Trump Officially Throws MAGA Hat Into 2024 White House Bid

This is a picture of a magnet that was being sold at Strand's Book Store in New York City a few years ago. No, I did not buy it, but I liked it and took a picture, which I am sharing here now. 

So what we all expected to happen, has now become official. King Con Don will run for the White House, yet again, for 2024.

When he announced for the 2016 election, it was still just June of 2015. Now, just last evening, Trump made what everyone expected would be another run for the Oval Office official. It is the fourth straight presidential election in which Trump has run. Remember, he made a run for it in 2012, although he never actually made it into 2012, since his campaign flopped by May of 2011. 

Nobody remembers that one. Apparently, that includes King Con Don himself, who kept claiming to have won the White House in his first ever run. That is because everyone remembers his 2016 run, because it wound up being one of the most shocking election results in history when he stunned the country - and perhaps the world - and won.

Now, let's remember just how he won, though. Very narrowly, winning just enough in some of those key battleground states to pull through, even while he lost the popular vote by 2.7 million votes. Suddenly, he and his nonsense were lifted and given a degree of validity that it did frankly did not ever deserve, with the White House and the presidential status lending him some measure of official legitimacy. 

For all intents and purposes since then, King Con Don has hijacked the Republican Party, which has unofficially become the Trump party. If 2016 was the glorious victory for King Con Don and his MAGA Cult 45 supporters, then the subsequent election were regarded as de facto referendums on Trump himself. The GOP lost the 2018 election, and lost it quite badly. Then in 2020, they lost again, with Trump this time outright losing the election. Oh, he made a lot of noise, and claimed that he actually had won, but there was this gigantic conspiracy, this "massive voter fraud" that he had been victim of, although he offered not a shred of proof to back up these claims. That, despite having plenty of opportunities for so doing. After all, his movement demanded several recounts in a number of states, while ironically, also demanding to stop the count in other states. Importantly, Team Trump had 62 chances to prove their case for "massive voter fraud" in the courts. After all, they claimed to have irrefutable proof of massive voter fraud. But instead, they bent over backwards to make clear that, in fact, they were not arguing massive voter fraud. After all, coming up with bullshit that Cult 45 MAGA supporters will accept hook, line, and sinker is one thing. Stating this same kind of bullshit under oath in our courts - where there are actual consequences for lying - is quite another. They are on record - and voice recordings, for that matter - making clear that they were not making a case for massive voter fraud, instead focusing on some isolated voting irregularities here and there, none of which would have actually reversed the results in a single state. 

None of that mattered. Most Cult 45 MAGA supporters - as well as most members of the Trump...err, Republican Party = believed the big lie. And so King Con Don could proclaim himself the de facto winner, and that he was the victim of a massive conspiracy against him. That is what he has been running on ever since, for all intents and purposes. And now, he has made his campaign for the White House in 2024 official. 

The timing of this announcement was a bit strange, and some people criticized King Con Don for it. After all, as mentioned earlier, his official record in elections is, in fact, not all that impressive. That is something that King Con Don actually goes to rather extraordinary lengths to hide, but it is the truth. After all, again, his 2012 White House bid was over well before 2012 actually arrived (please find the link to a Guardian article from May of 2011 as proof that, yes, he actually did run officially). Then he "won" the 2016 election, but remember, he lost the popular vote by 2.7 million. His de facto Trump Party lost the 2018 election massively. Then they lost again in 2020, with King Con Don losing to Biden by well over 7 million votes in the popular vote, and losing by the exact same margin in the Electoral College as he had won by in 2016. Then, this year's 2022 election, where many both on the left and on the right expected a massive red wave, if not even possibly a red tsunami (something that I have already written about in previous posts) not only failed to materialize, but in which Republicans barely got the House majority, and outright have lose the Senate.

If you are keeping count, that makes three straight elections where Trump lost both the popular vote and/or the Electoral College vote. And remember, he "won" in 2016, even though he fell fall short of the popular vote. Of course, he himself again disguises that, and proclaimed a "historic" level of dominance in the election results, as well as supposedly record turnout for his inauguration. He repeatedly claimed, to anyone who would listen, that there was simply no way that he could lose an election, and that it would take "massive voter fraud" to prevent him winning an election. After all, according to him, everyone loves Trump. Except, of course, that the reality never reflected this. In fact, his approval ratings never went beyond 49 percent, twice briefly, and usually were well below that. To anyone with an ounce of objectivity, and no strong or systematic rejection of inconvenient truths, it sure seemed that, in fact, Trump was vulnerable and likely to lose every election he has been a part of. Remember, he never secured a majority of votes in a single election in which he took part. That is not some minor point, even though King Con Don and his team seem to conveniently gloss over that, or to outright deny it (without basis). 

