Donald Trump is about to make history – again. The former President is on track to become the Republican nominee for President for the third time in a row, a feat never achieved by any other Republican candidate in US history. He has been at the top of the ticket for so long, children who were only ten years old when he was first nominated in 2016 will now be voting for him in the upcoming 2024 election. The only other Presidential candidate nominated by his Party three consecutive times1 was a Democrat, Franklin D. Roosevelt (in his case it was four times).
Former President Trump also made history in 2020 when he became the greatest recipient of votes for President over a lifetime, more than any other President in US history. The combined total of Trump’s votes in 2016 and 2020 was more than the combined total of Barack Obama’s two terms (2008 and 2012) and more than Franklin D. Roosevelt’s four terms (1932, 1936, 1940, 1944).
Also, Trump’s support has steadily increased since 2016. This increase comes in two dimensions – raw numbers, and a more ethnically diverse group of supporters. Trump received 12 million more votes in the 2020 election than he got in 2016. That’s an 18% increase in overall voter support. It includes a 17% gain with Latino voters and a whopping 50% gain with black voters. Contrast that to Barack Obama who received 4 million fewer votes in 2012 than he did in 2008. That’s a 5.2% decrease in voter support over an identical timespan.
Trump’s performance in the Presidential primary contests has become more overwhelming with each successive term. In the open primary of 2016, he won 39 states. As an incumbent in 2020 he won all the primary contests (several where he ran unopposed). From all appearances, he is now on track to win every single state (with the exception of Vermont) in the open 2024 primary without ever being challenged. In anything close to a fair election this fall, Trump will defeat Biden and record more votes than in either of his previous two runs in 2016 and 2020.
All the above facts completely contradict the false narrative incessantly pushed by the media that Trump is losing support as his base becomes disillusioned with him. They cite all the legal cases against him and opine voter fatigue within his base. To the contrary, the true facts outlined above, as well as all the current polling numbers, indicate he will likely reach the apex of his public support in the 2024 election.
Trumps’s principal advantages over Biden could not possibly be clearer:
- He has a numerically larger support base than Biden (read any poll)
- Trump supporters have been intensely loyal to him over a longer period of time.
- Trump himself is extremely motivated to win and shows it every day.
These advantages don’t even touch upon the catastrophic collapse of Biden’s memory and cognitive abilities.
Biden has few if any intensely loyal supporters. He shows not the least bit of motivation to continue being President – no campaigning, almost no public speeches, and only a few very friendly “softball” interviews. The open secret is that Biden is physically/mentally unable to handle these campaign duties competently.
Examining the current polls closely, most Democrats who plan to vote for President will support the generic “Democrat” candidate, no matter who it is. For them, Biden is nothing more than a placeholder. We’re convinced only a very small percentage of Democrats would vote for Joe Biden the person to be President again. The exact opposite is true for Donald Trump. Nearly every Trump supporter is specifically voting for Trump the person and not a generic Republican candidate.
Knowing all the above, we still see the news media trying to portray Trump supporters as a “cult” who have been hypnotized or “brainwashed”, and do not represent the true conservative voter base. Really? How overwhelming and enduring does a “cult” have to be before it is no longer a cult but instead represents the majority values?
We believe the Republican base was transformed into its present form way back in 2012, long before Donald Trump hit the political scene. Barack Obama, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi forced this transformation. They executed an extremely effective brand of hard ball politics with the creation and passage of Obamacare in 2009-2010. Republicans at the time came off as powerless cowards by comparison.
In the 2012 election that followed, the Republicans nominated a polite, traditional, upstanding, center-right, former governor as their candidate. Mitt Romney embodied everything and more that the Grand Old Party establishment wanted in their candidate. Romney carried himself as “Presidential”, with the air of a respectable statesman. In every way possible, he was the polar opposite of a Donald Trump.
