Donald Trump is officially running for President, again. Let the games begin. We can be certain of several things. One is that those who hate him, and that is a very large group, will do everything possible to stop him. We can expect more criminal investigations, based on zero evidence, that are only dismissed after months of bad press. We can expect Trump to continue his long-established pattern of trash talking political opponents. In other words, a repeat of what happened during his first run for President and during his entire presidency.

One thing is absolutely certain, no one has been attacked as viciously and unfairly as Donald Trump. He is never given the benefit of the doubt, anytime, anywhere, on any subject. Up until now, what his enemies failed to understand is that by trashing him, they elevated him. It is quite simple, whether people hate Trump, love Trump, or just tolerate Trump, everyone watches Trump. It is sometimes said that there is no such thing as bad publicity. Trump probably wrote the book on that.

This is hard to predict, but one thing Trump will do is point out, vividly, the failures of the Biden administration. He has no shortage of material. If he can control himself and continue to make his story like he did last night in Mar-a-logo, it would be unwise to ignore him. One reason is that the only person more despised that Donald Trump is Joe Biden. Biden is Trump on steroids, without the competence. If this ends up a campaign between Trump and Biden, don’t bet against Trump.

But it may not be between Trump and Biden. It is far from certain that Biden will be physically able to run. And there are certainly a lot of powerful Democrats who have seen enough and want Joe to leave, one way or the other. On the other hand, there are a lot of Never-Trumper Republicans who feel exactly the same way about Trump. The RINO Never-Trumpers are the same people who have been losing elections for decades. They are, ironically, the primary reason for many people embracing Trump in the first place. Sometimes you are known best by your enemies. Trump has been truly blessed by the quality of those who hate him. In addition to Democrats and the MSM, this includes the cultured elite segment of the Republican Party that still believes gracefully is the highest honor.

But there is another dynamic at play here. I have a lot of friends who supported Trump and thought he made good decisions as President. But lately, they are expressing frustration with Trump because of his self-destructive tendencies. They begin to question whether he is worth it anymore. Ironically when Trump took a couple of cheap shots at Ron DeSantis, the person most impacted negatively was Trump himself. Trashing Democrats and RINOs, who usually have it coming, is great fun. Trashing a very effective and well-respected Republican governor, not so much. DeSantis has not responded at all, which just made Trump’s tirade look small and petty.

Ironically Trump actually has a long list of accomplishments. If he just focused on them, he would do very well. He doesn’t have to exaggerate; the real accomplishments are more than enough. But he can’t seem to resist. Trump, like a lot of other politicians had a deep seeded need to elevate everything he does to a whole new level. He is far from the only one to do that, Biden does it all the time with his ridiculous stories about imaginary accomplishments that are mostly irrelevant. Hillary Clinton does this too, with equally ridiculous imaginary accomplishments. My favorite is that for years she claimed she was named after Sir Edmund Hillary, the man who conquered Mt. Everest. The problem is that she was five years old before the climbed Mt. Everest and before that few people even knew he existed.

Things are going to change, and this is going to happen as the speed of light. The current leaders are old and getting older. If Donald Trump were to be elected President in 2024, he would become a lame duck President before he took the oath of office.  People will be looking for his replacement before he has time to rearrange the furniture.

One way or another, there will be a whole class of new leaders in the next few years. Some of the replacements are already visible, others are waiting quietly in the wings. Mitch McConnell is still the Minority Leader of the Senate, but he is not the future leader of Republicans in the Senate. Kevin McCarthy is very likely to be Speaker of the House, but in order for him to stay in power, he must pay attention to the strong conservatives in the House. Things are changing and one way to see reality is to pay attention to the Don’s early light. Two things have already happened that change everything. One is that the House Oversight Committee with now be headed by James Comer, and he has already announced he is coming for Hunter and his dad. About time. The second is that the Washington Post just admitted that the raid on Mar-a-logo was unnecessary and found absolutely nothing:

Federal agents and prosecutors have come to believe former president Donald Trump’s motive for allegedly taking and keeping classified documents was largely his ego and a desire to hold on to the materials as trophies or mementos, according to people familiar with the matter.

That review has not found any apparent business advantage to the types of classified information in Trump’s possession, these people said. FBI interviews with witnesses so far, they said, also do not point to any nefarious effort by Trump to leverage, sell or use the government secrets. Instead, the former president seemed motivated by a more basic desire not to give up what he believed was his property, these people said.

Once again, the walls closing in on Donald Trump, closed on the people investigating him. Just when Democrats thought it was safe to go back into the water, everything changed. Now it will be Republicans in charge of committees doing real investigations and unlike the Schiff nonsense, they actually have a lot of facts and evidence. This time it is Democrats who may be feeling those walls closing in, only with real walls.

Those who write Trump off are ignoring history. His personality is unlikely to change, but what goes around comes around and it is coming around big time. Once again, Trump may find himself buoyed by those seeking to destroy him, only to elevate his importance. It is as simple as this, the more they attack him, the more obvious that they fear him. The Don’s early light is “I’m still here and the more you attack me the more you risk destroying yourselves.”

Here comes the sun. Enjoy the view.

TDM