Suppose, for the sake of analysis and argument, that all the legal challenges fail and that Sleepy Joe Biden is inaugurated as president on 20 January 2021. What should President Trump do? Should he slip back into private life, or should he remain a public figure? I suggest that he remain a public figure. In this column I explain why.
President Trump knows that the election was stolen. Everyone with a brain knows it. Some people don’t care that it was stolen. Others of us, including President Trump, care very much. President Trump should announce shortly after Inauguration Day, or even on Inauguration Day, that he will run for president in 2024. His slogan should be, “Make Trump the Second President to Be Elected Three Times.” At no point should he concede the election of 2020. He didn’t lose it; why should he pretend that he did?
This will drive leftists wild. The mainstream media will go ballistic, for they will know that the Trump Show goes on. They will have to pay attention to every Trump tweet; they will have to cover his rallies; they will have to compare what Biden does with what Trump says about it.
Actually, the mainstream media won’t have to do any of this. But they will. They will soon learn that the Biden administration is uninteresting, compared to the Trump administration. They will also soon tire of providing fawning coverage of Biden, his people, and his policies. They like to be on the attack. They spent four years lying about President Trump, attacking President Trump, and distorting every word President Trump uttered. How does one go from the excitement of war to the boredom of government?
I mentioned rallies. President Trump—note that he will always be “President Trump”—should do a rally every week, starting in January. He will have to fly on his own dime, but he has plenty of dimes with which to do it. The rallies will keep his followers happy and keep him in the news. Politically speaking, any news is good news. What President Trump doesn’t want is to be forgotten or ignored. If he holds regular rallies, in various parts of the country, he will be neither forgotten nor ignored. These events will be like weekly rock concerts.
Joe Biden will try to undo many of the things President Trump did, sometimes merely for spite. President Trump can challenge each action, drawing attention to the differences between the two men. The American people will be forced to compare not merely the governing styles of the two men, but the stark policy differences. For example, if Biden sidles up to the Iranians, as Barack Obama did, President Trump can remind Americans that no wars were started on his watch. If the Iranians get a nuclear bomb, war (with Israel—and thus with the United States) becomes much more likely, if not inevitable.
The economy will certainly suffer under Joe Biden, for he has no executive or business experience. He has been feeding at the government trough his entire adult life. President Trump can draw comparisons between rates of growth, rates of unemployment, interest rates, and other measures of economic health. He can point out that China was being kept at bay under his administration but is being coddled by the Biden administration. He can remind Americans on a daily basis of the corruption of the Biden family, which has taken huge sums of money from Chinese interests in exchange for influence in American government. With any luck, a Special Counsel will be appointed to do to Biden what Democrats did to Trump.
I mentioned tweeting. If Twitter continues to censor or flag President Trump’s tweets, he can either go elsewhere (to Parler, for example) or drive the point home that Big Tech is on the side of the Democrats. Most Americans know this, but some don’t. President Trump needs to keep talking about it until every American knows. Americans are fair people. They do not appreciate wealthy, powerful corporations run by fanatical leftists skewing public discussion and debate.
One of the most important things President Trump can do during the next four years is draw attention to the many ways in which Democrats cheated during the 2020 presidential election. He needs to inspire state legislatures to investigate what happened, issuing reports as they go. Many state legislatures are controlled by Republicans. President Trump needs to let them know that he will run against them in 2024 if they sit by while allowing Democrats to corrupt the electoral process. One stolen presidential election is enough. A second would be intolerable.
Some 74 million Americans voted for President Trump in 2020. Most of these people are loyal to the man and will do what he says. He should instruct them to support candidates who support Trump and to “primary” those who oppose him (or who did nothing while the Democrats stole the election). Keep the people informed and inspired. This will have the effect of deterring other candidates from entering the 2024 race. President Trump knocked out every rival in 2016, from Jeb Bush to Ted Cruz to Marco Rubio. He can and will do it again in 2024; but it will be easier if the prospective candidates see the writing on the wall and choose not to run. President Trump should make the case that he is entitled to be the candidate in 2024, in order to redeem himself. This is an argument that anyone can understand.
Joe Biden will not run in 2024. He’ll be 82 years old when his term ends on 20 January 2025. In all likelihood, he will not complete even one term, given his deteriorating mental condition (incipient dementia) and physical feebleness. That means the incumbent in 2024 will be interim president Kamala Harris, who is not only an unlikable person (the word “harpy” comes to mind) but a dreadfully bad campaigner. She will be supported by rabid Democrats, to be sure, but unless there is massive cheating in 2024, as there was in 2020, she has no chance of being elected in her own right.
So the plan is this. Clean up the electoral systems of the states, so as to prevent cheating; keep the base informed and motivated; deter rivals from entering the presidential race; and challenge every Biden (or Harris) policy for the next four years. When President Trump moves back into the White House in 2025, at the age of 78 (Biden’s current age), he will be the second president (after Grover Cleveland) to serve two non-consecutive terms. This alone will make President Trump an historical figure. His accomplishments, however, many of which are yet to come, will cement his status as one of this country’s greatest presidents.