Trump is the GOP right now. But the problem is that the GOP has shrunk in size as it shifted further to the right and the moderates are leaving the GOP and now calling themselves independents. The Independents are the largest pool of voters in the US
In politics, as of today, do you consider yourself a Republican, a Democrat, or an Independent? (Asked of independents: As of today, do you lean more to the Democratic Party or the Republican Party?)
news.gallup.com
No candidate can win the General election without the moderate swing vote and it doesn’t help his cause when those moderate leaning Republicans are becoming alienated by his followers and being called RINOs. His right wing is trying to expel or marginalize the group of voters and the current moderate leaning Representatives and Senators they actually need to win the Presidency and regain power in the Senate and House.
The first time around the voters didn’t know what they’d get in Trump. Now they do. But what the GOP thinks of Trump is irrelevant as it’s an insufficient number of votes to win the Presidency and that group of people are the only ones he’s directing his message to. This time around voters know exactly what they’ll get in Trump and the moderates are looking in another direction than Trump. The moderates will take the “fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me” approach. Additionally, more and more voters are the youth vote and people of colour and Trump is not addressing the needs of this changing demographics so they are given no incentive to vote Trump.
, April 23, 2021 A national poll of America’s 18-to-29 year olds released today by the Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School shows that despite the state of our politics, hope for America among young people is rising dramatically, especially among people of color. As more young...
iop.harvard.edu
gerrymandering can help the House and Senate seat vote but it’s still a total popular vote in each state for the electoral college and Presidency. They may make it harder to vote for this demographic (all in person, no Sunday votes) but the Dems can just get more people to help mobilize the vote.
The wildcard in all this will be who the Democrats select to run as we can safely say it won’t be Biden. It will likely be Harris but that’s still a long way off.
I agree with what you're saying in general and I'm glad you agree Trump is still the GOP right now, since that's quite obviously the case. There are many good reasons to be optimistic we've seen the last of Trump, however we've seen more than enough horror movies where the monster suddenly reappears after everyone is convinced and relieved he's gone for good!
Despite many reasons for optimism, the Dems only have a razor thin majority in the house, and historically the ruling party – be it Democratic or Republican – almost always hemorrhages a lot of seats in mid-term elections. Governing is much tougher than being in opposition.
Furthermore despite reasonable expectations for the independent / youth / minority vote, there were other constituencies that the Dems also reasonably took for granted that ultimately did not break the way the polling confidently predicted, e.g. the Latino vote.
It's true independents as a group are important but we must remember that independents swing both ways. Biden was wise not to embrace defund the police, etc. in order to help keep many moderates in his column, but in that regard he was to the right of most of the other Democratic primary candidates. As I'm sure you know in the election post-mortem many Dems felt they did so much worse than expected because so many candidates on the left made it easy for the GOP to paint the entire Democratic party as "communist."
On the GOP side the evisceration of the moderates in their party had already been well under way for Trump's entire term, and yet they still very nearly won again despite doubling down on the base. A big question is will all those exiled moderate RINOs actually want to be Democrats? Where can they go?
Agree that much of the American public in general did not know what they would get the first time with Trump. What's remarkable is that in 2020, everyone knew, and he
still almost won again! So much for the royal flush theory! We very nearly were fooled twice! Even more remarkable, his goons overrun the capital and even then he
still has the fanatical devotion of the lion's share of the party!
Four years is a really long time and a lot can happen in the interim. Biden is in the honeymoon phase right now but there's no telling what other unexpected calamities could come down the pike and how the electorate could potentially become disenchanted with the Dems in many different ways...
Biden also had the good fortune of being a white male with a really long track record, which gave him a pretty significant advantage vis-a-vis Hillary... but if Harris is next at bat then it's still going to be a total Democratic cakewalk over Trump if he runs again???
So I believe there are many sound reasons for legitimate concern. Even so, is it fair and reasonable say that Trump is unlikely to win again? Yes absolutely!
But to assert quining does that there's "zero chance" Trump will either run or win again? Ridiculously naive, overreaching and ignorant of history and reality... in my opinion.