Trump Announces Run, Surprising Nobody

SOMEBODY JUST MAKE IT STOP

So, Donald Trump is running for president in 2024. Although I’m not at all surprised by this, I can’t help but be frustrated at the awful timing of the announcement. It seems like the country was talking about the recent farce elections, and this will suck all of the oxygen out of the room.

Now it will be Trump, Trump, Trump, 24/7. The media will dust off their trusty book of Trump attacks, and — BOOM! — #THERESISTANCE is back together. The grifters at the Lincoln Project will once again be invited back onto MSNBC and CNN. Surely the money will pour in from all over to stop LITERALLY HITLER — and nobody will look too closely at where that money is coming from.

Indeed, already the stories are starting — the media slipping back into old lies and exaggerations like a comfortable sweater in winter.

Insurrection! Deadly riots! Unique danger to democracy!

For at least two more years.

I know I’m not the only one who feels this way. As much I would like to have Trump as president again, I’m not sure the country can handle it.

BUT, being stupidly optimistic, let’s talk about my realistic best case scenario: Trump runs in the primary, gets beaten by DeSantis, and the press has spent too much time attacking Trump (and thus painting DeSantis as the ‘sane’ option) to pivot back in time for the general election. (In this way, the timing makes sense. The media won’t be able to resist attacking Trump from now until election day.) This, of course, assumes that DeSantis wants to run in the first place. (If he doesn’t, I don’t see how Trump could possibly lose the nomination.)

If the Democrats are serious about running Biden in 2024, DeSantis is an amazing contrast who we know can talk circles around Grandpa Brandon. He’s got a strong covid record and can contrast his record with Biden’s mandates.

BUT

Trump might be the only person in the world who can go after the vaccines. He can point out the data that ‘Stackers all know, beg forgiveness (and blame Big Pharma), and start the real conversation into how it all went down. Yes, it’s a million-to-one pipedream, but it’s late — let me have this until morning!

Speaking of million-to-one pipedreams, here’s my IDEAL scenario for a Trump/DeSantis primary race:

Both candidates agree on the need for secure elections. DeSantis can point out how Florida’s rules cleaned up the process there, Trump can point to 2020/2022 ‘irregularities’. At this point, the GOP takes advantage of the fact that primaries aren’t actual ‘elections’ as we think of them. They are ‘private events’ run by the parties — thus, those parties can set (and change, much to the chagrin of Ron Paulers) the rules of their primary elections.

And the candidates agree on some very simple election rules: Make it easy to vote (keeping in mind possible Democratic shenanigans in primaries), use in-person voting, with a few days (maybe a week) of early in-person voting. Paper ballots counted at the polling stations in front of everybody. Results within hours of polls closing. Basic rules that everybody can agree on. Then, the entire primary season, praise the process for being transparent and verifiable. Run the best set of primary elections the country has ever seen. The bar is pretty low. Remember Iowa’s 2020 counting debacle?

After conducting an efficient and transparent primary election, dare Biden and the Democrats to talk about how we need a week to count votes and how the Republicans are dangerous to democracy. (They will, of course)

And while I’m dreaming, I might as well hope the Republicans wrest enough control of the Capitol Police to demand some answers of their own about January 6th (and release the damn tapes!). I sure would like to know how the FBI was supposedly caught flat-footed by a protest literally walking by their headquarters, WHILE THEY HAD INFORMANTS EMBEDDED IN 1/6 GROUPS!

Sure sounds like another ‘dangerous conspiracy theory’ that you would only utter if you were an America-hater: