It is the business of this blog to make predictions. That’s why it was created. And I am going to make a bold one now: Donald Trump will not win a second term as President.
That’s right – you read it. I’ve made this prediction once before, and I’m doubling down on it.
There are less than six months to go – an eternity in politics – until the Republican primaries begin in earnest with the Iowa Caucus. And yet, half of the U.S. is already living in a state of fatalistic panic, viewing Donald Trump’s re-election as a matter of near-inevitability.
Despite ‘the Orange One’s” massive negative polling numbers among the general U.S. electorate, many Democrats and Independents believe his sky-high polling numbers among Republicans guarantee him a lock on the GOP nomination at next summer’s Republican Party convention in Milwaukee.
From a purely rational perspective, i.e. Trump’s continued popularity with the Republican base and the cult-like devotion demonstrated by roughly 35% of Republicans, Trump’s nomination next summer does seem like a pretty safe bet. Match that with President Biden’s age (he’ll turn 81 this November) and relative unpopularity (approval ratings kicking around 48%), and a rational man can see the makings of another Trump victory next November.
But, here’s the thing: the Trump phenomenon has never been a rational one. Which is why I believe, all things considered, that Trump will be defeated by a combination of both rational and irrational forces aligned against him, including some forces that have heretofore remained hidden. The irrational forces hold the key ‘Trump cards’ – if you’ll forgive the pun – that will finally crush ‘The Donald’.
Here’s my argument – and it may be crazy: I don’t know why Donald Trump is going to either lose the election or not be the Republican nominee in 2024, but…he just isn’t. Trump has lost some of that difficult-to-define charisma or “mojo” or call it what you will over the past 12 months. His appeal was always wedded to it. With its power diminishing, Trump is going to lose.
A key sign of Trump’s diminishing “mojo”: a number of anecdotal reports that the offices of Republican politicians were not, in fact, deluged with calls from GOP voters to “Save Trump!” in the aftermath of Trump’s appearance in court on June 12 to answer the federal charges brought against him.
At the same time, all the “negative mojo” stirred up since 2015 by his domination of the American political scene has unleashed a variety of demons that finally bring The Donald down to earth.
I’m sorry that I can’t provided you with a clearer or more logical argument at this point in time, but please be kind enough to let me walk you through some less-rational arguments in the hope that you will be, if not convinced, then at least tantalized.
My argument comes down to this: Trump’s candidacy will be derailed in one of five ways:
- Trump is convicted of a felony and sentenced to several years in prison. Republican primary voters, while enamored of Trump, are not willing to nominate a convicted felon. They instead nominate Ron DeSantis or some other candidate, believing him or her to be a more likely election-winner.
- Republican primary voters nominate another candidate, most likely Ron DeSantis, after Trump under-performs in early debates and primaries, having been used as a punching bag by Chris Christie and others and been unable to fight back with his old pugilistic effectiveness.
- Trump is injured or killed by a lone gunman. Think a left-leaning Arthur Bremer.
- Trump is neutralized by a well-orchestrated conspiracy. It will look like natural causes.
- Trump does, in fact, die of natural causes while on the campaign trail.
FEAR IS A TWO-WAY STREET
If I were to posit a common theme underlying the five ‘derailments’ listed above, it would be that “fear is a two-way street”.
Trump’s political staying power has relied on fear from the very beginning. He makes liberals afraid, which makes conservatives and populists rally around him (and, indeed, love him).
But there is a limiting factor in all this fear. It starts with the fact that, if you make a person afraid enough, they are likely to take some countervailing action to strike back at you.
Liberals are petrified of Trump, as are many other self-identified political and cultural groups in America, self-described “progressives” and “moderate Republicans” not the least. Fear of Trump has certainly led Democrats and Independents to come out and vote against Donald Trump in two back-to-back elections, and they are likely to turn out in droves to vote against him again in 2024 if he is the Republican nominee for President of the United States (POTUS).
