Rumor has it that Trump will announce for the 2024 campaign tonight. I wish he wouldn't, but nothing was going to stop him.
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I have made no secret of the fact that I think Ron DeSantis is an extraordinary politician. I prefer him to any of the potential candidates for President, and am willing to explain to anybody why that is. This, though, is not that column.
I also am no Never-Trumper, and would vote for him over any Democrat in a heartbeat. Trump has a lot to be proud of, and without his leadership the Republicans would still be captured by the Establishment™.
Now that I have put my biases on the table, let me give you my analysis of what I believe to be Trump’s huge own goal.
My most objective take possible, given my acknowledged preferences, is that President Trump made a big unforced error attacking DeSantis at his rally the other day.
Not just because he did so just before an election day on which the Republicans simply must destroy the Democrats–after all, Governor DeSantis doesn’t need Trump’s support to win. If Trump went into full attack mode it wouldn’t dent DeSantis’ reputation one little bit.
So Trump’s attack is electorally irrelevant (which in itself is an unforced error, as it shows Trump to be weaker than he wants to look against a political rival).
Trump’s attack was a mistake because he opened up an old wound that could be Trump’s Achilles’ Heel: his huge mistakes dealing with COVID. Mistakes that DeSantis saw early and rejected quickly. Unnoticed by many, he has attacked Kemp in Georgia as well, which is truly bizarre as his attacks would help Stacey Abrams, a particularly disliked figure among Republicans. Trump once quipped that Stacey Abrams would be a better governor than Kemp–something nobody outside the Left believes. Kemp, though, will not be hurt by Trump’s jibes either.
Both Kemp and DeSantis were more right on COVID when it mattered than Trump. Reminding people of that fact is a terrible mistake by him. Usually he is more adept than this.
When COVID hit, Trump knew it was going to be a huge political problem for him. Not only would the pandemic hurt him where he was strongest–economic growth–but he also quickly understood that dealing with a pandemic did not play to his political strengths.
The Don is superb–perhaps the best since Franklin Roosevelt or Ronald Reagan–taking on his political opponents. He dominates with his impenetrable confidence and his ability to mobilize people’s passions. He is a street fighter, and his people root for him.
But COVID wasn’t a human being, but a virus indifferent to his charm. So early on he made the biggest mistake of his political, and probably his entire, life: he let his enemies into the command center and let them take over the response to COVID. He even defended Fauci and Birx when he should have turned his back on them.
In the battle over reopening Georgia, Trump actually sided with the Establishment instead of the freedom fighter. It was a mistake, and for some reason Trump is reminding everybody of that fact by criticizing Kemp and DeSantis.
Both Kemp and DeSantis earned the hatred and disdain of the Establishment–taking as much flak as Trump on COVID but with the added benefit of actually fighting on the right side earlier and more effectively than did Trump. No conservative Republican can look at Trump’s record on COVID (as opposed to his foreign or other domestic policies) and say he did an excellent job. He did some good things, but overall COVID was the one issue where he was outmaneuvered and the country suffered for it.
DeSantis created the Free State of Florida and Kemp returned Georgia to sanity. Neither did it with Trump’s help when it mattered.
While Trump did not exactly impose the lockdowns, mandates, and all the evil COVID policies for which the Left is demanding an amnesty, he certainly aided and abetted with his early COVID policy errors. He was right on every important issue until Spring 2020, and then he lost the plot. As 15 days to slow the spread extended onward–with Trump’s support–the COVID narrative was set and Republicans were behind the 8 ball for a very long time.
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Trump’s mistakes early on were easily understandable, and he tried to correct once the damage wrought was obvious. But he never could seize back the power he ceded early on in the process to his political enemies. Fauci and Co. always wanted to destroy Trump, and he gave them just enough power to do so.
In January 2021 Fauci was still in power and Trump was not.
… Fighting the virus was never going to work as we wanted it to. But fighting the fascists? We needed somebody to do that, and Trump stood down at exactly the wrong time while DeSantis stood up, along with Kemp.
By attacking both Kemp and DeSantis at this moment in the campaign, Trump made a huge political error. He puts himself on the wrong side of one of the most important issues at this time: COVID amnesty. Reminding people at this moment that he may need a bit of amnesty himself for his initial COVID mistakes was an unforced error. ….