Get ready. Things are about to get freaky, says Rolling Stone. Trump may be about to announce, for 2024.
If Trump has proven anything in his post-presidential period (or while president, for that matter), it is that he doesn’t factor in the overall damage his actions may do to the Republican party when making decisions. Now Trump may be about to do the most selfish thing of all, very much to the detriment of the Republican party, by announcing that 2024 run ahead of the 2022 mid-terms.
Why? Rolling Stone says that Trump believes it will help him get a leg-up on the new MAGAzilla rising out of the waters off the Florida peninsula, Ron DeSantis.
Rolling Stone wrote:
Donald Trump in recent months has been telling confidants that he may launch his 2024 presidential campaign early — and that he’s considering launching it in Florida to stick it to Gov. Ron DeSantis. Trump has kicked around staging a large, flashy launch rally (with fireworks, of course) that would announce his White House bid before the 2022 midterm elections, according to three sources familiar with the matter.
Nothing says Trump more than “flashy” self-centered pronouncements. Trump is fully capable of having a holographic Trumpzilla rise out of the sea off Mar-a-Lago, with lasers coming out of the eyes and fireworks out of his mouth, of course.
People who’ve spoken to Trump say that one reason he’s eying the Sunshine State is to assert his dominance over an ascendant DeSantis, who — if they both run in 2024 — would likely be the former president’s most formidable competitor in a primary fight for the GOP nomination. One of the sources said Trump’s motivation is to show the governor “who the boss is” in the modern-day GOP.
Doing all one can to grab defeat from the jaws of victory in the 2022 mid-terms by making the election a referendum on the guy who just lost is not the way to show who is boss. Besides, this writer-analyst isn’t buying it.
Trump has plenty of time to take on DeSantis. Announcing his run first and early won’t do anything to really propel him ahead of DeSantis. But it can serve Trump very well, with another problem weighing him down this summer and fall. Trump is about to become the target of several mature criminal allegations. He faces a grand jury in Georgia. He faces a federal grand jury in Florida over the classified documents that he brought to Mar-a-Lago. Perhaps he wanted them around for a garage sale. And, of course, there are possible referrals to DOJ arising out of the Select Committee hearings.
If Trump has already announced that he’s running, it is far easier for him to point at the charges, one in Georgia, and two led by Democrats at the federal level, and say, “They’re trying to keep me out of the White House. They know I’ll win, just like I won in 2016 and 2020. This is all political, I told you!”
The lackadaisical pace in prosecuting Trump’s crimes created the opportunity to make a stronger-sounding claim that it’s all about keeping him out of office in 2024. Some of us have been pointing it out for over a year. Water under the bridge.
Speaking of bridges, Mitch McConnell will be seen sitting on one this November if Trump’s need to be the center of attention makes 2022 another Trump referendum and leads to a Republican loss in an otherwise winnable senate. The economic hardship voters are enduring and Biden’s unfavorable should make this fairly easy for McConnell. But Trump’s endorsements have been terrible (Vance, Oz, Walker, still to be seen Arizona), and a Trump announcement allows the Democrats to point directly at Trump and McConnell and say “Trump will be running the Congress if you vote Republican…”
Of course, if we’ve learned anything about Trump, it is that he doesn’t care about collateral party damage. Oh! We have also learned that Trump’s habit of defying convention in reckless power grabs is starting to catch up with him. Indeed, if the Committee has sufficiently powerful evidence that all but proves Trump committed treason, it’s possible that our last Trump sighting will be him walking out into the sea, in the dark, no fireworks… eh, he might do the fireworks, either way.
Jason Miciak believes a day without learning is a day not lived. He is a political writer, features writer, author, and attorney. He is a Canadian-born dual citizen who spent his teen and college years in the Pacific Northwest and has since lived in seven states. He now enjoys life as a single dad of a young girl, writing from the beaches of the Gulf Coast. He loves crafting his flower pots, cooking, while also studying scientific philosophy, religion, and non-math principles behind quantum mechanics and cosmology. Please feel free to contact for speaking engagements or any concerns.