There are two Americas, each about as different from the other as can be imagined. There’s the one that elected Barack Obama, and there’s the one that elected Donald Trump. (No need to elaborate on the Canadian preference.)
Neither America is dominant. But momentum could well be on the side of the Trumpian forces.
If it wasn’t clear before, it’s pretty obvious now that Mr. Trump isn’t going away. He shamelessly perseveres, as he always has. He has a tenacity and a fearlessness that no Democrat can match.
We’re seeing again, as we’ve noticed before, that normal laws of political gravity do not apply to him. Despite having lost the 2020 election, despite his party losing the midterms before that, despite being the only president in history to be impeached twice, and despite fomenting the Capitol Hill insurrection, Mr. Trump pays no price. His power in the Grand Old Party only grows.
His Mar-a-Lago estate has become the de facto party headquarters. Republican supplicants and bootlickers arrive daily at his court to pay homage, sensing that he can make or break their careers or candidacies. He has a giant war chest from which he shells out campaign donations. He charts party policy, settles scores, dominates media coverage, and towers over all party rivals in support numbers.
As president, Mr. Trump shattered the norms. As an ex-president, he is now doing the same. No former president has ever wielded such power; they pass the torch. Not Mr. Trump. He is still the torch. It’s scorched earth for anything that gets in his way.
His script for never accepting defeat, of turning losses into victories, is familiar by now. For him, setbacks – and his business career is full of examples – are opportunities for brazen resurrections. He still propagates the fiction that the 2020 election was stolen from him. Reasonable people thought this would make him look ridiculous, but to a degree it’s worked: Republicans have proven gullible enough to believe him.
Fortune has had to turn Mr. Trump’s way, and that continues to happen. Just when it looked like he could be hit with criminal charges over his tax filings in New York State, a newly elected Manhattan district attorney-general appears to be halting the probe.
Joe Biden’s presidency was supposed to show up the Trump one as corrupt and incompetent, but Mr. Biden has stumbled to the point where his approval ratings are worse.
A Senate committee investigating Mr. Trump’s culpability in the Jan. 6 insurrection isn’t attracting the attention one might have expected. The war in Ukraine has taken over the headlines.
The Trump party looks to be a shoo-in for victory in the midterm elections, which will enhance his standing. His party’s nomination for the next presidential election is deemed to be his if he wants it.
He’s endorsed about 150 candidates in the coming midterm elections. In seeking his stamp of approval, party members are going to great lengths. At least one has even purchased television ads praising Mr. Trump that run only in his Palm Beach area.
Mr. Trump’s record is mixed on endorsements so far, and he is seen as going out on a limb with some of his choices, particularly with his Senate picks in Ohio and Pennsylvania. But if they lose, he’ll surely find some excuse to cover himself.
He is seeking vengeance against Republicans who have not supported his claim of voter fraud in the 2020 election. He takes potshots at them to see their polling numbers go down.
He’s out to stack the deck with loyalists. That includes working to have supporters elected to secretary of state positions in toss-up states who will preside over vote counting and vote certification processes. Ominously, he said in January that “there’s a famous statement: ‘Sometimes the vote-counter is more important than the candidate.’ And we can’t let that ever, ever happen again.”
The one big name in the party who could issue a strong challenge to Mr. Trump is Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. He’s a more stable-minded version of him. He’s brash, he’s bright, and like Mr. Trump, he’s fearless. I recently spent some time in Sarasota and every person I asked about Mr. DeSantis had great things to say about him.
Those who want an Obama-era version of America to win out need to see a fierce bloodletting battle between these two GOP titans, one that leaves Republicans weakened for whomever the Democrats put up – don’t bet it on being Mr. Biden – against them.
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Lawrence Martin