Is Donald Trump 2024 Worth The Fight?

Donald Trump was a great, if imperfect president.  By the third year of his presidency the country was flourishing.  The economy was roaring, jobs were up, incomes were up, gas prices were down and America & Americans were doing fairly well. 

But then a funny thing happened on the way to the election.  The swamp struck back via Covid and the George Floyd protests.  Neither of those was of Trump’s making, but both were utilized by Democrats to steal the election. The Democrats didn’t create Covid or put Floyd in the morgue, but they used the lockdowns and the riots to sufficiently upend American life that they could steal the election under the cover of chaos. 

Those were tests and Donald Trump failed.  With Covid he allowed the country to be misled by a snake oil salesman and with the Floyd protests he didn’t send in the troops.  It’s easy to understand why he failed, however.  Anthony Fauci had been playing a role in America’s various health crises for decades and was an internationally respected doctor.  As the media was hyping the idea that the virus could wipe out mankind, Fauci was a voice of calm, reassuring the country that with distance, masks and lockdowns we would persevere.  At the same time, when Trump raised questions about anything that diverged from the Big Pharma / media narrative or suggested we should remember the economic costs of lockdowns, he was attacked, lampooned, and vilified unmercifully.  Given the fusillade facing him, it’s not a surprise Trump couldn’t recognize the lies the American people were being served.

On the George Floyd inspired Antifa / BLM riots, Trump failed, and that’s on him, although again, one can see why he acted the way he did. Section 252 of the Insurrection Act “permits deployment (of military troops) in order to “enforce the laws” of the United States or to “suppress rebellion” whenever “unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion” make it “impracticable” to enforce federal law in that state by the “ordinary course of judicial proceedings.””  Essentially he could have utilized the military to stop the violence that cities were unwilling or unable to stop.  Trump knew this, saying in early June 2020:  "If a city or a state refuses to take the actions that are necessary to defend the life and property of their residents then I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them."  He was pilloried by Democrats for even bringing up the idea with Pelosi stating: "But there is no reason for the U.S. military to be called out for this." 

Trump chose not to likely because he knew Democrats would brand him a tyrant or dictator if he did, despite the fact that FDR, Kennedy, LBJ & Bush 41 used troops for far smaller riots. Democrats did so regardless. 

That Donald Trump failed at leading the country through those two disasters is sadly, understandable.  Given the savagery and breadth of the relentless attacks on him, it would have taken someone just short of Zeus to have succeeded. The result of that failure was the theft of the election and the end of his presidency. 

Fast forward two years.  In November Trump announced he was running and he said many of the right things, starting with "In order to make America great and glorious again. I am tonight announcing my candidacy for president of the United States.”  Possibly the best line of the night was "But just as I promised in 2016, I am your voice. I am your voice. The Washington establishment wants to silence us, but we will not let them do that.” 

That all sounds great, but the question is:  Has Trump learned the hard lesson… that the swamp is the Terminator, it will not stop, it cannot be negotiated with, the swamp knows no parties or limits and it must be crushed, otherwise it will kill him, kill his supporters and kill the Republic of the United States?

Recent events seem to suggest that he has not.

First, he endorsed Dr. Oz over a rock solid MAGA candidate in Pennsylvania.  Oz was anything but MAGA and went on to lose to a literally brain damaged Democrat. Trump made other MAGA endorsements, but Pennsylvania’s one of the most important swing states in the nation and he blew it.

Next, in December he endorsed the decidedly not MAGA Kevin McCarthy for Speaker despite the fact that there were a variety of MAGA candidates in the running.  McCarthy in 2021 stated "I don’t think anybody is questioning the legitimacy of the presidential election." That’s true, except for virtually every single MAGA voter in America, and 70% of the larger GOP as well.

Then later he threw his most ardent supporters, the pro life movement, under the bus, stating "It was the "abortion issue," poorly handled by many Republicans…that lost large numbers of Voters." He continued "Also, the people that pushed so hard, for decades, against abortion, got their wish from the U.S. Supreme Court, & just plain disappeared, not to be seen again." That was completely unnecessary, and wrong to boot. Next he quizzically invited the biggest dolt in Congress, Senator Lindsey Graham, who actually proposed a nationwide abortion ban less than two months before the election, to be with him on his first campaign event!  Most Republicans despise the war monger and big spending Graham, behind only McConnell and perhaps Collins, Murray & Romney. 

Then, finally, despite six years of failure, he supported the grifter Ronna McDaniel to lead the Republican Party over the incomparable super lawyer and MAGA candidate Harmeet Dhillon.  If there was ever anyone in the Republican Party who should’ve been ousted, who should’ve been replaced by a dyed in the wool grass roots MAGA candidate, it was McDaniel. She spent over $2 million of party money on luxury travel and private jets, $300,000 on flowers, $75,000 on “beauty and spa treatments” and $1,280 on LBGTQ+ filings! All while undermining MAGA.  She is the antithesis of the grass roots, MAGA voter.  She is the polar opposite of the farmers and plumbers and police and truckers and steel workers who put Trump into office in the first place and the ones who recognized the coup.  They’re the 50,000 people who filled stadiums and were in the trenches with him.  But McDaniel and the establishment loathe them.    

If Trump circa 2024 hasn’t figured out that success lays with the grass roots MAGA voters who put him in the White House rather than the establishment grifters who lead the party today – with his help – then I’m not sure what the motivation is to support him is. And just in case anyone is under the illusion that this is written by some Never Trumper, let me dissuade you of that notion.  In November, before most of the above occurred, I wrote this:  "Trump may tell off-color jokes and may not always be the best judge of character, but he can take the heat, and his North Star has always been prosperity and security for the American people. Given the literal evil the Democrats are seeking to impose on America, I’ll happily follow him into the fire."

2024 is too important a moment in American history to let serial failures like the establishment McFailures McConnell, McCarthy and McDaniel lead the way.  This election may well be the last opportunity for Americans to rescue the nation from a Democrat party that has turned our cities into dystopian wastelands, turned 40% of American children into gender confused lab rats and seeks to balkanize the nation based on race and sex and anything else they can think of.  The goal of the swamp is power and it knows no party.  McDaniel & Co. are its GOP arm and if Trump doesn’t recognize that then the baggage that comes with supporting him isn’t worth the fight because with those charlatans leading the way, come Jan 20, 2025 there will be another Democrat being sworn in.