Michael Kruse gets quite the eye-catching headline in Politico Mag today: ‘A Crazy Old Man Fighting With Himself’: Can Trump Do to DeSantis What He Did to Bush? “To become president,” wrote Kruse, “Trump had to vanquish a Florida governor. To become president again, he might have to do it once more… Trump is going to have to try to do to current Florida governor Ron DeSantis in 2022, ’23 and into ’24 what he did to former Florida governor Jeb Bush in 2015 and ’16. Here, though, in the first few days of his third real run for the White House, the trouble for Donald Trump is that the Trump of today is not the Trump of 7½ years back, and neither is Ron DeSantis now the same as Jeb Bush was then… DeSantis is arguably stronger than he’s ever been, while Trump is arguably weaker than he’s ever been.”
Kruse suggests that Trump is more like the low energy Bush now and that DeSantis is more like what Trump was in 2016. I’m afraid he’s right. And I’m afraid DeSantis is going too be president in 2024— the Democrats defaulting the position with an unelectable candidate like Kamala or Mayo Pete— and will be even worse than Trump.
Sam Nunberg, one of Trump’s earliest political advisers before and during his 2016 campaign, told Kruse that Trump has “lost three elections in a row. The majority of the country despises Trump,” Nunberg noted, “and the majority of the Republican Party is moving on.”
Also this morning, Bess Levin noted with a strong degree of satisfaction that “In the wake of the midterm elections, Trump has become radioactive within the Republican Party. Oh, sure, there are people who always support him and always will, but, lately, a lot of GOP lawmakers, party mega-donors, and Rupert Murdoch-owned publications have made it clear he should get lost, and that they don’t want to be associated with him. Even previously reliable hangers-on are suddenly all, ‘Sorry, I’m washing my hair that night.’ Even his own daughter, the one he actually likes, is all, ‘Ooo, I’d love to, but I’m all booked.’ And in that context, it makes it extra hilarious that the ex-president, now running for office for a third time, is apparently not only telling Republicans that they better endorse him ASAP but that they’re going to rue the day they crossed him when he wins, which he believes he’s going to.
Rolling Stone reports that in the run-up to last week’s election, Trump “made a series of phone calls to GOP lawmakers and other elected officials, demanding that they endorse him before he announced he’s running— or at least right after, according to two sources with knowledge of the conversations.” He added that he was keeping track of who endorsed him early, and that “those who waited too long” were “not gonna like” the fate that would befall them when he wins. He apparently also said that he was tracking who dumped him for Florida governor Ron DeSantis or other possible 2024 primary opponents, according to sources familiar with the matter. “He said it was ‘not a tough call’ to make and that there was one right move: endorsing him ASAP,” one of the sources told the outlet.
And while no one likes to be threatened— and especially not by a guy who has a documented history of going after his perceived enemies— it appears that the tough talk has… not had the effect that Trump had hoped. As Rolling Stone notes, “the party’s heavy hitters— even some who have previously been quick to stand behind him— have been hesitant to hop on board,” and when the ex-president kicked off his candidacy at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday night, “Madison Cawthorn, the scandal-ridden outgoing representative from North Carolina, was the only member of Congress who bothered to attend.”
And the story only gets sadder from there:
…In the last several weeks alone, billionaire Republicans Stephen Schwarzman, Ken Griffin, and Ronald Lauder have publicly dropped him, while his former secretary of state and previously devoted footstool, Mike Pompeo, tweeted: “We need more seriousness, less noise, and leaders who are looking forward, not staring in the rearview mirror claiming victimhood.” Top party leaders Mitch McConnell, Josh Hawley, Tom Cotton, and Kevin McCarthy won’t say if they support him.
In other mob boss behavior, last week Trump told reporters, of DeSantis, “If he did run, I will tell you things about him that won’t be very flattering. I know more about him than anybody other than perhaps his wife, who is really running his campaign.”
Nancy Pelosi, who will step down from her leadership position, flips Trump off on her way out the door:
Today John Harris compared Trump’s salience and resonance to that of “an overused narcotic… It used to be that even people who found his politics and character repellent could still find something enlivening in his performance. Trump in earlier days was often funny. He knew it, and he used it. At a minimum, there was never a doubt that he was vastly entertaining himself. On the week that he announced his third presidential campaign, there is ample reason to doubt. Trump is a master of demagogic arts. But in his long, numbing speech at Mar-a-Lago this week, something in the potion was off… The most significant change— it is dramatic— was that in 2015 Trump was self-evidently having fun and good-naturedly inviting his audience to have fun with him… [F]or all the raucous braggadocio, there was a human dimension to Trump in 2015 that was barely evident in the heavy, heaving, hectoring tone of this week’s announcement… Deep down, Trump is too much of a natural performer not to know the truth. He is no longer having fun. When he is boring even to himself, it’s going to be very hard to keep his audience.”