Trump’s sheer political will
No American presidents of our time — perhaps no American presidents ever, with the possible exceptions of George Washington and Theodore Roosevelt — have affected the environment of their successors as dramatically as Donald J. Trump has shaped the political world of Joe Biden.
Both President Washington, whose retirement established a two-term limit to the office that survived for a century and a half, and Roosevelt, whose shadow over William Howard Taft was an enduring presence, decided not to run for additional successive presidential terms. Trump is a persistent presence in the Biden years by hectoring his successor and laying the groundwork for a third presidential campaign.
No one — maybe not even Trump — knows whether the 45th president is going to try to become the 47th president, becoming the only chief executive besides Grover Cleveland to serve nonconsecutive terms.
Today, hardly anyone identifies as a Reagan conservative; the Republican Party is a Trump party.
Trump may be the same man who has been a fixture in American tabloids, reality television and pent house Manhattan social circles for decades, but one element of his profile has changed. The Edison Research Election Day 2016 exit poll of 24,557 Americans found that only 8% of voters thought Trump had “the right experience” to be president. That no longer would be the case if he runs in 2024. His experience in the White House is now his greatest calling card, at least for his followers. It also has the obverse effect for his detractors; they are determined to make sure he does not return to the White House. Trump unites both Democrats and Republicans.
If a third run at the White House is his hope, Trump is following a comeback path forged by Nixon, who lost the 1960 election by a small margin, was defeated in the 1962 California gubernatorial race and then — state by state, political contest by political contest — laid the groundwork in 1966 for his successful 1968 presidential candidacy. He appeared on behalf of 86 GOP candidates, building a fresh “New Nixon” political brand even as he worked for Republican unity. Trump’s involvement in 2022 elections on the local, state and national levels — including 10 gubernatorial races and several congressional contests — is designed to consolidate his support even as he creates divisions among Republicans.
Trump has a will to power unmatched in recent American political life, with the exception of Nixon. And while Nixon prevailed against Hubert Humphrey, who was a popular figure in 1960s America, Trump may be running against Biden, whose policies may be popular (63%, according to a Washington Post/ABC News Poll) but who himself is not (43% approval rating, according to the latest Wall Street Journal Poll, which puts a 2024 rematch between Trump and Biden at a dead heat).
“Nixon had political jobs that allowed him to say he had the right training for the presidency,” David Greenberg, a Rutgers University historian and author of “Nixon’s Shadow: The History of an Image,” said in an interview. “Trump didn’t have any of that. How the economy performed when he was president had nothing to do with experience in his casinos and hotels. What he does have is a certain will. Though he sometimes succeeded in an ugly or reckless way, he did succeed.”
He has succeeded in another fashion. The Wall Street Journal Poll shows that the public approves of the job Trump did as president between 2017 and 2021 by 7 percentage points more than they approve of the job Biden is doing now.
That doesn’t mean he won’t encounter resistance to renomination. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo this year created the Champion American Values PAC to “protect American values and to help Republicans take back majorities” in Congress and build support in state legislatures. He is turning up in front of GOP audiences across the country. The recent book published by former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey suggests he may try another presidential campaign in 2024.
And a disastrous performance by Trump-endorsed candidates in next year’s midterm congressional elections may erode his power among Republicans. But today Trump’s profile in exile and Biden’s lagging poll numbers have created a political landscape that mirrors that of the twin early political states of Iowa and New Hampshire. It is frozen in place.