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Republicans rally around loser Trump's victimhood schtick [1]

['Daily Kos Staff']

Date: 2023-10-13  

Donald Trump is arguably the biggest American presidential loser of all time. Though he eked out one election in 2016 with a lot of foreign help, he's never won the popular vote. He was impeached twice. He didn't win a second term and wasn't man enough to face up to it. He lost more than 60 times in court while trying to prove he wasn't a loser.

In 2022, his election-denying endorsed candidates running for statewide executive offices lost in every 2020 battleground. Likewise, every one of his three handpicked U.S. Senate candidates seeking to flip a battleground seat came up short.

In 2023, he has been criminally indicted on 91 counts in four separate cases relating to defrauding voters, taxpayers, and putting highly sensitive U.S. intelligence at risk.

In fact, Trump is such an unimaginably big loser that The Washington Post sought to ask his fan base—not all of whom are MAGA diehards—why they're supporting him all over again in the 2024 Republican primary.

Trump supporter David Alexander, 61, offered the insight that Trump's victimhood schtick is like catnip, even for those who might not otherwise be that into him.

“The people that don’t like him. … When they dislike him, it helps me like him more,” Alexander explained at last month’s Iowa Faith and Freedom dinner, which Trump skipped. “If they ignored him, I probably wouldn’t like him as much. Does that make sense?”

Not exactly.

The Post summed up the appeal this way:

Many of the voters echoed his long-running attacks on the law enforcement system that he has sharply ratcheted up in recent months. In many cases, Republicans who said they were initially interested in another candidate more than Trump were dismissive of the seriousness of the charges. Some said they believed Trump had made mistakes, but they contend there was an unfair double standard against him.

Let's be real, there's nothing more unfair than justice. Ya know what I mean?

But 538’s national aggregate doesn't lie.

When Trump was first indicted on March 30 on more than two dozen counts of business fraud, he was roughly 20 points ahead of his nearest GOP rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, 47.3%-27.8%.

Today, Trump leads DeSantis by about 46 points, 58.4%-12.7%. That net shift of more than 20 points probably says more about the weakness of the Republican field than Trump's strengths, but it doesn't change the fact that despite his loserdom, Trump appears to be on a glide path to getting renominated.

National polls don't tell the whole story. Early state contests in Iowa, New Hampshire, and others can upset the trajectory of race. But the only real question at this point appears to be whether Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, or maybe former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, can make the primary a two-way race and take some chunks out of Trump in the process.

From a general election standpoint for Democrats, having a GOP rival hammer away at Trump for several months certainly wouldn't hurt.

November 2023 is a crucial off-year election for the future of democracy and abortion rights. We must flip back the Virginia state legislature, pass an abortion rights measure in Ohio and other key elections that set the stage for 2024. Find out what you can do.

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