The problem is, that if you instill enough fear in people, they are eventually going to do more than turn out to vote. They are likely to organize, fund-raise, advertise, donate, etc. And they are also more likely to take extreme actions if they believe themselves to be in real danger. By extreme actions, Greymantle means the whole kooky laundry list of cloak and dagger stuff – both professional and amateur – that fall under headings like “hacking” “sabotage” and “attempts to injure/neutralize the threat”.
And that’s when the fear you have instilled starts to work against you.
#1: GULLIVER VERSUS THE LILIPUTIANS
Greymantle understands completely if readers are skeptical concerning #1 above, as indeed, am I. After all, there have literally been dozens of times in the past eight years when Donald Trump encountered some new and seemingly insurmountable scandal (e.g. the “Access Hollywood” tape) and pundits declared with complete confidence that “this is the scandal that FINALLY destroys Donald Trump”. Each time it happened, the pundits were wrong. Trump survived to campaign another day.
There is no reason to believe, in fact, that there is any scandal under the sun that can break the ironbound loyalty an estimated 35% of Republican voters have for Trump. If two impeachments and the January 6 insurrection couldn’t shatter their devotion, then nothing will.
But there is a difference between devotion to a man and the embrace of defeat. A plurality of Republican voters still might conclude, as some already have, that Trump simply won’t be able to govern if reelected given the sheer number of legal cases pending against him. At the very least, legal troubles are going to serve as major distractions to Trump’s ability to “fight the Democrats” when in office.
Now, there is one school of thought running through Trumpian Populism which holds that, when (not if) Trump is elected president again, he will immediately pursue a dramatic expansion in the scope of the powers of the POTUS. Recent articles in the NY Times and The Economist outlined this thought-path among Trump’s closest and most ardent advisors. In essence, if their plans were to succeed, Trump would govern the country as a kind of elected dictator, making most if not all of his legal troubles simply vanish by a wave of the presidential wand (no double-entendres there!).
But first, he’s got to win the 2024 election. And if hard-core Trump voters believe the 2020 election was stolen out from under him while he occupied the presidency, then how can they possibly believe that he can win in 2024 with Biden ensconced in the White House and all the executive powers of the president at his command? If it wasn’t a fair fight in 2020, then how can it be fair in 2024? It will be MORE unfair.
A THOUSAND TINY ROPES
Think of the following analogy:
In the view of a hardened MAGA Republican, Donald Trump is now like the character of Gulliver, from the novel “Gulliver’s Travels” by Jonathan Swift. Never mind that most MAGA-heads have never read this novel, much less even heard of it. Greymantle is, as I said, merely drawing an analogy.
At one point in the story, Gulliver, a 17th century Englishman of normal height, is transported into the fictional land of the Liliputians, a race of tiny dwarfs. To the Liliputians, Gulliver is a giant, and extremely threatening. When Gulliver is eventually forced to lie down and take a nap, the Liliputians bind him to the ground with a set of criss-crossing ropes which they stake into the ground. Gulliver is immobilized.
Given the steep electoral hill Trump has to climb in 2024, particularly if the U.S. economy continues to perform well and unemployment stays low, even a MAGA Republican might conclude that Trump has become a second Gulliver, brought low by the endlessly criss-crossing legal actions brought against him by the army of liberal ‘Liliputians”.
The fact that Trump has not been able to bat away these manifold lawsuits and investigations could be seen as proof of The Great Leader’s diminishing “mojo”. Such an insight might lead MAGA-heads to conclude that the party needs another standard-bearer for 2024.
That could be particularly true if Trump is convicted of a felony and even a federal crime, and sentenced to jail. An outcome of this kind seems very probable where the classified documents case is concerned. Do MAGA voters really want to elect a President destined for a jail cell?
If we open our inner minds to the “Gulliver analogy”, we can imagine a snarling Chris Christie ramming this point home again and again in GOP primary debates between August and January, allowing the message to sink in with audiences. By next February, with Trump’s legal troubles escalating, GOP primary voters decide to make a break for Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley or Tim Scott. The MAGA heads want a fighter, but they may conclude that a fighter stuck in prison just won’t cut it.
