Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Donald Trump casts a long shadow over Biden’s presidency

- Your Turn David M. Shribman Guest columnist

No American presidents of our time – perhaps no American presidents ever, with the possible exceptions of George Washington and Theodore Roosevelt – have affected 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 office 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. Just a few days ago he declared in Orlando, Florida, “We won the first time, and the second time we won by even more. And it looks like we might have to think about very strongly a third time.”

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, the only president since TR to enter presidenti­al politics after leaving the White House, and joining Andrew Jackson, Cleveland, William Jennings Bryan, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Richard Nixon as winners of three presidenti­al nomination­s. No one said Trump was a convention­al figure.

But then again, Trump has changed the nature of his party as much as Jackson, both Roosevelts and Ronald Reagan.

Here’s proof: A generation ago, conservati­ves believed Reagan had given shape to the GOP for decades. Today hardly anyone identifies as a Reagan conservati­ve; the Republican Party is a Trump party. And another particle of proof: A Pew Research Center poll this autumn found that two-thirds of Republican­s and Republican-leaning independen­ts say they want Trump to remain a major political figure, with more than 2 in 5 saying they want him to run again in 2024.

“That may change depending on whether he is facing criminal charges and what comes out of the investigat­ion of Jan. 6,” said Stephen J. Farnsworth, a political scientist at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericks­burg, Virginia. In the past several days, it became clear that many top Fox News commentato­rs begged the Trump White House to intervene to halt the rampage at the Capitol.

Trump may be the same man who has been a fixture in American tabloids, reality television and penthouse-Manhattan social circles for decades, but one element of his profile 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 now is his greatest calling card, at least for his followers. It also has the obverse effect for his detractors; they are determined to make sure Trump 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.

“It was critical to Nixon winning the nomination and the 1968 election,” Dwight Chapin, then a 25-year-old Nixon advance man and later his personal aide and finally deputy assistant to the president in the Watergate period, said in an interview. “It was central to removing the ‘loser’ label he acquired in 1960 and 1962.”

On election night, Nixon called dozens of victorious candidates, reminding them how cranked up the crowds were when he visited their campaigns. Trump claimed credit for Glenn Youngkin’s election as governor of Virginia even though he did not campaign in person for him.

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 figure in 1960s America, Trump may be running against Biden, whose policies may be popular (63%, according to a Washington Post/ ABC News poll) although he 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 ways, 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 seven 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 profile in exile and Biden’s lagging poll numbers have created a political landscape that mirrors the landscape in the twin early political states of Iowa and New Hampshire. It is frozen in place.

David M. Shribman is the former executive editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Email dshribman@post-gazette.com. Twitter: @ShribmanPG

 ?? WIN MCNAMEE/GETTY IMAGES ?? Former President Donald Trump never conceded the 2020 election and appears to be running for president again.
WIN MCNAMEE/GETTY IMAGES Former President Donald Trump never conceded the 2020 election and appears to be running for president again.
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