Trump sorta faded from the limelight in 2021. He’s everywhere now. How much of that is because of his multiple prosecutions?
Don’t get me wrong, I think he should be imprisoned for treason. But if there hadn’t been these cases against him, how likely would it be that he just fucked off into the sunset and didn’t run for a second term? He might have run otherwise, but now he’s kinda forced to (as though he wasn’t a narcissist who craved attention – I’m not debating that).
Obviously, we can only speculate. But I’m curious what others think about this?
I think yes, because the main factors that animate others to push him to campaign would still be there, that being that foreign actors see Trump as better for their aims than Biden, or really anyone who isn’t Trump.
Case in point, Ukraine. Nobody who aligns with Trump on Ukraine is capable of even surviving the primary anymore, Trump literally is the only man who can pass the trial anymore, and it’s primarily because of the mass catharsis he specifically endows upon the Republican base.
MTG might say all the right words, but Trump is still the only one who made rural whites feel like it was ok for them to say the N-Word again, and so only he is capable of being the true animator of that energy of defense at all costs.
This unique position means that there would always be a natural path for him to run for the republican nomination, and it also explains why democrats don’t have their own trump figure, because even the most wingnut of wingnuts imagineable would have that base of racial, ethnic, religious, or whatever cultural tantrum grievance that Trump is capable of animating, because when democrats talk about grievances, 9 times out of 10, they’re actual grievances that genuinely affect their quality of life, and not just the frustrations of an old discriminatory class which wishes to begin discriminating again without suffering the social consequences of such.