The man is a source of endless content and pure gold for memes, but there is no doubt that Trump fatigue has established itself among large swaths of the country. Donald Trump’s much-anticipated 2024 announcement was a disciplined speech that I mostly agreed with, and if he didn’t go off the rails against Ron DeSantis for no other reason than the Florida governor being his only competition, I would have been more excited about his return. The FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago was probably a massive 2024 election boost that he didn’t take advantage of, though for obvious reasons: he didn’t want the 2022 midterms to be nationalized around him. Then again, the GOP outright blew this recent election, so what’s the difference?
Despite his presidential address announcing that he’s running again, we all knew the ‘bull in the China closet’ routine would return, and it did with a vengeance on Truth Social.
I can handle the antics, but I understand how some people are saddled with weariness with the former president. Calling for the suspension of the Constitution is not the right way to kick things off. It’s these sorts of outbursts that drive away voters. The Trump base isn’t enough to carry the former president over the finish line. He will need to reclaim the three-to-five percent of white working-class workers in the Rust Belt who defected in 2020, which proved deadly, but he also needs to work on his presentational difficulties. As a man who oversees a business empire, he should know better.
Though, it has drawn some interesting characters out of the woodwork. Former National Security Adviser John Bolton is said to be considering a 2024 run over Trump’s remarks about the Constitution if the current candidate field doesn’t repudiate them entirely. First, no one knows Bolton outside political junkies—he’s very much an inside-the-Beltway figure. Second, if the man does run and gets three percent of the vote, that would be a win for him. As Greg Price at X Strategies LLC noted, this is the same man who all but said he was involved in the plotting of multiple coups, so maybe he’s not the best figure to take the mantle of Constitution defender.
When you challenge the Constitution itself, that is un-American. If the current GOP presidential candidates don't repudiate Trump, I'm prepared to get in the race. pic.twitter.com/mKnU2tDhyc
— John Bolton (@AmbJohnBolton) December 5, 2022
Remember when you publicly admitted to organizing coups in other countries?
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) December 5, 2022
pic.twitter.com/xUw3xQqhff
Will this be forgotten or be an albatross around the neck of Trump, the latter of which the man seems impervious to, and for a good reason: he’d be driven insane if he cared what the liberal press thinks of him. Trump is a presidential candidate, but this won’t dominate the news cycle—it already isn’t—but when things get going and we have a few debates, I’m sure we’ll discuss this again.
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