Just as many Republicans and self-identified conservatives - including FOX News - were finally beginning to recognize that, far from political gold, Trump represented political dead weight, King Con Don has made his 2024 run official. That's right, at the very moment when Trump himself was long overdue for serious introspection, with yet another massive election disappointment that could be pointed directly at him, he is pretending to claim a massive victory, making it seem that he is back and running by popular demand. Many Republicans, this time at least, are leery. After all, this is the man who has held sway over the party, arguably, since the beginning of his run in 2015, when it was often overlooked and regarded almost as a joke, but kept getting free publicity and rising in influence and power. Most serious Republicans felt that Trump would be a liability in 2016, but he surprised so many people by winning, albeit narrowly. Since then, many Republicans have also seen Trump as a liability, but stood by helpless as Trump brought the party down. Ironically - and perhaps this is trademark King Con Don - Trump is turning his lowest point into a victory in his own mind. Three straight national elections that were considered a disaster for him, and yet he is doing his victory lap. Much like all of those ridiculous embarrassments during the Trump presidency, which he treated as glorious victories, King Con Don is selling crap and trying to make it look like it is glittering gold. Once again, Trump is proving that not even bringing his own party down - and frankly, his own nation down - will ever stop him from fostering his now legendarily fragile ego.

Most people feel that Trump is a liability for the GOP. In fact, it sure seems like many, if not most, Democrats also hold this view. But we have to remember that Trump did win once, even if he never received an official majority. Frankly, while I do not believe that his Republican nomination in 2024 is a sure thing, I also am not sure that he will not represent the GOP yet again, for a third straight presidential election. And if he wins, then let's face the reality that he could possibly win the general election, as well. It would surely be a contentious and divisive election, much like this coming campaign by King Con Don will be contentious and divisive, and will turn existing political fault lines into wide canyons. In other words, he and his presidential campaign is not good for the country. In fact, it is very bad for the country. 

But has that ever stopped him before? Again, this man's ego is so incredibly inflated, and necessarily fragile, that it has cast a shadow over this entire country. Years ago, I would not have believed that one man could so completely keep an entire nation - and a huge nation at that, what is still the world's leading superpower - in his shadow like this. But if anything, it has shown just how diminished this country has become in recent years and decades. This is a country of well over 330 million people, yet this one pathetic man uttered the same sentiment that he offered us in the past, that he is the only man who can save us as a country. How much of an ego do you have to have to say something like that, when you are literally one of over 330 million people in that country? Trump's political rise was very bad for the country, and his de facto dominance of one of the two major parties ever since has also greatly diminished the country. Far from his stated claims to "Make America Great Again," he has dragged the country down as the most divisive, polarizing president in modern American history. The country will be worse off for as long as Trump is around and posing as the national savior. Most people in the country already understand this, and that includes a growing number of Republicans and self-identified conservatives. Almost anyone else would have recognized the signs and finally stepped down.

Of course, that is not how Trump does things. He will once again proclaim great things, make frankly unbelievable promises, and then will fail to deliver yet again. The best thing for the country would be if he finally just fades away into obscurity, once and for all. But when has what is best for the country actually ever guided Trump and his motivations? He never had what's best for the country in mind, and hardly even went to any lengths to pretend like it was. Yet, support for him has rarely wavered among the Cult 45 MAGA crowd, which in turn has forced the GOP to fall in line, which in turn has too often forced this country to fall in line. If he wins or loses, Trump will, once again, proclaim de facto victory, and will claim to have been cheated once again if he does indeed lose. And he will yet again show a willingness to drag the country down in order that he himself profits. That is his way. That is why I feel that he has earned my personal nickname for him: King Con Don.

Indeed, yet another Trump White House bid will be bad for the country. Very bad. Most Americans recognize this, and even now, a good number of Republicans. The country simply seems unable to move past this sad, pathetic, historically needy little man. But he does not care, because all he cares about - all he has ever cared about - is Donald Trump getting all of the attention, and all of the glory, and of course, none of the blame if and when things go wrong. He has been awful for this country ever since his political campaign really started gaining momentum in 2015, and this country has declined and grown ever more polarized since then. Nothing could be clearer than that, and almost everyone sees that this country sure feels diminished. But again I ask: has that ever stopped him before?

Donald Trump bows out of 2012 US presidential election race by Ewen MacAskill, 16 May 2011:

US mogul formally announces he will not seek the Republican nomination, claiming he is 'not ready to leave the private sector'     

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/may/16/donald-trump-us-presidential-race