Let me please tell you what I believe. And please, also, read all the way through the first paragraph.
I believe that the Democrats manipulated the 2020 presidential vote in such a manner to win the presidency for Joe Biden. They were able to use COVID-19 restrictions, social media censorship, illegal changes and manipulation of state and local election laws, mainstream media bias, and many other means to accomplish this. It was stealthy. It was discrete. You don’t have to agree, but the single most important fact is that Biden was sworn in and became the 46th president of the US in January 2021.
And that was the first mistake that the Democratic Party did.
The Party, from the lowest levels all the way to the Oval Office, then launched a concerted and highly focused campaign to make Donald Trump irrelevant through the courts and the media. But, sadly for those same Democrats, President Joe Biden (or the people manipulating him, as some have argued) then grossly mismanaged his role to such an extent, and used the government to attack his political rivals so overtly, that a groundswell of the American electorate occurred.
And that was the second mistake of the Democratic Party.
That groundswell would then push candidate and former President Trump over the electoral line to be re-elected as president in a surprising, even shocking, electoral and popular victory in 2024
There were other factors, too, but those are the general facts.
Whatever the truth, beating Trump in 2020 was the single most disastrous thing that the Democratic Party could have possibly done. Why? Well, if Donald Trump had been re-elected in 2020 he would have continued to change the direction of the federal US government in a plodding pace that would continue to be hamstrung by Democrats and certain Establishment Republicans. He likely would not have accomplished in the next four years what he then accomplished in the first four weeks of his second term. He would still have been hamstrung by his vice president, a clear member of the Republican Establishment. Too, his cabinet of traditional Republicans and newer talent, along with their and his lack of understanding of the manner in which Washington, DC, operated would have greatly slowed him down.
One of the most important things to understand is that Donald Trump is a businessman. He has spent a lifetime analyzing his business performance. For six decades he has done this in order to improve business and personal outcomes. He, or one of his businesses, have been bankrupted on more than a few occasions and he has analyzed his mistakes and come back more successful and wealthier than ever. This was not coincidence, serendipity, or luck. It was analysis, assessment, and adjustment. He even wrote books on it.
And he was insanely popular prior to his presidential campaign announcement and his trip down the golden escalator. He counted as friends people like Oprah Winfrey, the two George Bushes, the Clintons, Al Sharpton, Chris Christie, and Jesse Jackson among many others. He understood to some extent the political world. Until, of course, he ran against all those people in 2016 and suddenly found dozens of proverbial knives in his back from those same people, as well as a system of politics that demanded homage to the system.
So, for his first four years in office, he struggled to understand the system and the politics of the beast he now led. Then Biden won the office in 2020. The next election cycle in 2024 was the culmination of eight years (2016–2024) of analysis of his many errors as an outsider, non-politician, and non-swamp-rat status in the Swamp of Politics. He analyzed his errors on the campaign trail as well as in office all in anticipation of being re-elected. This analysis intensified during the four years of 2020-2024.
So, with a new understanding of what would meet him if he were re-elected, Trump in 2024 already had in place a plan and an idea, if not a long list, of the type of people he wanted running the Executive Branch. Understand that it was in place long before election day. And these people were all so different from the people that he THOUGHT he could trust in his first term. This time around, he KNEW he could trust these people because they have the same beliefs in America, its people, and the nation's inherent greatness.
Today, Democrats and Establishment Republicans are running about with their hair on fire just trying to keep up with Trump. They cannot. And he is putting in place the government that he wants, with the staff he trusts, with lawyers he can rely upon, and has decided that Democrats and the media can all just go to Hell. And he does not care one iota what the pundits, the politicians, or the media say. He was elected on what he feels was a plain and obvious plan and promise to America to change the government for the better. And reports say he frequently consults a list of promises he made on the campaign trail to ensure he stays on track.
And that is the problem for Democrats and Establishment Republicans. By defeating Trump in 2020, and failing to bankrupt him, jail him, or kill him on two occasions they have made the very monster they feared he could be.
Donald Trump 2.0 is as much the making of the Democratic Party, and to a certain extent the old Republican Establishment, as it is Donald Trump. Democrats can only hope that they learn the lessons that are right in front (or behind) them.
