The CREEP Holds First Meeting in Mar-a-Lago

Yes, I am borrowing a Watergate-era acronym to describe Donald Trump's election effort, which he announced yesterday: I have stated numerous times that I believe Trump to be one of the few politicians capable of getting our deeply unpopular President reelected. But don't take my word for it...

We got a taste of that the first time Trump put Biden into office -- by angering so many voters that he lost despite having history's second-highest numerical vote tally. The recent midterms should serve as a reminder, too, with Trump directly or indirectly costing the GOP several seats on top of lulling it into campaigning without a platform.

In my opinion, then, Trump may imagine he has kicked off a campaign to return himself to the Presidency, but he will in effect end up working overtime to keep the Democrats in power -- be it by winning the nomination and then losing the general, or running on a loony third-party ticket in the general, splitting the vote of the Democrats' opponents.

Egotistical, envious, short-sighted, and stupid, Trump is poised to do what no (other?) Democrat operative has ever come close to doing: Turn the South's Electoral College map blue.

Stacy Abrams, eat your heart out.

That second possibility comes to my mind after reading what should be good news for the GOP (and anyone wanting an actual alternative to the Democrats):

Biden's de facto reelection campaign headquarters. (Image by The White House, via Wikimedia Commons, public Domain.

Mr. Trump is banking on his supporters sharing his priority for defeating non-Trump Republicans in primaries even when it means his candidates will ultimately lose to a Democrat. In other words, the bet is that their loyalty is all to him. But that too isn't as clear as it once might have been.

In its last poll before the election, NBC reported that 62% of GOP voters consider themselves more supporters of the party, against 30% who said they consider themselves more supporters of Mr. Trump. This is a huge reversal from before the 2020 election, when it was 58% to 34% in Mr. Trump's favor. [bold added]

My reading of this is that, while there is a core of people who will always slavishly follow Trump, that core is no longer bolstered by a range of persuadable or relatively uninformed people who, not aware of how nuts Trump is, were willing to give him a chance in 2016.

The article mentions a couple for better alternatives by name -- Virginia's Glenn Youngkin and Florida's Ron DeSantis -- and notes that they will not be easy for Trump to drag into the mud. (Along those lines, Hot Air cites a slick response by DeSantis to a direct question about Trump's unprovoked and desperate recent attempt to nickname him.)

If Trump faces real opposition, in the form of a low number of solid candidates in the primaries, I think he will lose. Nevertheless, I don't see Trump not running in the general, where he seems to believe he'll be a shoo-in:

... Trump said he agreed that the GOP should have done better in the midterms but blamed the outcome on people not yet perceiving the full brunt of current policies. "They don't quite feel it yet but they will very soon," he said.

Oh, "they" "feel it" already. And the reason "they" didn't "kick the bastards out" is that too often, the "alternative" was a lunatic.

There is a real threat that Trumpy-er areas, like the South, will end up going Democratic in a three-way race, but perhaps we can draw inspiration from Trump's loss. Voter turnout was very high -- to dump Trump. Perhaps a decent, non-crazy Republican, who can articulate a plan that appeals to normal Americans, can do well enough among independents, the non-Trump majority of his party, and disenchanted Democrats to win such a race.

Trump and perhaps economic misery will inspire high turnout: Biden isn't "the" alternative for many of these voters -- I am one of "them" -- any more than Trump is.

-- CAV

P.S. A post at Hot Air reports that megadonors are defecting from Trump, which might hamstring him in the primaries and reduce the chances that Trump would run a third-party campaign.

Updates

Today: Added P.S.