This probably will come as a surprise to no one, but on a Sunday talk show, former President Trump informed the host that, should he lose the 2024 presidential election, he wouldn’t run again. That’s probably the wise choice; he will be past 80 at that point, and even the most robust of men would likely suffer from the stress of the world’s toughest job at that age.
In a Sunday interview on the television show “Full Measure,” Trump told host Sharyl Attkisson he doesn’t have any plans to run again if he loses to Vice President Harris.
“I think that that will be, that will be it. I don’t see that at all,” he said when asked if a fourth campaign would happen.
While his answer was brief, it was, in a typical Trumpian manner, to the point. Time is a harsh mistress, and Donald Trump is obviously aware of this, even if Joe Biden and whoever is pulling his strings can’t claim the same thing.
Trump would be 82 by the 2028 election. Age has surrounded this campaign season, as Biden faced criticism for his age and eventually passed the torch to a new generation and Harris.
If I may digress for a moment, that last bit is true; Joe Biden, or rather whoever is really in charge – day by day it’s more apparent that Joe Biden isn’t all there – did, yes, pass the torch, to a cackling incompetent and a smirking buffoon. But that’s a topic for another story.
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Here’s the thing: Even should Donald Trump lose in November (and we can sure hope he does not, because four years of Harris/Walz would likely be nothing short of catastrophic) and even if Trump bows out for keeps, the impact he has made on the Republican Party is not going away any time soon. It’s still Trump’s party, “Make American Great Again” will still be the slogan, and the populist wing that Trump has aided in taking over the party will almost certainly continue to own the GOP.
What’s more, the GOP has a strong backbench, and many of them are either MAGA adherents or have strong leanings in that direction. JD Vance would still be the heir apparent in 2028, although I expect he would find himself facing a no-longer-Governor Ron DeSantis in the primary. The new Republicans are, like JD Vance, people not of Wall Street but of Main Street – Sam’s Club Republicans rather than country-club Republicans. The Trump movement has tamped down (but not eliminated) globalist tendencies in the GOP, and Trump is more popular with blue-collar and rank-and-file union workers than most of his Republican predecessors. Any Republican running for office now will be marking those policies.
One way or another – whether he wins in November or not – in 2028, Donald Trump will no longer be involved in presidential politics. But he will continue to cast a long shadow, one that Republican candidates in 2028 and 2032 will compete to fill – and they will be reading from Donald Trump’s playbook while doing so.
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