One of the many things I was wrong about this cycle was my contention that the events after the 2020 election, culminating in the Capitol riot on January 6th, 2021, would, fairly or not, be a cudgel that Democrats would successfully use to ensure Trump’s defeat. I didn’t think enough of the American electorate would be able to see through the Democrats’ ‘insurrection’ myth to give Trump another bite at the apple.
Thankfully, that didn’t turn out to be the case, and after four years of misery, the good guys would again be large and in charge. From Democratic ineptitude to Trump 2.0 running a nearly flawless campaign to a faltering economy, to assassination attempts and Trump’s defiant response, to wokeness gone wild, to Trump’s legal team successfully thwarting countless lawfare cases, to Republicans - or Scott Pressler at least - finally getting serious about organizing and mobilizing our voter base, and everything in between, it’s difficult to comprehend all the things that had to happen in all the places to make the stars align perfectly enough to be staring at another Trump term right now.
Yet, here we are. Sitting here now, it’s hard to imagine things going better for the goal of actually turning our country around and enacting some real change. Sure, they may still blow it in plenty of areas, but given some of the better decisions, they might just stick the landing this time. So, at this point, I couldn’t be happier.
All this winning does raise a hypothetical question, though: Would conservatives, populists, libertarians, and all the other liberty-loving folks in our new super big tent have been better off in the long run had Trump won and not lost in 2020?
Given all that we went through in 2020 and beyond, the question seems heretical. We may differ on what that means, but on the whole, it was, after all, a stolen election. A stolen election that led to a beyond-forgettable past four years. If Trump had won, there would have been no January 6th, no Keystone Pipeline cancellation, no scrapping of already purchased border wall materials, minimal Covid tyranny (at least on the federal level), no border invasion, no Bidenomics, no Democratic judges appointed for life, and on and on we could go. If we could magically go back in time, would we skip all that?
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Before you answer, you should consider the other side of that coin. Would Trump have made better decisions than Biden? Obviously. Would we be better off as a country sitting here now than we ended up being? Of course. However, and this is a big ‘however,’ we would likely be looking at four years of Democratic rule. And this isn’t just due to the ebb and flow of politics, though that plays a role. It’s also because a huge percentage of the electorate was getting tired of Trump in 2020, and that percentage would have undoubtedly grown with four more years of Trump 1.0. And remember, given that Trump was Trump 1.0 back then and the 2.0 upgrade hadn’t yet been conceived of, much less invented, he didn’t have nearly the competent or loyal teams around him that he does now.
After mulling it over, my answer to the hypothetical is that I prefer this timeline, where Trump lost in 2020 and got glorious revenge in 2024. While his decisions would have been better than Biden’s, I would argue they wouldn’t have been as good as we will see over the next four years. Trump is more focused, more driven, more based, and more wise than he was then, and that’s in large part because of, not despite, what he has gone through since 2020. He would also likely not have had GOP control of both the Senate and the House, which would have greatly limited what he could have done.
The other key piece here is the so-called ‘Resistance’ movement. 2024 broke them in ways we’re just beginning to understand. They fired all their proverbial (and literal) bullets at the man they decided was their arch-enemy for nigh-on a decade, to no avail. Despite their hysterics, their Nazi comparisons, their protests, their lawfare, their impeachments, and them basically tossing anything and everything against the wall and hoping something would stick, Trump didn’t just dodge everything and eke out a win; he won bigger than 2016, including the popular vote. They’ll keep trying, but this loss must be deflating. I suspect the ‘Resistance’ won’t be nearly what it has been.
In sum, Dems, you should have just let Trump win rightfully in 2020. You would have been far better off over the long haul.