is a prediction. I don't know what the future will bring--but I have an informed guess. Oregon's senior senator Ron Wyden firmly shook his head when I asked him last week if Biden would be running. Maybe he knows something, maybe not. More persuasive is that there are good reasons for Biden to decline to run again. He knows he is old and unpopular. COVID gave him an excuse to campaign from his basement in 2020. That excuse is gone. A campaign would force him to campaign in a way he physically cannot. He is already bowing out. Look at what Biden is not doing. Biden isn't jockeying to suppress potential rival Democrats.
In contrast, Trump will run because it is to his advantage to do so. Only by running can he preserve his relevance and reputation. Only by running can he keep a well-established small-dollar money machine going. Only by running can he avoid the humiliation of being defined as a loser--indeed a sore one. Only by running and winning can he use the pardon power to protect himself, his family, his fortune, and his supporters.
Look at his actions. Trump is attacking Republicans on his Truth version of Twitter with texts like this:
I get one or two emails every single day from the Trump team. They all ask for money. I received this from Save America, over Don Junior’s signature, on Saturday. It is typical material, praising Trump personally.
It’s no question that the American people believe President Trump was the greatest President of all time. Once again, this confirms what we already knew…
Despite the WITCH HUNTS from the the RADICAL Left or the LIES from the Fake News media, the American People remain LOYAL to President Trump 100%.
What was noteworthy about the email, though, was how it started—with this chart:
Trump is strutting his dominance over the GOP's potential successors. He is suppressing rivals, condemning Republicans who are disloyal to him, and trying to scare off the GOP competition.
Primary season starts in six months. Ideal for Trump would be to run un-opposed by the people on that list, all of whom are currently reluctant to criticize him directly and personally. If they run they would begin criticizing him. Notice that Liz Cheney is not named on that list. I expect her to run for president. She has a cause that combines principle and ambition. She will have that political lane to herself, at least at first. She has defined her brand, and so has Trump by what he says about her. Yesterday he wrote:
She will get audiences in Iowa and New Hampshire, and standing ovations like the one at the Reagan Library. She has a lane and it will widen. She got to it first and clearest.