Cogito Ergo Non Serviam
Trump Running Again
Last night in a rambling speech that ran twice as long as expected, Donald Trump announced that he was running again for the White House. The response of the public, press and politicians was unenthusiastic to put it bluntly. With the defeat of the Republicans, and especially those whom Mr. Trump endorsed, still fresh in the minds of the voters, he faces an uphill battle to recapture the feelings and passions of 2016. He will either win the nomination and lose the general election, or he will lose the nomination and wreck the Republican Party in vengeance. One should make popcorn to watch the debacle unfold.
His people (a smaller bunch than last campaign) said the speech would be a tightly scripted, forward-looking speech of 35 minutes. He rambled on for more than an hour, and even Sean Hannity of Fox News broke away from the broadcast after about 20 minutes. He blathered on about how he is a victim of a corrupt system and how the weaponization of the Justice Department threatens America (for whom did Bill Barr work?). He promised to Make America Great and Glorious Again! (exclamation point in the original). And he blamed everything on those who were not with him.
The crowd at Mar-a-Lago was small, and when people tried to leave before he was done talking, security prevented them from doing so. Until then, his numerous crimes did not include false imprisonment. Not a single one of those at the announcement sits in the US Senate, and only one sits in the House (Madison Caufield, who lost his primary and will be out of a job on January 3, 2023). Melinia Trump was present, but Ivanka and Jared Kushner were not. Indeed, Ms. Kushner sent out an announcement informing the world that she was not participating in the new campaign, focusing on her private, family life.
The right-wing media reaction was not what The Donald wanted either. Perhaps the most painful response came from the Rupert Murdoch paper, The New York Post. On the front page, at the bottom, of this morning\'s edition there is a headline "Florida Man Makes Announcement." Adding further insult to that injury to his ego, the story to which the headline refers was printed on page 26. The National Review (founded by Mr. Conservative, William F. Buckley, Jr.) ran an opinion piece on his announcement this morning under the headline "No."
This journal believes that Mr. Trump has had his day, and as yesterday\'s man, he would be better off spending more time at his golf course. That, of course, is not in his character. He is running because he likes the attention, and it allows him to continue his grift. His PAC rules clearly state that he is allowed to do whatever he likes with 90% of the funds donated. It is effectively his personal slush fund. Weening him off that is impossible.
Mr. Trump will run a vicious campaign against anyone who dares run against him. In 2016, he plowed through a field of 16 or so other candidates, picking them off one-by-one. He has the support of a good third of GOP primary voters, and in a field of several candidates, that is enough to win primaries and delegates. Having a third of the vote in a one-on-one contest, on the other hand, is a landslide defeat. He will try, and fail, to smother other candidates as they announce. They will fight back, but when they do so, he will get nastier. The possibility of violence on the campaign trail cannot be ruled out.
In the end, one expects he will be the nominee, but he will never be president again. The only real question is how much of the GOP and the US political system does he destroy on the way out.
@copy; Copyright 2022 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.
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