The Democrats enjoyed a fair amount of success in 2022 by the underhanded technique of aiding candidates in Republican primaries who would make lousy candidates in the general election.
It looks like the Democrats are trying to do it again in 2024 by boosting Donald Trump’s chances in the Republican primary by trying to have him banned in the general election. Obviously, getting an ex-President banned from an election would be a massive assault on Our Democracy, so it’s unlikely the Supreme Court would put up with it.
But the Democrats are likely playing a more subtle game in trying to make the aging Trump relevant in the 2024 GOP race by provoking Republican primary voters to vote for Trump to defend democracy from Democratic interference.
Without these Democratic machinations, Trump would likely continue to fade as his mounting age takes its toll, as seen in his miscues like his goofy NFT issue.
Interestingly, Rick DeSantis might find that his glamor as the Only Man Who Could Possibly Stop Trump might decline as well if it increasingly appears that Trump could easily stop himself. DeSantis is smart, hard-working, and reads the fine print, which are admirable qualities in an executive. But he’s not necessarily a natural superstar candidate. If Trump is still riding high, then DeSantis seems likes the Schelling Point around which Republicans who are not averse to Trumpism but who think it’s time to move on from Trump’s self-obsessions to a candidate in his prime can cohere.
But if Trump is clearly on the downslope of his political career, then it’s less important that everybody immediately come together this early around a single candidate like DeSantis. So it could be that 5 or 10 serious GOP candidates might throw their hat in the ring.
That’s kind of a nightmare scenario for the Democrats: that the GOP has a decent roster of candidates show up for the primaries and that either DeSantis proves himself by beating not just Trump but by a bunch of other plausible people or that a third candidate emerges who beats both Trump and DeSantis and goes into the general election with a lot of momentum.
So, look for the Democrats to try to sabotage the GOP by trying to ban Trump from running.