Despite being a nearly exact match with the hypothetical “ideal” Republican candidate, Romney got trounced in that election. And that defeat came at the hands of a politically weakened Barack Obama. It was obvious then that the Romney style candidate was not the kind of person conservative voters wanted as their future leader. Obama, Reid, and Pelosi were cage fighters willing to battle to the death to get what they wanted. The conservative electorate wanted their own raging bull in response.
Donald Trump could not have been a more natural fit for what conservative voters were craving. When the next election rolled around in 2016, Trump literally didn’t have to do anything except be himself. The electorate was already primed for exactly his style of leadership, fearlessness, and bravado. Trump didn’t form a “cult”, it already existed.
Trump and his supporters are today’s Republican Party. It is not a cult, not an aberration, and certainly not a short-lived fad as the liberal media and the Democrat party would have you believe. The Republican electorate is not fractured in any way – another false narrative being peddled by the media. A small minority of GOP voters, as well as some members of Congress, still profess they will only support a Romney-like candidate. While once a respected preference, these people are now marginalized by their own party and have been tattooed with the label “never-Trumpers”.
The Obama-Biden two step swung the pendulum way too far to the left. They gave top cover to a progressive liberal “cult” that has been carrying out an extreme leftist agenda in the depths of government, throughout the public education system, and within state and federal judiciaries. That cult has become an almost incurable cancer eating away at the traditional values, morals, self-sufficiency, and fiscal responsibility that is the heart of the American ideal.
The reality is that most conservative voters want to see this socialist leaning, over-spending, antisemitic, anti-religion, big government, DEI loving, pompous Democrat establishment completely obliterated. Not just voted out, but annihilated. This is why Trump has such a loyal following. He’s the only Republican leader capable of carrying out that mission.
1Andrew Jackson was a Presidential candidate three consecutive times, but his first run was before the advent of formal political parties (1824). Jackson’s victories in 1828 and 1832 were with the newly formed Democrat Party.
4 Responses
Bravo! I do not think anyone could summarize the Trump movement and the anti-Trump opposition better than how you did so in this blog. Truly well done and factually exact.
I see, hear and feel the same way…
and wonder how even conservative talking heads can say that Donald Trump cannot win unless he is able to win over the Nikki Haley voters. To me that is just ridiculous, and has no basis in fact. Her platform is very close to Trump’s. The idea that those voters would jump to the diametrically opposed political side is just absurd.
Again, you knocked it out of the park. I’ll keep a copy of this in my pocket for reference as we move on to the election.
As we move closer, I’d love to know the Box Travels thoughts on the possibility and complications of replacing Biden at their convention. Could it happen?
Thanks Johnny – we really appreciate it! Yes, I think it’s a strong possibility that Biden will be replaced at the convention. It’s actually a fairly straightforward process. Any delegate can stand up and nominate some else. Then another delegate must “2nd” that nomination. After that all the delegates must vote. If Biden, or anyone else who is nominated, does not get a majority, they must continue to vote until someone does get a majority. Maybe a snack box on this coming up…
Thanks Tom:
Does that leave enough time to get on all the state ballots?
I will have to do more research, but here’s how I understand it working – all the delegates Biden has been winning in the primaries thus far are only “pledged” to vote for him at the convention. They are not legally bound to do so. Even if he comes into the convention with a big majority of “pledged” delegates, some of them may decide to defect and not vote for him on the first ballot. If after that first vote Biden does not receive a majority, meaning there were enough defectors to drag him down below the majority threshold, the convention is thrown wide open and anyone can be nominated on the spot for the succeeding votes. That would likely be someone who had already participated in the primaries, but it doesn’t have to be. Keep in mind that the likelihood of enough defectors to make this happen is low because Biden’s campaign is the entity picking those state delegates in the first place. Ballots for the general election are usually not printed until after the convention since typically the choice of running mate isn’t made until just before the convention begins (and the running mate’s name must be on the ballot as well). One thing that could force this scenario to occur is if something happens to Biden between now and the start of the convention. He could drop out, become seriously ill, be removed from office (via impeachment or the 25th amendment), resign, or die. In that case, all the delegates that are currently pledged to him would be freed from their “pledge” to vote for someone else.