I’m not saying it’s likely. I’m just saying it’s possible.
#2. BLEEDING VISIBLY IN THE CAGE MATCH
Closely related to “Derailment #1′ is ‘Derailment #2’, which I have termed the ‘Cage Match Defeat’. The cage match I am referencing here is obviously the set of Republican debates, town halls and primaries that begin next month.
Make no mistake, the aforementioned events are going to be vicious bloodsport of the highest order. If you think the 2016 Republican primaries were a nasty mess, just wait four weeks. Just. Wait.
The thing about cage match fighting, whether it is engaged in by mixed martial arts fighters or whoever, is that weakness becomes visible to the audience very early on. The blood spilled is deep red, the groans of pain are loud, and the slightest flinch of pain or confusion registers like thunder.
In 2016, Trump was the party-crashing outsider with nothing to lose and everything to gain. This time, he’s the 800 pound gorilla in the room with literally everything to lose. If Trump isn’t elected to the presidency again, he is going to spend the rest of his life, or something damn near, in prison. Think about that. For a man like Trump, being carted off to prison would be the ultimate humiliation.
Trump is well aware of this framing, and he is going to pounce like a rabid lion on his primary opponents. In the past, brutal mockery and aggression might have reaped enormous dividends for Trump, but the problem this time is: several other people on that stage are no longer afraid of him.
Former NJ governor Chris Christie is basically running for POTUS so that he can kick Donald Trump in the balls all day long from now until July 2024. Speaking metaphorically, of course. That is the only reason Christie is in the campaign. He has no wish to be President.
Former Vice President Mike Pence has, I think, been partially liberated from his groveling servility to Trump by the events of January 6, 2021. Pence is still an utterly contemptible Caspar Milquetoast of a man and empty suit of a politician. But I tend to believe that Pence is going to use the primary campaign’s live events to stand up to his former boss in some way.
To be considered a contender for the nation’s highest office, first you have to show that you are, in fact, a man. That’s the first bar you have to volt over. If you can’t prove you are a man, and your own man, to a crowd of GOP voters, then you are never going to be taken seriously for the top job. I think that Pence, even though he is more moose than man, understands this on some level. And I believe he plans to stand up to his former boss as an act of self-vindication. It should be fun to watch.
NO EXCUSES
When Christie, Pence and DeSantis are throwing punches at Trump, he won’t be able to flinch, stumble or make excuses. Not even once. Any blathered excuses or blame-shifting, if they aren’t done at the full decibel level of Trump’s talents as a showman, aren’t going to fly. Not in 2024.
The mob still loves Trump. But they love him because they still believe – or enough of them believe – that he’s still got “the secret sauce”, the “magic voodoo”, the “mojo”.
If he flinches even once, or appears to back down, or seems confused, or trails off into rambling, incoherent repetitions of past excuses for why he did not win the 2020 election, then he’s toast.
Granted, Trump has proven time and time again that he is awesome at coming out on top in these kinds of confrontations. But he’s under a ton of pressure – way more than he was under in 2016. And the powers of the presidency aren’t giving him the psychological boost he had in 2020. The sharks and minnows are circling. He’s in deep trouble and he knows it.
If a MAGA crowd sees that their champion has lost his “mojo”, and especially if it appears to have been transferred to someone else on that stage, then the crowd is going to shift its loyalty to a new champ. This may not happen all at once. But, like Biden in March of 2020 when he won the South Carolina primary, an elemental motion may begin whereby the MAGA mob changes direction en masse, like a giant school of bluefish a thousand miles out in the ocean, shifting direction to chase prey.
#3. HE WHO LIVES BY THE SWORD, DIES BY THE SWORD
If scenarios #1 and #2 above posit that GOP primary voters, a group not especially renowned for rational thought, may decide to behave in an elemental, if somewhat sub-rational manner in pursuit of their collective interests, then scenario #3 posits the opposite: that one liberal voter basically “goes postal” and attempts to bring down Trump, single-handed, via assassination.
