Donald Trump has been running for president for at least a decade. His campaign did not start on 16 June 2015, when he descended that golden escalator in that eponymous tower in New York. It began on 19 November 2012, days after President Barack Obama had defeated Mitt Romney, when Trump registered a trademark application for the phrase he pinched from Ronald Reagan: ‘Make America Great Again.’
After he won the White House in 2016, Trump did not cease pursuing re-election. After he lost in 2020, ditto. The fundraising – the key part – and therallies have kept going and going. On Tuesday night, at his home at Mar-a-Lago, Florida, he simply made it official. ‘In order to make America great and glorious again,’ he said, ‘I am tonight announcing my candidacy for President of the United States.’
Did anyone really believe this wasn’t happening? The never-ending MAGA campaign is now a fact of American life that we often pretend we can’t see. It will probably only die with him.
Following disappointing results for the Republicans in the midterms last week, pundits have been busy explaining why Ron DeSantis would be the much better Republican candidate in 2024. Intelligent analysts point out that Trump’s leadership is so toxic that his party has failed in three straight nationwide elections – in 2018, 2020 and 2022. The media, including much of the conservative media, are sick of the Trump saga. The American electorate, including much of the conservative electorate, are fed up too.
He mixed gonzo gloom and gonzo hope, the apocalyptic with the celestial, as he always has done
But the facts of Republican political life are Trumpian and nothing anyone says can change that.
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