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My prediction
Nov. 29th, 2021 03:53 pmRight now, Republicans in all circles of power are talking quietly about how they can avoid another four years of the incompetent do-nothing disaster of a Donald Trump presidency.
In about a year the drum will start beating in earnest for a Republican presidential nominee who can "stand up" to the legacy of Donald Trump and drag the party forward into some new version of itself. Something less fettered to the diminishing returns of Rust Belt grievance and xenophobia. Donald Trump will still have a core base of followers plugged into his personal social media empire, but that base will be actively shrinking, rather than growing.
Eventually Republicans will hit upon a new presidential candidate. I have no idea who he will be right now. Nobody does. But I know he will be a fiery disser of Donald trump on the nomination trail. Trump will slander and belittle him and hold rally after rally across the midwest, and this candidate will pull from exactly the same playbook, holding equivalent rallies and firing equivalent volleys at Trump himself -- though never at his believers, whom he will instead openly court.
The Republican party establishment itself will also advocate intensely for the new candidate. Previous hardcore Trump devotees in the political system will simultaneously heap praise on Trump for "what he did" while also calling for a successor: A "Trump 2.0" candidate who has the same theatrical command but none of the smarmy playboy legacy and pig-headedness.
This will cause an eruption among Republican party voters and lead to a showdown at the convention. The conflict will suck all the oxygen away from the Democratic campaign, just as Trump suffocated it in 2016.
I don't know whether this new candidate will win the nomination.
If he doesn't, we will see 2020 Trump versus Biden all over again, and Trump and the Republicans will absolutely lose.
If this new candidate does get nominated, the next several months will be full of social churn as half the previous Trump supporters violently repudiate their chosen one, and the other half declare their ironclad refusal to support the nominee. This open warfare will appear to continue right up to election day and will disrupt everyone's ability to forecast the result. Nevertheless, the "only Trump" Republicans will fall in behind the new candidate and vote for him, mainly as a protest vote against Joe Biden. With enthusiasm for Biden at a low ebb, he will probably lose.
We'll have a Republican president again but it will not be Donald Trump. It will be someone at once more respectable and better equipped for inside-the-beltway negotiation, with the blessing of the establishment, and the Republican party will again be ascendant. Donald Trump's influence will drop precipitously and historians will declare the end of his chapter in presidential history. By then he will also be showing clear signs of senility. He probably won't even live to see the next Presidential election.
The Democratic party will wring its hands for four years, but it won't be the existential panic of 2016. It will be a more constructive housecleaning, and a number of far-left elements will get thrown under the bus - such as the anti-police and anti-capitalist movements - if they haven't already been crushed by Joe Biden himself. Four years later they will present a tastefully progressive female nominee who will vocally reject "identity politics"* as a tactic towards reconciliation with Republicans, and run mostly on a fiscal platform, promising to reign in ludicrous federal spending, which will be beyond a looming crisis by then and instead be an actively unfolding disaster burning through the economy.
In about a year the drum will start beating in earnest for a Republican presidential nominee who can "stand up" to the legacy of Donald Trump and drag the party forward into some new version of itself. Something less fettered to the diminishing returns of Rust Belt grievance and xenophobia. Donald Trump will still have a core base of followers plugged into his personal social media empire, but that base will be actively shrinking, rather than growing.
Eventually Republicans will hit upon a new presidential candidate. I have no idea who he will be right now. Nobody does. But I know he will be a fiery disser of Donald trump on the nomination trail. Trump will slander and belittle him and hold rally after rally across the midwest, and this candidate will pull from exactly the same playbook, holding equivalent rallies and firing equivalent volleys at Trump himself -- though never at his believers, whom he will instead openly court.
The Republican party establishment itself will also advocate intensely for the new candidate. Previous hardcore Trump devotees in the political system will simultaneously heap praise on Trump for "what he did" while also calling for a successor: A "Trump 2.0" candidate who has the same theatrical command but none of the smarmy playboy legacy and pig-headedness.
This will cause an eruption among Republican party voters and lead to a showdown at the convention. The conflict will suck all the oxygen away from the Democratic campaign, just as Trump suffocated it in 2016.
I don't know whether this new candidate will win the nomination.
If he doesn't, we will see 2020 Trump versus Biden all over again, and Trump and the Republicans will absolutely lose.
If this new candidate does get nominated, the next several months will be full of social churn as half the previous Trump supporters violently repudiate their chosen one, and the other half declare their ironclad refusal to support the nominee. This open warfare will appear to continue right up to election day and will disrupt everyone's ability to forecast the result. Nevertheless, the "only Trump" Republicans will fall in behind the new candidate and vote for him, mainly as a protest vote against Joe Biden. With enthusiasm for Biden at a low ebb, he will probably lose.
We'll have a Republican president again but it will not be Donald Trump. It will be someone at once more respectable and better equipped for inside-the-beltway negotiation, with the blessing of the establishment, and the Republican party will again be ascendant. Donald Trump's influence will drop precipitously and historians will declare the end of his chapter in presidential history. By then he will also be showing clear signs of senility. He probably won't even live to see the next Presidential election.
The Democratic party will wring its hands for four years, but it won't be the existential panic of 2016. It will be a more constructive housecleaning, and a number of far-left elements will get thrown under the bus - such as the anti-police and anti-capitalist movements - if they haven't already been crushed by Joe Biden himself. Four years later they will present a tastefully progressive female nominee who will vocally reject "identity politics"* as a tactic towards reconciliation with Republicans, and run mostly on a fiscal platform, promising to reign in ludicrous federal spending, which will be beyond a looming crisis by then and instead be an actively unfolding disaster burning through the economy.
( * "Identity politics" is almost entirely a fabricated bogeyman of the right. When one digs down to the ground-level influences that have given rise to the term, there is actually something else going on -- something wholly different than what Fox News talking heads and celebrity feuds on Twitter would have you believe. Nevertheless, this candidate will have to speak to Republicans on their own terms to court additional votes.)
