Is Trump Gone for Good?

The death of four people, the destruction of the Capitol building, action that resembled a coup d’état; will all this be enough to finally rid ourselves of Donald Trump? Will the shame be enough to keep him out of the 2024 presidential election? An overnight poll by YouGov shows that 45% of Republicans support the attack on the Capitol, which indicates that Trump still has his voter base. The message that Trump supporters left on Nancy Pelosi’s desk was, “We will not back down.” The legacy that Trump has created for himself is an ugly one. He should retire to his golf course, spend more time with his strange family, and donate the $250 million he has collected since he lost the election in November to a charity organization for refugees.

But I’m far from certain he will do that. Surely now that Trump has shown his true fascist tendencies, he will never be able to regain his hold on power. Surely the fact that American voters are so afraid of Trump means they won’t give him power again, right? It will probably be a huge challenge for him to return to TV, but that doesn’t mean he won’t try for the Republican nomination again. The bitter truth for the U.S. is that many people, albeit a minority, still support him; they still believe that there was election fraud, and they still want to return Trump to power, perhaps even as a quasi-dictator.

Could that possibly happen? Trump’s base is willing to do anything for him, even launch a rebellion. Can the Republican Party prevent Trump from returning to office? Who is in charge of the Republican Party now? Is it Trump, or Mitch McConnell? Which group of Republicans in the Capitol truly represent the party? The senators and member of Congress? Or the guys with flags and supremacist tattoos who took their place? Or maybe that man with a bull horn helmet?

Regardless of whether or not Trump’s 2024 campaign for the Republican nomination is successful, the Republican Party is now divided in two, and might be forever. There is no doubt that Trump could find someone like Josh Hawley or Ted Cruz to be his vice presidential running mate. Maybe he could hire a retired general to support him or even find some clowns from social media to work as his spokesmen. While it is possible he could be the nominee, he will not have the support of many party leaders, nor the support of the few remaining Republicans who still stand for fiscal responsibility. Ultimately, the party will split and collapse. Trump will undoubtedly get 20% of the vote from those voters who make up the core of his base, and the Democrats will go on to win the election by an impressive margin. Trump is likely to face a moderate Republican who supports the Constitution in the primaries.

Trump will never be able to reclaim the nation’s vote in 2024 for the same reasons that he lost it in 2020. But if you think that Trump won a landslide victory in 2020, the problem isn’t Trump, it’s you. When I saw the images of those thugs in the Capitol taking selfies with bronze statues of Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan, I couldn’t help wondering what those presidents would think of Trump and these people. The party of Eisenhower and Reagan has been destroyed by Trump’s lies and agitation while his congressional lackeys went along with it. Even after the insurrection, and after they were forced to flee the chamber and hide in fear for their lives, some 138 Republican member of Congress, a majority of the party in the House of Representatives, voted to reject the certification of the election results in Pennsylvania and supported Trump’s insurrection. Several Republican senators even echoed Trump’s lies about election fraud, like the good puppets they are. When will this madness end?