After Super Tuesday, Trump is stronger than ever

About 18 months ago, Donald Trump suffered one of its worst political defeats, when many of its loyalists and selected candidates were defeated in a midterm landscape that clearly favored Republicans.

Many people (I was one of them) thought that this might be the beginning of the end for him, a clear indicator of that political weakness that would encourage Republican voters to abandon him or set him up for a decisive defeat in the general election.

Instead, Trump today arguably occupies a more politically dominant position in American politics than at any time in the past eight years.

His progress in super Tuesday Last night completed a repeat of the 2016 Republican primaries, with its opposition once again fatally divided and its coalition this time much stronger from the start.

And while the residual support for Nikki Haley indicates lingering discontent, the polls that matter are the ones that show Trump consistently beating President Joe Biden, a show of strength beyond anything he achieved at a similar time in his previous two presidential campaigns.

How do we move from defeat and apparent weakness to recovery and strength?

Let’s start with the most important political outcome of the Republican disappointments in 2022, which was not the temporary blow to Trump but the brief return of Biden’s appeal, pre-empting any effort within the liberal coalition to make his age an issue and oust him for 2024. .

Sticking with Biden didn’t just mean Democrats were stuck in apparent presidential decrepitude coupled with an unpopular economic record.

It also meant that the discussion among Republicans about Trump’s ineligibility, for a short time, was powerful enough to elevate Ron De Santis In the polls, it quickly faded: With each new poll showing Biden struggling, it became increasingly difficult for DeSantis and then Haley to convince voters who liked Trump that it was time to move on.

So, by saving Biden, the midterm elections finally helped revive Trump.

The same goes for the return to liberal entitlement, which was on hold during Biden’s first two years but has returned with a vengeance amid accusations, lawsuits and attempts to remove Trump from the presidential ticket.

There is understandable liberal frustration with all the attempts to make Trumpism some kind of unbeatable political force, given the numerous resounding defeats he and his allies have suffered at the polls.

But there is a clear pattern that Trump cannot be expected to be defeated except at the ballot box, because all attempts to investigate, impeach and prosecute simply do not have the desired political effect.

Obviously Trump is corrupt and some of the cases against him have merit.

But too often these efforts end up tainted by overtly partisan intentions, whether they are espoused by liberal grifters like Michael Avenatti or simply pursued with a mix of exaggeration, incompetence and wish-fulfillment.

That’s how it was last year.

Prosecutors could have presented a final accusation against the former president, in the case of confidential documents. Instead, they presented four: the first (the New York case) was completely biased and far-fetched, and the other two required new or creative legal theories to succeed.

And now one of the prosecutors, Fani Willis of Georgia, has recapped Avenatti’s path, as his pursuit of Trump exposed his own ethical vulnerabilities.

Law

Meanwhile, we’ve also had a strange surge of enthusiasm for the 14th Amendment solution to the Trump problem, his removal from the election through state officials or court orders.

AS right, This was the worst of all worlds: the effort was undemocratic and incompetent at the same time, which meant a special liberal fear of Trump (driving him among his core supporters) and a general fear of the elite voting public (alienating undecided voters), while leading to a predictable 9-0 by the Supreme Court.

Then Trump was resurrected, getting lucky, once again, with his rivals and enemies.

But he also grew up doing something less common: forgoing the spotlight and showing a touch – just a touch – of real political discipline.

Resources

He refused to be pushed onto the primary debate stage, whether by Haley, Chris Christie or his former vice president.

He has pretty normal political professionals running his campaign.

He kept his strangest rants confined to the strange microworld of Social truth rather than making a triumphant return to a broader social media platform.

He has held fewer rallies, made fewer headlines with his insults and backed away from some clashes that might have lasted weeks in the past.

(For example, when a dig at Haley’s husband, who was serving overseas, was poorly received in South Carolina, Trump mostly dropped it from his campaign rhetoric.)

This isn’t exactly a “new Trump”:

his speeches at rallies remain incoherent and full of complaints, and you only have to watch Truth Social to see the old mania in action.

It may simply be that you seem more moderate because you are held back, involuntarily, by forces stronger than your ego, from older age to the demands of all those lawsuits and legal issues.

But whether or not there is a real strategy, his current position clearly confirms the Trump-era rule that the lower his profile, the higher his poll numbers.

A cautious leadership campaign and a calendar full of court dates were far better for his political standing than a calendar full of rallies and a return to constant posting on Elon Musk’s social media platform.

This is the only part of the Trumpian rebirth which I think should give the Biden campaign some degree of comfort heading into the fall campaign.

Overall, the White House seems to be running dangerously into denial about its dismal position, trying to erase the clear message of the polling averages.

But to the extent that Trump thrives when he receives less attention, one would expect a general election campaign to provide many more reminders of his chaos and incompetence to voters who simply aren’t paying much attention now.

Or at least that’s what you’d expect from a normal general election campaign, with a Democratic candidate willing to take on Trump and make a big deal out of every outburst and digression.

But we still don’t know if Biden can actually play that role. If he fails to do so, then the peculiar ease of Trump’s recovery, the way he appears to be approaching his party’s nomination and lead in the general election, could extend into a November reset.

c.2024 The New York Times Company