The Biggest Loser

He's back, not that he ever went away. In announcing his candidacy for president last week, the exPOTUS is putting himself in the position of being the Lar "America First" Daly of our time. 

Daly a Chicagoan, was a perennial candidate for every imaginable office from President of the United States, to dog catcher, none of which he ever won. OK that's the one glaring difference, Trump won once. 

You can read about Daly and his antics here. 

Lar Daly did make one lasting contribution to American politics. Running for president in 1960, the fringe candidate demanded equal time on the national television networks after the famous series of televised debates between Richard M. Nixon and John F. Kennedy. Because of Daly's circus, Congress amended section 315 of the Communications Act to state that fringe candidates needn't always be granted equal time. 

While it's true that Donald Trump did get elected president in 2016, in every election since that he has been a part of, directly or as an influencer, he lost bigly, both for himself and his party.

The first loss was the 2018 mid-term elections where the Republican Party lost control of the House of Representatives as the Democrats gained 41 seats in that body. Maybe that shouldn't count because mid-term elections are usually won in a rout for the party not in control of the White House. This loss was no exception to the rule. On the other hand, in 2018 as the Republican president never failed to correctly mention, the economy was robust and for the most part, except for him, things were relatively stable in the U.S. Given that, the loss of 41 seats in the House very likely was a referendum on the Trump circus and nothing more.

Incumbent presidents rarely fail to be re-elected. Trump did. He lost his bid to be a two-term president in 2020, despite doing his utmost to invalidate the results of a free election and destroy one of the most sacred traditions of our government, the peaceful transfer of power. 

It was a remarkably stupid loss as well because Trump was at the helm during a global crisis, the COVID pandemic. Had he shown only a modicum of competence in handling the crisis, and an ounce of compassion for its victims, he would have won re-election by a landslide, as presidents in power during crises not of their own making almost always do. Instead, he politicized the pandemic, as he did everything else, convincing his foolish supporters there was nothing to fear, that it was all a "Democrat (sic) hoax" designed to discredit him. As a result, more people in the United States died from COVID than in any other country in the world. Well, he did make America First in that category.

Compounding that loss as far as the Republican Party is concerned, the distrust he had sewn of the American election system among his supporters, caused many Republican Georgians one month later, to stay home during two important run-off elections for Senate in that state, which put the U.S. Senate back in the hands of the Democrats. 

Finally, there was the mid-term election earlier this month. Politicians and pundits of all stripes predicted gloom and doom for the Democrats after missteps of the current administration as well as an increase of violent crime around the country and inflation the likes of which we haven't seen since the 1970s. Under normal circumstances, a "red wave" of Republicans winning back control of Congress in massive numbers would have been all but a certainty. But again, Trump stuck his big butt into elections all over the country, publicly endorsing candidates whose only credentials were that they professed their fealty to him. You can say all you want about the ethics of Democrats putting much of their resources into Republican primaries to help defeat viable candidates in favor of Trump endorsed stooges, but you can't argue with success. Race after race, Trump-supported election deniers lost in the all-important state gubernatorial and secretary of state races to Democrats, as well as some highly publicized House and Senate races. 

In the end, the House of Representatives is back in control of the Republicans, but only by a razor thin margin, far from the veto-proof mandate they expected. There will be another runoff election for Senate in Georgia but this time the outcome will not affect the control of the Senate as the Democrats are assured to hold on to control of that body. Not that we shouldn't care who wins that election; should the incumbent senator Raphael Warnock be re-elected, not only will the Peachtree State continue to be represented by a respected, competent senator, but it will have avoided the embarrassment of electing the most unqualified candidate to run for public office since, well since Donald Trump. 

Given his woeful track record at the polls since 2018, one would think that Republicans would get the message and unceremoniously dump Trump as their de facto leader. There are public rumblings of discontent with him in the GOP, the likes of which we haven't seen since the Republican primaries of 2016. But there were similar rumblings after the January 6th insurrection and like good little children, most Republican lawmakers fell back into line with their dear leader. 

I've learned my lesson to never count Trump out. I'm on record in this space saying in 2016 that I didn't think he stood a chance to be nominated, let alone elected president. This time, if enough Republicans grow some balls and challenge him for their party's nomination, he'd easily get the most votes as everyone else would likely split the votes of Republicans who are sick and tired of the Trump shit show. He'd probably have a much harder time in a head-to-head race against Ron DeSantis, who seems to be the odds-on favorite at the moment to be the Republican with the best chance of beating the exPOTUS. 

Come to think of it, maybe another shot at the ring for the exPOTUS as the Republican nominee wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. Bad as Trump is, in many ways, DeSantis is worse, and he might have a serious chance of being elected president in 2024. On the other hand, Trump has proven four times in a row since being elected president that he is now a perpetual loser. There's little chance much will happen between now and November 2024 to change that. As we've seen in the last four national elections, Trump, certainly the most divisive president in history, will very likely turn out the vote against him in greater numbers than votes for him. 

I may be eating my words in 2024, but at least right now, through Trump, Lar Daly lives. 

All I can say is this:

Long Live Lar.