I know. I get it. Assassination is an ugly word. It’s an ugly thing in and of itself. It’s a dangerous word to even whisper aloud. And yet here we are.
Greymantle is not encouraging, and would never encourage, any individual or group to take such a course of action. And, as a matter of fact, Greymantle does not believe that ANY extreme kind of action is needed to stop Trump. As I’ve predicted before on this blog, Joe Biden is going to be re-elected in a landslide next year. If Trump is the GOP nominee of 2024, he is going to go down in humiliating defeat in the general election. As bad as Goldwater did in 1964, or worse.
However, Greymantle understands that not everyone in the dear old US of A shares the same faith in Joe Biden as a competitive candidate, or the belief that happy endings are still possible. And it is to those people, particularly on the liberal side of the Red-Blue Divide, that I now turn my thoughts.
The fact of the matter is, liberals are simply terrified of another Trump presidency, and would do anything in their power to stop it. While fewer liberals are gun-owners, on average, than are conservatives, it’s also a fact that there are enough liberal gun-owners in this country of 330 million people to produce at least one ‘lone gunman’ style political assassin.
Just ask Rep. Steve Scalise. The GOP congressman who represents Louisiana’s first congressional district was shot and critically injured on June 14, 2017 by a left-leaning lone gunman while covering second base during a Congressional Baseball Game (yes, members of Congress have their own intra-mural baseball club). Three other people were seriously injured.
This incident is proof, if proof were necessary, that political violence is not limited to one faction or another. There are violent right-leaning extremists, and there are violent left-leaning extremists. Sometimes a person does not even need to be particularly extreme in their political viewpoint in order to pursue a violent course of action. After all, if a random Democratic voter really does believe that Donald Trump’s reelection would mean the end of American democracy, then, why take the chance?
SHADES OF THE VIETNAM ERA
Greymantle would call the attention of his readers to the Vietnam Era (1963-1975), a time substantially less polarized than the present, but that nevertheless featured several notable political assassinations and attempted assassinations.
In 1963, former U.S. marine Lee Harvey Oswald shot and killed President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, In 1968, Sirhan Sirhan shot and killed Robert F. Kennedy in Los Angeles, California, at a primary campaign event. Also in 1968, Rev. Martin Luther King was shot and killed by James Earl Ray. In 1972, Alabama governor and presidential candidate George Wallace was shot and severely injured by Arthur Bremer at a campaign stop in Maryland. In 1975, President Gerald Ford narrowly survived two assassination attempts by former “Manson Family” members Lynnette Fromme and Sara Jane Moore.
Given the highly polarized nature of the current political climate, not to mention the high number of random and mass shootings that have become a regular occurrence in our national life since the year 2000, does it seem particularly far-fetched that an assassin’s bullet might be fired at Donald Trump (or at Joe Biden, for that matter) during the course of the 2024 Presidential Campaign?
Greymantle believes it to be pretty likely. The Secret Service have clamped down on presidential security since the 1970s. There is no question that security around public officials is tighter than it has ever been. But there is no security force in the world skillful enough to neutralize every threat.
Greymantle therefore cannot discount the possibility that Donald Trump is shot and injured, or shot and killed, by a lone gunman in 2024. Like George Wallace, he might become incapacitated. Like Robert F. Kennedy, he might perish. Either way, it’s unlikely he could finish out a presidential campaign.
Once again, let me state that I am opposed to any such act by any person whosever. Unequivocally. But that doesn’t mean that such a thing could not happen by itself.
Donald Trump is a political figure unlike any other in American history. He uses violent rhetoric and his followers have sometimes committed violent actions under his encouragement (e.g. January 6). There is an old proverb: “He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword.” It would be ironic if the man who has contributed most to the increase in violent political rhetoric in the U.S. were to fall a victim to the violence that he helped to unleash. Ironic, but not impossible.
