Who’s Going To Become The Leader Of The Trump ‘Base?’
If there’s one topic which always seems to garner a little bit of digital space, it’s the question of whether Trump will run for President again in 2024. Here’s the latest — an article from MSN based on an interview with some guy who is identified as a Republican ‘strategist,’ whatever that means.
The article discusses the possibility of one of three GOP governors who are all talking like the will try to get into the Oval Office in 2024 — DeSantis from Florida, Abbott from Texas, and Kristi Noem from South Dakota, all of whom are trying to become the heir-apparent of Trump’s ‘base.’
What they are all doing is figuring out ways to make their mark in the ‘culture wars,’ from being against non-White immigrants, to closing down abortion clinics, to disparaging gender-neutral bathroom facilities, the usual crap.
What I find interesting about this continued attempt to keep something, anything which contains Trump’s name in the digital media is how there seems to be an unquestioned assumption that Trump still has a ‘base,’ or that his ‘base’ was an important factor in either of his two Presidential campaigns.
Let’s keep the following in mind. In 59 Presidential elections, Donald Trump is the only candidate who lost the national, popular vote two times. The second time, he lost the popular by more than twice as many votes as he lost it the first time, and Joe’s percentage of the 2020 popular vote was the greatest percentage garnered by a challenger against an incumbent since 1932.
The only reason that those three schmucks — DeSantis, Abbott and Noem — are pretending that they want to lead the Trump ‘base, in 2024, is because Trump ripped through the GOP primaries in 2016 by going hard right. Which was a very clever move in the primary contests because his insults, profanity and so-called ‘tough guy’ image set him off from everyone else. It was also a way to attract every yahoo within 50 miles of where he held those rallies to show up and chant ‘lock her up’ on cue.
Trump held even more big rallies between 2017 and 2020 and look what it got him. To quote Grandpa, it got him ‘gurnisht helfen,’ (read: nothing at all.) Actually, the rallies probably did net him some cash because, after all, he owns the MAGA name, even though he stopped using it after the Capitol riot on January 6th.
Back in May, you may recall that two other Trump-loving jerk-offs, Matt Gaetz and Margie Greene, kicked off what was going to be a national, ‘America First’ tour. They also opened a fundraising account with the Federal Election Commission which has taken in less than $60,000 in individual donations since April 1st.
To pay for the costs of their national tour, Gaetz and Greene have spent $240,000 bucks. The only reason they haven’t gone broke is that they plunked $300,000 into their FEC account when they started up.
Where did this money come from? Who the hell knows? But there’s a reason why this national ‘America First’ tour held a total of two events and now appears, as Grandpa would say, ‘fartig und toyt’ (read: finished and done.)
First of all, there never was a Trump ‘base,’ if by that we mean a large group of devoted followers whose numbers are large enough to make or break the GOP and tilt the results of a general election as well.
In 2016, Trump was one of 12 candidates whose names appeared on GOP primary ballots. Generally speaking, Republicans don’t feel comfortable holding primary elections because they tend to be less than enthusiastic about everyone voting anyway. Of the 12 candidates who announced their intention to run for President on the GOP line, 9 of them withdrew well before McCain clinched the nomination on March 4th.Of the 7 candidates whose names appeared on GOP primary ballots in 2012, Mitt Romney rolled up 65% of all primary votes.
In 2016, Trump blazed through the primaries, but he only captured 45% of the 31 million primary votes cast. Know how many votes were cast in the 2020 Democratic primaries? Try 37 million. Joe got the same percentage of total votes cast in the primaries as he got when he went head-to-head against Trump after winning the Democratic primary campaign. Who has the bigger ‘base?’
Today there’s a great story in the media about how the diehard members of the Trump ‘base’ is going to hold a ‘big’ rally in D.C. on September 18th to demand ‘justice’ for what they are referring to as the ‘political prisoners’ indicted after January 6th. If this isn’t a made-for-digital-video moment, I don’t know what is.
I can just see Steve Bannon, one of the organizers of this event, collecting money to bail out these ‘political prisoners’ the way he collected money to finish building the Mexican wall. And I’m sure that Bannon has already contacted the 25 donors who gave Gaetz and Greene more than $50 for their ‘America First’ tour.
Everybody talks about how the internet has become a platform for letting anyone and everyone have something to say. What the internet has really become is a platform that lets everyone, and anyone try to make a buck. And when you stop to think about it, isn’t making a buck, or at least trying to make a buck, the genuine, old-fashioned, American way?
