A mere mortal would hang his head in shame. It should be lost on no one that this is the third election cycle — 2018, 2020 and now 2022 — that Democrats have won by running against Donald Trump. Some people would just give up. Trump announced instead, assuring everyone yet one more election cycle to be dominated by the one man almost any decent Democratic candidate can beat.
Crazy he is, but in this instance, as in so many others, crazy like a fox. Because of all the processes he could be involved in, nothing suits Trump like the process we have for nominating presidential candidates. It’s a popularity contest, yes, but one conducted largely by a host of true believers and hardcore ideologues, on both sides, exactly the opposite of the swing voters who decide general elections.
The rules were written to serve many goals — party building and ideological purity among them — but as head scratchers point out every four years, seeing who will turn out for caucuses in Iowa on a cold snowy night to listen to speeches is not always the best guide to who can win a general election. But that’s how we do it. Then we go to New Hampshire.
Donald Trump will be the 800-pound gorilla in the race. He will be expected to win everywhere, and with enough candidates in the field, he might. Even if he doesn’t, he’ll no doubt claim he did. And that is literally years from now. Until then, he will dominate the Republican Party in ways that can only work to the advantage of Democrats. That’s how it is with Trump. Why run against anyone else when every Democrat on every issue now has permission and license to run against Trump? Maybe he’ll even get his Twitter account back.