#4 THE DEEP STATE STRIKES BACK
Now I am going to take you into even kookier and more disturbing territory than I did with #3. Believe me, I don’t like to walk down these particular avenues. However, when I examine my gut conviction that Trump won’t be elected to a second term as POTUS, these are the things that get dredged up.
Let me begin by saying: Trump has pissed off a lot of people since he was elected POTUS in 2016. And when I say “a lot of people” I mean, like, millions of people.
Those millions include thousands of people who are either part of the professional political apparatus of the Republican and Democratic Parties, or who have served in the branches of U.S. government that are concerned with security and intelligence. In the parlance of MAGA populists, these people are what is termed “The Deep State“.
Personally, Greymantle believes this “Deep State” business is a lot of nonsense. The majority of employees of the CIA, FBI, NSA, DOD, etc. are highly professional, patriotic men and women who serve at the pleasure of the nation’s elected leaders and have no interest in “running the country” as some sort of half-assed shadow government. These people run criminal investigations, develop weapons and spy on America’s enemies. They don’t collect taxes or run social programs.
Nevertheless, each one of them has a viewpoint and a sense of dignity and honor, or call it what you will. And from having come into contact with a number of them, Greymantle believes that the professional military and security class, in general, has little love for Donald Trump, whom they regard as a reckless and irresponsible dilettante who had no business becoming President.
Among these many tens of thousands of unfriendly security operatives, there need only be a dozen, or two dozen at most, with the requisite skills, training, and operational background to make serious trouble for Mr. Trump. That could mean hacking into his bank accounts, disrupting campaign communications or, God forbid, engaging in an act of mischief against the candidate. By which I mean, introducing a foreign substance into his system that makes him very confused, very sick, or…no longer alive.
Again, this is a pretty scary thought, and I don’t enjoy writing these words. In fact, I debated not writing them for several months. But, as I said above, here we are, staring at a possible Trump 2.0.
But, just because a thought is frightening or morally unacceptable doesn’t mean that others, in a position to make mischief, won’t have the very same thought, and act on it.
So, if disgruntled members of “The Deep State” know a discreet chemist (who would expect pretty substantial payment), then they could request the creation of a compound of some kind (odorless, colorless) and a reliable delivery system with which to deploy it. They will also need to find someone on the inside willing to act as an accomplice.
Trump doesn’t exactly inspire loyalty in those close to him. It’s only the masses of people who know him from a distance who are loyal to Trump. The people around him are a nest of vipers, a dysfunctional court-in-exile who are jockeying for position against one another. In such an environment, it would be easy for seasoned espionage operatives to find a traitor and secure his or her cooperation.
WHO, WHAT AND WHY
The questions hovering in the background of this hypothetical conspiracy are three: First, would the parties to the plot be active employees of the “Deep State”, or would they be retired or other ex-employees? Second, would they have sponsors outside the government providing financial or other support to the plot? Third, would their motives be entirely patriotic, i.e. focused on preserving American democracy and neutralizing internal threats to the Constitution, or would their motives be less noble, involving political gain, personal ambition, or even revenge?
The risks of any such conspiracy would be considerable, not least to the country if the plot were to miscarry in some fashion. Therefore, the answers to the above questions would determine the level of risk to the country if the plot went sideways.
If the plotters were former government employees acting independently of government agencies and without the assistance of sponsors of any kind, this would minimize the national risks, even if it placed the plotters themselves in real danger of being torn apart by a mob of Trump’s supporters. Likewise, the blowback would be lessened if their motives were entirely patriotic, or revenge-driven, because patriotism and revenge are seen as noble by the majority of people.
Matters would get more sticky if acting employees of the government were involved, or if the presence of high-profile sponsors such as former elected officials were uncovered. That kind of profile would be extremely dangerous, certainly leading to widespread unrest, or even civil war.
