When Donald Trump entered the political arena before the 2016 election, his movement was defined as one battle per battle. Of course, the fiercest battle is around Hillary Clinton’s email and the southern border. But he fought loudly (and proudly) on every issue before him.
Since then, the movement behind him has allowed the battle to continue, even if he was removed from the platform and really lost his voice in the media. Trump’s absence affected the movement, Trumpism, I think it is positive. As the Democratic Party took power and lost in key battles, it allowed the movement to shift and focus on a few key issues instead of every battle.
Take Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, for example. He seems to be one of the Republicans most likely to take the Trumpist movement and redirect it to specific, usually winning reasons that cannot be concealed by media reports. He has dealt with the COVID-19 crisis in his state very successfully. He provided vaccines for those who did not want to be vaccinated, and provided a life-saving treatment for those who were vaccinated.
He has shifted the national dialogue on education to the rights of parents, rather than the demands of the union. He has fought against the illegal behavior of the media, but did not make it a spectacle-when their lies are easily exposed, there will be many more eggs on their faces.
He has been fighting on a limited but very easy to win field, and has greatly increased his popularity. If he is capturing movement (as some polls and some conversations suggest), then this new movement DeSantism has a chance to move on.
Another option for Republicans will be one of a dozen people who have ran before or were caught speaking from both sides in order to make the base happy. This did not really help their case, because voters are already very good at sniffing feces from roses. My feeling is that if DeSantis wants to be nominated in 2024, it may not be difficult for him. But even if he does not want to be nominated, the party seems to be turning to follow him instead of Trump.
This is not to say that Trump has completely disappeared. He just doesn’t have much say. Although he has a lot of followers on social media, the public is not overwhelmed by what Trump does every day or tweets. This has had an impact on the general public. I think the situation has caused a lot of damage to the Democratic Party. In the absence of a public country leader like Trump, they saw people like DeSantis and thought there was a leader worthy of attention. .
It is almost impossible to know how Trump will react to this. He can fight against it by trying to run and maintain his base (or split the base in the process), or he can play the king-maker and unite the team behind a guy who obviously holds the ball and runs with it.
