Trump Isn't Going Anywhere
If Trump runs in 2024, Republicans will welcome him with open arms for one simple reason: they need him.
Ever since Donald Trump was elected, the political and media establishment has done everything in its power to convince us that this is just temporary. There was the anonymous op-ed telling us that Trump’s entire staff thinks he’s crazy. Prominent Democrats told us that, privately, Republicans say they cannot wait for Trump to go. This narrative endured even as children were caged, corruption soared and a coup was attempted without any serious opposition from his party whatsoever. Republicans, we were told, were just scared.
Now, as it looks increasingly likely that Trump will at least announce his intention to run for president again in 2024 (potentially at a Florida rally held during Biden’s inauguration) the narrative has entered a new phase. Republicans, we are now told, really don’t like the absurd idea, but they can’t tell us—even though Trump, just weeks ago, was resoundingly defeated by a historic margin. A recent Politico piece, titled “Trump’s looming 2024 bid leaves Republicans in a bind,” laid out the supposed dilemma:
In recent weeks, Trump has started attacking any Republican who has not fully embraced the false narrative that he won the 2020 election, leaving party officials, lawmakers and donors wondering about the repercussions they might face for not immediately endorsing a Trump 2024 White House run.
This story quotes a grand total of zero elected Republicans to support the conclusion that Republicans are wary of another Trump bid—which is unsurprising, because there’s absolutely no reason to believe it’s true. On the other hand, a separate Politico report found no shortage of prominent Republicans willing to go on the record to express their giddiness over a Trump reemergence in four years:
“If he were to run in 2024, I think he would be the nominee. And I would support him doing that,” said Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.)…
“It’d be great if he ran. He’s done a good job. I think he ought to run if he wants to run. Who knows what’s going to happen in ‘24?” said Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.)…
“The president is very popular in the Republican Party, and he would be very tough to beat,” added Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.)…
“I would encourage him to keep that option open. I would personally support him if he did,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.)…
“If President Trump runs in ‘24, I support it. That will be his decision, he’s come off a tough election,” said Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.)…
“If he runs, I think he would clearly be the favorite. I think he would win,” said Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.)…
The theory that Republicans secretly despise Trump and cannot wait for him to leave office is nothing new, but at this point it is so contrary to every piece of available evidence that it ought to be considered journalistic malpractice to continue spreading it. It is, of course, no mystery why the theory has survived so long—it is an essential ingredient of the view, proffered by Joe Biden and much of the Democratic elite, that we must return to unity and compromise in order to “heal” the wounds from these past four years. But just because something makes you comfortable, and has been repeated over and over again, does not make it true.
Here’s the reality: Republicans are not in a bind. If Trump runs again in 2024, every single elected Republican will support him and he will immediately emerge as the unequivocal front-runner. No one will do anything to stop it. This will happen not because Republicans are afraid of Trump, but because they love him, they agree with him, and they need him.
Following Biden’s victory, a popular theory emerged: Biden only won because of the widespread opposition to Trump, and the fact that conservative voters still proved willing to vote for down-ballot Republicans spells serious trouble for the party going forward (this is foundationally untrue, but that’s a story for another day). But few discussed the flip-side of the equation: that Trump received more votes than any Republican in history, and he still lost by 7+ million votes and over 70 electoral votes.
The fact is, the lesson of the 2020 election is that the Republican Party desperately needs Trump and is basically irrelevant without him. The idea that Mike Pence or Marco Rubio or Tom Cotton could generate even a fraction of the support Trump received is laughable, especially in light of how many Republican voters continue to latch on to Trump even after his historically large defeat. A good example of this came on Saturday, when at a rally for Senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, Republican voters showed more interest in the outgoing president than their last chance at preserving a Senate majority. It is eminently clear from this display that Republicans, if they could, would likely abandon every single elected Republican if it meant keeping Trump in power.
Again, this is hardly surprising. Immediately following the election, a Morning Consult/Politico poll showed that a whopping 53% of Republicans said they would vote for Trump if he ran again in 2024. The next closest was Pence, at a measly 12%. Hawley and Cotton, hailed by the press as the future of the conservative movement, clocked in at 1% each. While these numbers, tallied several years before the primary even begins, should be taken with a grain of salt, it is pretty obvious at this juncture that Republican voters have little appetite to get rid of Trump. And even if they did, the idea that there is some large, moderate coalition waiting to take back the reins is wholly unsupported.
At the beginning, the narrative seemed relatively harmless—if Republicans wanted to waste their time anonymously prodding journalists about their secret hate for Trump, that’s on them. But given the four years of unspeakable cruelty we just witnessed, as well as the brazen ongoing assault on our democracy, it borders on complicity to continue providing cover for powerful lawmakers who have done everything they can to perpetuate the atrocities of this administration. Unfortunately, Biden and the media elites seem unwilling to dispense with the myth of Republican innocence.
At some point, Trump will fade into the backdrop of American public life. Whether that happens in early-2021 or a decade from now is anyone’s guess. But when it does happen, the idea that an old-school conservative politician in the mold of Mitt Romney or George Bush will fill the vacuum is simply inconceivable. More likely, the definitive story of the post-Trump years will be the tireless search for the person that can successfully consolidate Trump’s coalition—and without his unique brand to exploit, it will likely mean putting the grievance, bigotry and authoritarianism on overdrive.
As Steve Coll writes in the New Yorker, politicians can lose even as their ideology ultimately wins. For example, George Wallace, the segregationist Democrat often compared to Trump, had a major lasting impact on the Republican Party despite losing at the national level on three occasions:
By the time of Wallace’s death, in 1998, his influence over the electorate and the two major parties had dissipated to the vanishing point. Yet, as Dan T. Carter, Wallace’s authoritative biographer, writes, this was partly because, as Nixon and successive Republicans co-opted and mainstreamed aspects of Wallace’s strategy, “The politics of rage that George Wallace made his own had moved from the fringes of our society to center stage.” Carter concluded that Wallace “was the most influential loser in twentieth-century American politics.”
With Trump—who just received more votes than any Republican presidential candidate in history—the experience is likely to be even more prevalent. In the coming years, Trump will either return in full force or Republicans will work relentlessly to emulate him. For the rest of the country, defeating this burgeoning brand of right-wing politics will mean, first and foremost, abandoning any hopes that a more reasonable conservative movement is on the horizon. Trump has built a permanent army prepared to go to war with every single piece of the progressive agenda. Our ability to realize our goals depends on our willingness to fight back.