![]() They merely have to transcend him, using issues to create leadership personas that will soon enough make the 74-year-old Trump look irrelevant, an artifact of an era that has passed. Ambitious Republicans who wish to regain control of the party and become president themselves do not have to confront and defeat Trump, as his 2016 rivals tried and failed to do. That’s a combination of flawed judgment and impoverished imagination that hardly supports optimism about his ability to retain power in the new circumstances that await him once gone from the White House. Trump didn’t change because he didn’t perceive the need and couldn’t conceive of how to do so. In political terms, the pandemic demanded modulation of Trump’s blame-casting brand of politics - but also would have lavishly rewarded him if he had done so. When things are going poorly, his instinct is to double down on those. When things are going well, his instinct is to double down on those. As he leaves the White House, Trump should be haunted by a stark reality - if he had any capacity for self-calibration, he wouldn’t be leaving the White House at all. Here is the third reason to be bearish on Trump’s future: Politics never stands still, but Trump largely does. These days, no one can follow Trump’s Twitter feed and believe that he cares more about the public’s problems than his own, and that is not a recipe for sustaining political power. When he vaulted into presidential politics five years ago, Trump’s still-potent gifts - for channeling anger, for mockery, for conspiracy theory - were once channeled to an agenda that fellow Republicans were largely neglecting, over trade, immigration, globalization, and perceptions of national decline. That’s the second reason Trump is not well-positioned to retain his hold on public attention: He has largely abandoned any pretense that he thinks about anything other than his personal resentments, or that he is trying to harness his movement to big ideas that will improve the lives of citizens. But they never live long, and Trump has offered no reason to suppose he will be an exception. Cults of personality in American politics are quite common. In every case, their movements decayed rapidly. They tapped into genuine popular grievance toward elites, and had ascendant moments in which they caused the system to quake and intimidated conventional politicians of both parties. Like Trump, they all possessed flamboyant, self-dramatizing personas. In multiple other ways, he is a familiar American type, anticipated by such diverse figures as Joseph McCarthy, George Wallace, and Ross Perot. Trump, however, is singular in one sense only: No politician of his stripe has ever achieved the presidency. The perception that Trump will remain relevant hinges on the possibility that he is a unique historical figure. ![]() Most important are the abundant precedents suggesting Trump does not have another important act in national politics. There are three primary reasons to be deeply skeptical that Trump’s moment of dominating his party and public consciousness will continue long after Jan.
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