Greymantle’s view is that any such conspiracy would not be directed at performing “dirty tricks” like hacking into the Trump Campaign database or bank accounts, or in disseminating disinformation against the candidate and his family. My view is that the plot would be directed against the person of the candidate himself, with a view toward incapacitating or neutralizing (i.e. killing) him.
If I were to have the opportunity to speak with persons involved with any such nefarious operation, I would say to them: “Please don’t go any further. Don’t carry out what you are planning to do. It really isn’t necessary. He probably won’t get the GOP nomination. And he can’t win a general election.”
And I hope they would listen. But, as I wrote above, Trump has pissed off a lot of people since first being elected POTUS in 2016. He and his followers have mocked and humiliated and threatened hundreds of people, not least the daughters of former vice presidents. Some people don’t take threats to their family members lying down. It simply isn’t in their nature.
WHAT WE DON’T KNOW…
Here’s another thought: The Mueller Report was unable to reveal the existence of substantial ties between the Russian government and the Trump family. Such threads as linked the Trump campaign to Russia ran through Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort. Manafort was the guy in deep with the Russians and the Ukrainians, not Trump himself. His business interests in Russia form a modest part of the Trump Organization’s assets. The rest of the report consists largely of circumstantial evidence, rumor and hearsay, along with some substantiated evidence of connections between Trump campaign staff and Russian diplomatic figures.
None of the above eliminates the possibility that Donald Trump, or someone very close to him is, in fact, a Russian agent of influence. Mr. Trump has acted very strangely and indeed quite out of character on several occasions that involved Russian power players or actions.
Trump was oddly submissive and deferential to Russian President Vladimir Putin at their first press conference in Helsinki, Finland in July 2018. Trump is not a submissive guy. By his own admission, he prefers to “dominate” every encounter he has. That Putin is about a head shorter than Trump made Trump’s kissing up to the Russian leader all the more peculiar.
Most glaringly, when Russian government hackers made their successful cyberattack on the Pentagon in late 2020, Trump claimed the hack had been performed by Chinese agents when there was not a thread of evidence to support the claim. Why blame the Chinese when your own top brass are shouting out loud that Russian cyber-commandos have breached the Pentagon? It makes no sense.
So, let’s say that Trump himself is and has long been an active Russian agent on American soil. If you were ex-CIA and knew this to be a fact, would you let this man get anywhere near the White House again, seeing what he did in his first go-round in the Oval Office? I think the answer is a definitive “no”. You’d make sure Trump was never POTUS again, by any means necessary.
So, while Greymantle strongly believes that Donald Trump is going to lose the GOP nomination for President to the likes of someone like Ron DeSantis or Nikki Haley based on his own personal flaws and declining “mojo”, there is always the chance that I’m wrong. Trump might walk out of Milwaukee next August with the Republican crown yet again. In which case…I would not be too surprised if he had a heart attack or a stroke in the third week of September 2024. Just one of those things.
#5. A BAD DIET WILL ALWAYS CATCH UP WITH YOU
Finally, we come to ‘Derailment #5’. This is the fun one. The one I’m not nervous writing about.
Another name for this scenario is “Donald Trump defeats Donald Trump”. What I mean by this is nothing less than Donald Trump’s unhealthy lifestyle and diet finally catching up with him.
It’s a well-known fact that Trump is a teetotaler, so alcohol has never had the capacity to undermine his health, which has always been surprisingly robust, given his poor sleeping habits. But a diet filled with Big Macs, Whoppers, french fries, and diet Cokes is not the kind practiced by centenarians.
At 77 years of age, Trump is lucky never to have had a heart attack, a clogged artery, or any kind of cardiac health issue given his high-salt, high-fat diet. He’s got good genes – at least where cholesterol is concerned – and a lot of luck on his side, too. Not a lot of men his age could get away with eating such an unhealthy diet and sleeping less than six hours a night without a serious health issue.
I suppose it’s a bit ironic. Trump is the guy who excels at “getting away with things” and has made avoiding responsibility a virtue. By that standard, it’s natural, in a way, that he should be able to get away with a bad diet, too, even while living under a high level of stress given his legal problems and the sheer hatred directed at him from the “other side of the isle”.
