If Trump loses, as I suspect he may, the one person who he will not point the finger at will be himself. Pictured: Former President Donald Trump. Photo Credit: Donald Trump Jr./X.
With Vice President Kamala Harris leading the presidential contest heading into the start of the fall campaign, it might be worthwhile to look at what former president Donald Trump’s benefactors will see as his downfall should he lose the election. We know that many in the Trump camp believe that he alone reshapes the electorate because he can siphon off voters who once belonged to the New Deal coalition – union workers, the working poor, white lower-class voters, and some minorities. This notion also supposes that Trump campaigns competently with a unique appeal, something Noah Rothman on National Review’s The Editors podcast characterizes as a conclusion with evidence in short supply. Regardless, a Trump loss will meet with many excuses, some generated from the candidate, some from the campaign, and some from his loyalists. I will propose five solid excuses that will surface if the former president loses his second consecutive national election joining the ranks of Adlai Stevenson Jr., in the last one hundred years to do so.
The first route of explanation will be electoral malfeasance. That is Trump’s bailiwick and favourite whipping boy. It appeals to a certain segment of his movement and helps energize his supporters, but another loss will take the shine off whatever charm that grievance held. His donors will no longer be satisfied that his losses continue to mount because Democrats cheat. As Dominic Pino on the same podcast astutely observes, “The biggest theory of Trump’s electoral success, in my view, is that he had the good fortune of running against Hilary Clinton in 2016. I think that was just a gift to him.” Trump won a very close election in 2016 because a few thousand votes in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan fell his way. Otherwise, he lost the popular vote by three million votes and since then Republicans have performed rather poorly.
As Pino also opines, Republicans should be in an amazing position to win several senate races given the 2024 map. On the RealClearPolitics website, seven states are rated as toss-ups, but Republicans lead in only one, Montana. Trump polls better than most of the candidates in these races but the candidates receive little benefit. Claiming that Trump brings a special sauce to the elections when he is on the ballot remains a theory unproven. He defeated Clinton but could not repeat that narrow triumph against President Joe Biden. He has overseen Congressional losses in 2018 and 2022 where many candidates were his hand-selected minions. Unless there is incontrovertible proof that can be proven in courts across the country, carrying on about election fraud will not sufficiently comfort a wounded GOP voter base.
Secondly, I suspect that Trump steamed he cannot run against Biden, will blame the unfair process the Democrats used to select Harris. He will try to claim that the media ran interference for her and allowed her to carry out a putsch against Biden who had won the party nomination. He will try to suggest her nomination was anti-democratic and she avoided tough questions, having to explain her policies, or face criticism from party rivals. He is used to the press’ attention and when Harris became the candidate of choice for Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and the Obamas, the fix was in. I think he will look pathetic trying to prosecute a case against the Democrats because they realized Biden was not going to win and they switched horses midstream. I will not be surprised, however, if some in his movement accept this argument and advance the case that he was victimized by this unprecedented switcheroo.
Thirdly, lawfare will undoubtedly arise as a significant reason for a Trump defeat. And the former president will have a point. The forces of the judicial system set against him were unprecedented. He had cases brought against him in rapid fire in 2023 for the express purpose of delegitimizing his candidacy. The idea was to block him from returning to the presidency. It may not have prevented him from winning his party’s nomination, but many in the Trump orbit will insist that the negative treatment of the former president, the unfair charges, accusations, and trials all reveal how leftist forces were out to get him. What Clinton once coined as “a vast right-wing conspiracy” will be flipped to describe a smothering left-wing cabal intent on impeding Donald Trump from carrying out his retributive justice on behalf of the American people. The truth will not be quite so clear, but on this matter, the claim that double standards of jurisprudence exist will hold weight. What Trump stood trial for and what Clinton or Biden have escaped demands reconsideration.
Fourthly, the blame on the biased coverage of media sources will be extensively reported but dismissed by most legacy media outlets. His dependence on press coverage will be Trump’s ascendancy and fall. The media and Trump used each other in 2016 to make him a unique and unusual nominee. The media loved the access and Trump loved the coverage. The mutual relationship, built on distrust and disrespect, nonetheless served both sides. By 2020 the entire project was a rivalry with little benefitting either side. Trump’s message was often blurred, and the press looked petty and unprofessional a lot of the time, reporting breathlessly about Trump’s COVID stances while ignoring or avoiding the BLM riots or outrageous school closures and lockdowns that far exceeded safe practices.
In 2024 the media have decided they must work to protect democracy while Trump continues to engage in confrontations like the one before black journalists, calling reporters nasty, whining about unfair reports, and staging rambling press conferences that repeat the same old lines he has used for years. Repeating the same practices repetitiously and expecting a different result reminds me of the definition of insanity. With Trump, we may have reached that point in American politics. Proof can be found in why so many independent voters are landing in the Harris camp. Voters did not want a repeat of the same election. They voiced this concern in polls. Many are happy to just have someone else to vote for and the press are happy to take up the torch.
Fifthly, RINOS, those earnest Republicans who think the Constitution matters, who believe in government doing well what it has been charged to do, and who think balanced budgets and governments living within their means matters will be tarred as betrayers. After being insulted, mocked, and treated rudely (ask Nikki Haley, Mike Pence or Brian Kemp) it will come as a surprise when they either vote for a different candidate or don’t vote at all. Trump will be the author of these Republican votes lost, but he will have only derision for them.
One thing about which I remain confident. If Trump loses, as I suspect he may, the one person who he will not point the finger at will be himself. The excuses for his upcoming defeat are already being formulated. Don’t count on Trump taking any responsibility.
Dave Redekop is a retired elementary resource teacher who now works part-time at the St. Catharines Courthouse as a Registrar. He has worked on political campaigns since high school and attended university in South Carolina for five years, where he earned a Master’s in American History with a specialization in Civil Rights. Dave loves reading biographies.
