Why Donald Trump might decide not to run again
When the chronicle of the making of the president in 2020 is written, historians will point to one image, in particular, to explain the unravelling of Donald Trump.
It is the president of the
United States on the lawn of the White House in the early hours of June 21. He emerges from Marine One, the presidential helicopter, having flown home from his disappointing rally in Tulsa, Okla., the evening before. His tie is unknotted, his jacket open, his hair untidy. He carries a crumpled “Make America Great Again” cap.
He is unkempt and indifferent, unusual for a man fastidious about his appearance. He looks deflated, depleted, defeated.
You can make a lot of this, and Frank Rich of New York magazine has. He portrays Trump that day as “a dinner theatre Willy Loman in visible disarray on a walk of shame.”
Loman is the central character in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman; he is dreamy, childlike, fanciful, disconnected from reality. In despair over his failing personal and professional life, he commits suicide.
Is Trump the Willy Loman of presidents? Is he no longer able to make the sale to a vanishing clientele? Most important, is he considering political suicide, which, in his case, would be refusing to run again?
The last few weeks have been a disaster for Trump. The drumbeat of news has been dreadful: rising deaths from the raging pandemic; civil unrest, which has shifted the view of race among white Americans; an economy with unemployment at 11 per cent; defeat on abortion in the Supreme Court at the hands of Neil Gorsuch, his marquee appointee.
All this has hurt Trump’s popularity. His campaign argues that internal polls put the race much closer. Usually these cheery claims are as credible as the dismissed, out-of-work CEO who gamely insists he is “consulting” or “writing a book.”
The case for Trump refusing to run again goes like this: By Aug. 27, when the Republican National Convention opens in Jacksonville, Fla., Trump will have a clearer view of his prospects.
The election will be almost two months away and Labour Day, traditionally the beginning of the campaign, will be less than 10 days away. Of course, the campaign will have been underway for months.
After a summer of fundraising, attack ads, rallies and his medley of threats, cries and laments, let us say he has closed the double-digit gap between him and Joe Biden. COVID-19 is receding, the economy is rebounding, a vaccine is emerging.
If not, though, Trump faces a wasting 60-day campaign and at its end, personal humiliation. In fact, the autumn campaign isn’t even 60 days anymore. Voting by mail begins in some states Oct. 3.
Many Americans will vote before seeing all three presidential debates. The fabled “October surprise,” which can upend the front-runner (as FBI director
Jim Comey’s reinvestigation of Hillary Clinton derailed her campaign in 2016), is less likely.
Trump is expected to arrive in Jacksonville to accept his party’s nomination. But if COVID-19 cancels a physical convention, he faces another indignity: He will be denied his opportunity to deliver his acceptance speech, bathe in the waves of warm applause and watch the balloons fall.
With a virtual convention, a shorter campaign and poor numbers, Trump may decide to walk away. He could resign the presidency then and there, and go home. Or, he could refuse the nomination and ask the party to nominate Vice-President Mike Pence, the mannequin in search of a moment.
Either way, Trump would insist Pence pardon him and his family of blanket criminality. Pence would be unable to admit such an arrangement publicly, knowing it would undo him, as pardoning Richard Nixon in 1974 undid Gerald Ford when he ran against Jimmy Carter in 1976.
The caveat: We’ve heard this kind of scenario before. Some even speculated that Trump would refuse the nomination in 2016.
Still, Trump’s renunciation remains plausible, if unlikely. Trump is a narcissist. He cares little for his party or his vice-president. He cares about himself.
And if he thinks he can’t win, don’t be surprised if Trump doesn’t run.
Andrew Cohen is a journalist, professor and author of Two Days in June: John F. Kennedy and the 48 Hours That Made History.
With a virtual convention, a shorter campaign and poor numbers, Trump may decide to walk away. He could resign the presidency then and there, and go home. Or, he could refuse the nomination and ask the party to nominate Vice-President Mike Pence. Andrew Cohen