Greymantle’s question boils down to: How long can this last?
I’ve know a number of hard-living older men (and Greymantle is no spring chicken, either) who likewise “got away with it” for decade after decade, amazing family and friends with their resilience, until at long last, their diet and other bad habits finally caught up with them.
Sometimes it happened all at once. Here today – then a cardiac arrest – and gone tomorrow. Other times the decline came about gradually in ways that were not immediately apparent to those who knew them on a casual basis, but which were clear to those who lived under the same roof. Their health would get a little bit worse, year by year, but they would continue to follow their old habits with apparently undiminished vigor and functioning.
And then would come the first stroke. Or the first heart attack. Or the first bout of cancer. Often it wasn’t too serious, and they would stage a fair recovery. For a time. And then the slide would begin.
If Greymantle were a betting man (he isn’t), he would wager that Trump is likelier to leave this Earth suddenly rather than through a ‘long goodbye’. He’s got too volatile a personality to go slowly. It’s going to be all or nothing. In with a bang, out with a bang.
Which brings me to scenario #5: Trump has either a heart attack or a stroke on the 2024 campaign trail that places him out of commission for several weeks or months, effectively derailing his campaign. Perhaps it starts with a fainting spell after the South Carolina primary, or chest pains in New Hampshire. Maybe it’s a blocked artery in late February that necessitates open-heart surgery and weeks of recovery. Maybe it’s a massive cardiac arrest in mid-April that send him to that big casino in the sky.
The possibilities are pretty broad for a guy who subsists on meals from Burger King.
Greymantle can see a hypothetical Trump health decline playing out in a variety of ways. The basic pattern would be that of a 77- or 78-year old man with a bad diet, rather overweight, and placed under constant legal and political stress, buckling under the wear and tear of all these pressures. A stroke. A heart attack. Who cares? If it’s serious enough, then Trump is dead or off the campaign trail.
BUT HERE’S THE WEIRD PART
Here’s the weird thing about ‘Derailment #5’: his political base will think that what’s actually happening is ‘Derailment #4’, unless Trump himself tells them otherwise. In a lot of ways, I would be put at greatest ease by a Trump stroke that left him disabled but cognizant. Unable to continue running for office, but more than a vegetable. Because if Trump goes down to a sudden heart attack or stroke that leaves him dead or in a coma (you remember Ariel Sharon’s stroke, right?), legions of his followers are going to howl “Conspiracy!” even if the only person to blame is Trump himself.
A mass hysteria that demands scapegoats and becomes its own “Stab in the Back” legend even without Trump would be every bit as bad as the Stolen Election Lie.
So, let Trump fall ill and make a weak recovery, I say. Let him live, but be incapacitated.
A heart attack followed by a two-week hospital stay would certainly elicit an in-person video message to his fans on Truth Social.
“I’m doing alright. Be back on the campaign trail in three weeks. Keep fighting.”
That would be the gist of it. And if he seemed weaker afterwards, if he is unable to spring back into fighting form the way he did following his COVID 19 bout in October 2020, then so much the worse for him. Biden may look old, but at least he looks healthy.
A GOP primary pummeling, followed by a serious medical crisis, followed by a partial recovery with diminished vigor and capacity would be the best outcome for the country and maybe even for The Orange One himself. His soul doesn’t need the burden of fresh sins committed in high office.
A medical derailment would allow Donald Trump to bow out of politics gracefully – at last – and force the GOP to pick a new champion. That person would likely be a compromise candidate who would please no major faction of the party, but who might at least be electable. Electable, but not elected.
Greymantle’s hope, and the most likely 2024 campaign result, is still for a Biden landslide.
We’ll see what actually happens. One way or another, though, Greymantle’s intuitions are popping pretty loudly. They tell me that Donald Trump won’t be POTUS again.
Until next time, I remain —
Greymantle
