Life After Trump

Life After Trump. By Don Surber.

I was in a bubble this year. Tuesday’s election busted it.

Hope is the thing with feathers. We were plucked.

We can talk about cheating and the fix being in and mail-in votes. We can go on and on about the deep state and the media. We can spend months in denial but the fact is, Americans do not want Donald John Trump to be their president. …

Ira Stoll was cold in his assessment of the election:

Donald Trump is a drag in a general election in purple states.

In Georgia, Republican Governor Brian Kemp, who Trump doesn’t like, won about 53% of the vote, while Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker, who Trump likes, was at 48% or 49% of the vote. Likewise, in New Hampshire, Governor Chris Sununu, who has distanced himself from Trump, won with about 57% of the vote, while Republican Senate candidate Dan Bolduc, a Trump fan, attracted only about 44% of the vote. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, the Republican success story of the night, won reelection with roughly 59% of the vote despite being denounced by Trump as Ron De Sanctimonious.

There are some outliers — J.D. Vance won the Ohio Senate race despite being allied with Trump — but overall, it was not a good night for Trump.

Perhaps this realization will make Republican primary voters think twice before choosing Trump-allied candidates, or Trump himself, in primaries in 2024. …

We, his fans, see the good in him and the evil in his enemies. But the majority doesn’t and never will. It is a sale that cannot be made. There will be no second term from The Donald.

It breaks my heart to see this. I wrote three books on the man. Looking for someone else — likely DeSantis — will cost me readers.

But Trump failed. He cost America the red tsunami we need to rein in Democrats.

Harris Rigby at Not the Bee wrote:

A red wave turned into a purple puddle, thanks to an orange man.

I really wanted Trump to come back but I just don’t see it. He’s damaged goods, done in by Barack Obama and the FBI and the Washington media. Chuck Schumer warned Trump on TV two weeks before his inauguration, “You take on the intelligence community? They have six ways from Sunday of getting back at you.”

That is evil. That is unfair. That is the world we live in, for like Sarah Palin, our enemies turned Trump into an albatross. He came so close to bringing Washington down that they now will destroy him, ruin his children and salt his fields because he threatened them. He came ever so close. …

Other bloggers will tell you what you want to hear. I will tell you what you need to know. I was disappointed last night and thought it was a cheat. I woke up this morning and realized I was wrong.

There was and is some cheating. Democrats exceeded expectations more in states where they control the voting process, like Pennsylvania and Arizona, and less where the don’t, like Ohio and Florida.

In Arizona at the moment Kari Lake is virtually tied with her opponent with 70% of the vote counted, and the count is on a go-slow. Apparently the left didn’t expect here to do so well, and now are figuring on how to eke out some more votes. For the last two decades, nearly all the close contests in the US where the counting has gone on for days have ended up going to the Dems.

UPDATE: Glenn Reynolds on Trump:

But now, sniping from the sidelines at Ron DeSantis instead of providing leadership, he’s made clear that his era has passed. I’d still support him if he were the nominee, but I don’t think he can be the nominee with the kind of campaign he’s likely to run, all he can do is divide the party and elect a Democrat.