Trump and his aides and allies may be living up the moment. Some may have their eyes on the potential of a presidential run in 2024. But on Tuesday night, like many others since Trump left the White House, they remained consumed by what happened in 2020....Trump knows better. He just gave an interview to The Washington Post, and not only is he still describing the election as rigged, he's concerned about what he sees as a real vulnerability: his actions after he delivered a speech to the January 6 "Stop the Steal" rally. No, he's not vulnerable because he didn't stop the subsequent riot. He's vulnerable because he didn't participate:
Trump is in limbo, needing to focus on the future but incapable of letting go of the past. It was evident all around him on Tuesday. Like a dysfunctional family reunion, Trump donors, allies, aides and advisers reminisced about days gone by....
Those Republicans who support Trump but are one step away from his inner circle find the scene that unfolded Tuesday night to be counterproductive. At a time when the ex-president could be focused on propelling the Republican Party toward the upcoming elections, Trump is still anchored down by conspiracies and anger over losing the last one. At a time when President Joe Biden’s own weaknesses make him an easy political target, Trump and his political apparatus instead seem to be unable to move past the abyss of election-fraud lies.
Former president Donald Trump voiced regret Wednesday over not marching to the U.S. Capitol the day his supporters stormed the building....Doubling down under attack is a time-honored Trump tactic and a time-honored Republican tactic. You never concede that there's any merit to your opponents' charges -- if anything, you didn't engage in enough of the conduct they're criticizing you for.
Trump ... said he did not regret urging the crowd to come to Washington with a tweet stating that it would “be wild!” He also stood by his incendiary and false rhetoric about the election at the Ellipse rally before the rioters stormed the Capitol. “I said peaceful and patriotic,” he said, omitting other comments that he made in a speech that day.
... Trump said ... he pressed to march on the Capitol with his supporters but was stopped by his security detail. “Secret Service said I couldn’t go. I would have gone there in a minute," he said.
Also, Trump can treat the transition to the Biden presidency as the moment when everything when wrong, which is exactly what the majority of Republican voters believe. Here he is doing just that in the Politico story:
“There’s a great anger at what took place and because of a rigged election,” Trump said, standing inside a mirrored jewel box of a ballroom next to the pool. “We now have Ukraine — it would have never happened. We now have inflation the likes of which nobody ever thought possible.”Every Republican voter believes the war in Ukraine wouldn't have happened in a Trump presidency, because Trump handled Putin so skillfully. I'm not making this up or exaggerating it in any way -- they all believe it. And they all believe that if Trump were in office, gas would be $2.50 a gallon.
Some of you may think Trump is vulnerable to a 2024 primary challenge. If that's true, then nursing a grievance about 2020 actually helps him. Remember, Ron DeSantis or some other potential challenger might own the issue of critical race theory or the LGBT/"groomer" menace, but nobody can take the 2020 grievance away from Trump -- it's all his. And unless Trump is magically restored to office before January 20, 2025, GOP voters will still nurse that grievance, because they nurse all grievances. Also, they've been conditioned to believe that Democrats cheat in every election since the Bush years, so it's it's well-established grievance.
Trump could be vulnerable in 2024 if he doesn't get up to speed on evil trans people and the way the 1619 Project turns your kids into Marxists, to name two prominent post-Trump right-wing narratives. But for now, it's smart of him to embrace the riot. On that subject, he's only at risk in the primaries because he didn't personally punch a cop.
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