You know what? I think I am going to offer Donald J. Trump some campaign advice going into the upcoming election season — and I don’t mean the 2022 midterm election, but rather the 2024 presidential election.
It is this: Go ahead, Donald, and keep yapping about the “stolen” election in which you lost to President Biden. Please, keep reminding Americans of all political stripes what a complete ass you have made of yourself by (a) not conceding defeat in a free, fair and legal election and (b) questioning the integrity of an electoral system run at the local level by dedicated public servants.
Trump keeps repeating The Big Lie. Great! Go for it, Donald! Your resistance to forgetting the past kinda reminds me of how Ann Richards lost her re-election bid for Texas governor back in 1994. A novice pol named George W. Bush defeated Richards by staying focused on his campaign talking points, as well as by the incumbent governor’s own refusal to offer a vision on how she would govern the state for the next four years.
I recall well how it was watching that campaign unfold. Richards sought to live on the laurels of her election in 1990 in a race she was supposed to lose to Midland oil mogul Clayton Williams, who then destroyed his own campaign through a major gaffe about comparing rape to the bad weather, suggesting women should just “relax and enjoy it.”
So, we fast-forward to today and we hear Trump continuing to yap, yowl and yammer about “massive voter fraud” that did not exist in 2020. It didn’t. Honest! It was fair and legal. Just like the folks assigned to protect its security promised it would be.
Trump, though, keeps living in the past. He keeps reciting The Big Lie. He keeps losing court battles over myriad issues and legal challenges.
Stay with it, Donald. If it makes you feel like you’re going to win the hearts and minds of voters whose support you would need in your futile and feckless attempt to get back into office, then … what the hell?
Go for it! Few things would make me happier than to watch your political career go down in flames.