Will future historians look back and declare 2022 the year when Donald Trump’s spell finally started to lose its luster?
Reports of Trump’s political downfall have been greatly exaggerated for years. But this time feels different.
We saw hints of Trump’s political downturn in late 2021, but his 2022 got off to a rocky start with an Arizona rally that failed to recapture its old magic. My observation at the time was that Trump “needs new material, and fast, because if his rally in Arizona shows anything, it’s that the old routine just isn’t landing anymore.”
During the year, Trump’s problems only got worse.
In February, he praised Vladimir Putin’s use of propaganda to justify Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as “genius”. There was nothing new about Trump praising Putin, but his assessment of Putin’s shrewd strategy became laughable when Ukraine’s strong resistance made Putin look weak.
Trump was also betting on the wrong horses in the domestic political arena, as Republican reactions to Trump’s endorsement of Dr. Oz (who would lose his U.S. Senate race in November) began to ramp up in early spring.
The trend of Republicans publicly criticizing Trump continued into the summer, with the January 6 committee wisely focusing on Republican witnesses testifying about Trump’s conduct.
There is little evidence that the hearings significantly changed opinion of Trump. But around the time they got underway in earnest, a Granite State Poll showed Ron DeSantis leading Trump among likely GOP primary voters in New Hampshire for the first time.
Next, the FBI came to search Trump’s residence in Mar-a-Lago. Ironically, the raid seemed to help Trump at least briefly and kill DeSantis’ momentum. But the rally-around-the-flag momentum Trump gained by playing victim to the deep state was short-lived. It also served to highlight some ugly fans prone to attacking the FBI for violence, drawing Republican rebukes.
In August, Trump’s biggest blow of the year was announced when Senator Mitch McConnell acknowledged that concerns about the “quality of the candidate” made Republicans less likely to overthrow the Senate.
At the time, Herschel Walker, Trump’s hand-picked senate candidate in Georgia, had already admitted to fathering illegitimate children; revelations that he had also paid for an abortion, as The Daily Beast reported, only added to the foreshadowing.
Unlike much of his presidency (where aides would hold Trump back, carry out his orders slowly, or otherwise dilute his craziness), McConnell and the GOP establishment voted in favor of at least some of Trump’s primary selections. This meant that Trump took much of the responsibility for the 2022 interim results (he has, of course, tried to argue otherwise).
Giving him what he wanted was tragic — for Trump.
Trump’s six-year tax returns finally released
The midterms proved to be a rejection of Trumpism, and the absence of a red wave was a breaking point for many Republicans. That’s right: Countless Republicans willing to stand with Trump through Charlottesville, two impeachments, a big lie, and an attempted coup suddenly found that losing an election was a bridge too far.
Many right wingers were also outraged by him calling Ron DeSantis “Ron DeSanctimious.”
Rather than being chastised or biding his time, Trump quickly launched his 2024 presidential campaign. Horribly bad timing aside, it was a low-energy affair. Trump soon celebrated Thanksgiving week by dining with anti-Semite Kanye West and white nationalist Nick Fuentes, sparking another round of criticism from fellow Republicans.
As Christmas approached, Trump unveiled a “major announcement”: the release of a $99 NFT. Everyone from Steve Bannon to QAnon criticized the quirk. “We have a nation going to the toilet and Donald Trump selling Pokémon cards. No thanks, Blaze TV host Chad Prather wrote.
The January 6 committee voted on December 19 to approve a criminal referral against Trump. And on the last business day of 2022, after years of bickering, six years of Trump’s tax returns were finally released.
Any way you look at it, 2022 was a terrible, terrible, not good, very bad year for Donald Trump. And there is little reason to believe that 2023 will be any better.
After all, while Trump remains a clear frontrunner, DeSantis has emerged as a legitimate potential challenger for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. And pop culture figures like Kanye West and Elon Musk have supplanted Trump in the attention economy.
Sure, Trump could play Harry Houdini again in 2023 Access to Hollywood tape that emerged in 2016 and the Capitol Riot five years later sparked much Republican outrage — only for him to somehow emerge stronger than ever.
But nothing we’ve seen in the past year suggests he has the same energy or magic that has allowed him to escape any responsibility in the past.
After years of failing upwards, gravity has finally settled back in 2022. The chickens have apparently come home to roost. Whether a fellow Republican can successfully step into the void remains to be seen.
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