Trump Reminds Republicans He’s Not Going Away
The former U.S. president will swing the loyalty of his hard-core base like a cudgel against party elders who are considering abandoning him.
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Donald Trump told the world on Tuesday night that he plans to ask voters for a second stay in the White House in 2024 even as the embers from his last one continue to glow.
It would matter, of course, if Trump managed to seize the powers of the US presidency again. But in terms of gauging the influence he wields inside the Republican Party after a midterm election in which voters rejected most of the rodeo clowns he endorsed, his press conference was just performance art. I suspect he engineered his prime-time gala for one main reason: He wants the GOP and the public to know he isn’t going away. And he’ll try to devour any Republican who gets in his way.
It has always been thus with Trump. He needs the spotlight and affirmation like others need air. There was no chance he would let his last national political act be a midterm train wreck that left him roundly labeled as a loser. He’s already assembling a bare-bones presidential campaign operation, and Republicans who tried to coax him into postponing his announcement until after Georgia’s December runoff for a Senate seat just don’t understand the man.Trump has a firm grip on the hearts and minds of about a third of Republican voters. A majority of Republicans identify as MAGA, and an abundance of GOP voters want Trump to run for president again. Trump will swing that loyalty like a cudgel against party elders who are considering abandoning him. They may sincerely want to court moderate Republicans and independent voters to avoid repeating the midterm debacle when the 2024 election rolls around, but Trump will start to attack them for it soon enough.It’s also not clear that Republicans truly have the courage to take on Trump in a full-blooded way anyhow. After all, Senator Mitch McConnell and Representative Kevin McCarthy have been here before. They briefly decried Trump after the Jan. 6 insurrection in 2021, and then, in due time, got out of his way or went to work accommodating him once he went on the attack by propagandizing the Big Lie. McCarthy, in particular, has since become so craven about wooing MAGA-teers that he’s empowered the likes of Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene.
A Trumpian vise still encumbers GOP discussions about 2024 presidential contenders, even if the midterms signaled escalating distaste for the authoritarian cage matches and vitriol that define Trumpism. While voters rejected most of the prominent buffoons whom Trump backed, more than 200 election deniers were voted into state and federal offices in the midterms, and they’ll get to work early next year. Principled, far-right conservatives (such as Representative Liz Cheney) and more moderate Republicans (such as former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan) don’t really surface in GOP discussions about possible Trump successors. Culture warriors modeled on Trump and enamored of grotesque political stunts (such as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis) are the ones you hear about.
Trump looks at all of this — his loyal base, other politicians hijacking his identity, a party that repeatedly succumbed to him — and most likely thinks: I’m the original article and much adored, so why not just have me again?
And if they won’t have him, well, beware Republicans. You’ve stood by while Trump torched opponents, institutions, ethics and the law. Now, like Frankenstein’s monster turning on his enabler, he’ll do the same to you, too, if you don’t get with his program.Appeals to Trump based on a sense of duty or responsibility will be nonstarters. He isn’t in politics for anyone other than himself — and especially not for the legions of working-class voters for whom he always says he’s battling Washington. Trump made a casino career out of separating working and middle-class voters from their quarters while simultaneously stiffing blue-collar contractors who worked for him. He played a similar game as president.“I love those people,” Trump told CBS in 2016 in a conversation about blue-collar voters. “Those are my people. I love those people. I really do. I love the policemen. I love the firemen. For whatever reason, and it is strange. But somehow, I've always had great relationships with the workers.”When Trump helped craft a federal tax cut that benefited the affluent and did little for working Americans, he told his supporters otherwise. “Our framework includes our explicit commitment that tax reform will protect low-income and middle-income households, not the wealthy and well-connected,” he said when he rolled out the plan. “And it’s not good for me, believe me.”Have enough of Trump’s constituents grown more savvy about his shtick? Are they likely to abandon him for alternatives? Voters evolve, but I’m not sure that the midterms have provided enough evidence to know whether there are significant fissures in Trump’s base. Independent and moderate voters clearly didn’t care for the MAGA fire-breathers Trump supported in the midterms, and that dynamic will also be at work in the 2024 presidential race.But Trump isn’t thinking about expanding his base or finding ways to reach independents that would make him and his movement a sure bet for 2024. And that’s why Trump and the GOP are in a hostage video together. Trump controls a bloc of voters that might allow him to wreak havoc and possibly undermine other candidates while not doing a thing to expand the Republican franchise. The GOP wants to put the party on a firmer and more potent national footing, but Trump hamstrings them.So what’s the takeaway from Trump’s closely watched presidential announcement? It’s a recipe for internecine warfare within the Republican Party, and there’s no easy way out.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
Timothy L. O'Brien is senior executive editor of Bloomberg Opinion. A former editor and reporter for the New York Times, he is author of “TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald.”
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