Don’t wish for Trump 2024
The VP Elect’s hubris at the prospect of the outcoming President running in 4 years time is misplaced and complacent.
When faced with the escalating chatter that Donald Trump intends to run for the Presidency yet again in 2024, Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris laughed and simply derisively said “please”. The sentiment of “what is it with this guy” is understandable but in my view misplaced and even dangerous. I’m using this as a microcosm to make a much much broader point: liberals, leftists, progressives, Democrats, shouldn’t in any way hope for Trump to run again, or assume that that race would be an easy one.
The hubris and complacency is the mirror image of Hillary Clinton’s attitude in the run up to (and even on the night of) the election she would later concede to President Trump. The fact there even is a President Trump debunks and discredits the line of thinking Mrs Clinton involved herself with.
The American electorate is uniquely partisan and polarised, to the point of permanent gridlock and looming dysfunctionality. Far from a wholesale repudiation of Trumpism, the GOP faired well down-ballot and Biden had nothing near a landslide win; Trump won more votes compared to 2016, and made gains among women and minorities.
If Trump were to run in 2024 as the GOP nominee against Kamala Harris, as is a likely eventuality if he were to run again, would he emerge victorious and return to the White House? Far, far too soon to predict, and much depends on these next four years and how Biden’s administration performs in navigating the political minefield they’ll be in from Day 1. It’s hardly probable, but it’s very much possible.
The focus for the Democrats must be to deliver for the various constituencies that supported them; and those that massively didn’t. Their best hope of stabilising the 2022 midterms away from being a bloodbath for DNC is to be very, very loud about achievements and the obstruction of congress, allowing them to run against House and Senate Republicans.
Donald Trump returning to the White House is a realistic and worrying prospect, we must ensure it doesn’t happen over the next four years.