Every day it sounds more and more like President Donald Trump is going to run for a second term in 2024. According to multiple legacy media outlets (here | here | here), he will announce his bid for the White House in the next 45 days.

This creates a situation that is not favorable to Liz Cheney’s aberrant fantasies about roosting in the White House (The Delusional Cope Behind Liz Cheney’s Coming Humiliation) and has set the bowels of the establishment and Vichy Republicans a-bubbling.

The New York Post, reportedly President Trump’s favorite newspaper, has come out swinging against the idea of President Trump running again. Using the clownish “January 6 committee” proceedings as a starting point, the New York Post goes on to declare:

But as a matter of principle, as a matter of character, Trump has proven himself unworthy to be this country’s chief executive again.

Battle lines for 2024 are shaping up to be uncomfortably similar to those that appeared in 2016. A significant number of the NeverTrump types from 2016 never reconciled themselves to President Trump in the White House. More will crawl out of the swamp to oppose his 2024 run based on what President Trump will do if elected (Trump Team Plans Post-Election Purge of Department of Justice, FBI, and the Intelligence Community).

Even though Mitch McConnell promises us it will be a “crowded field” in 2024, I think that’s bunk.

Q: "If Donald Trump launches another run for president how will you handle that? Will you oppose his candidacy? Will you stay neutral?"
@LeaderMcConnell: "I think we'll going to have a crowded field for president. I assume that most of that will unfold later." pic.twitter.com/Tc2DLSlCoU

— CSPAN (@cspan) July 19, 2022

No one other than President Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis are polling in double digits. Barring something unlikely, like President Trump being not merely indicted but convicted of a federal crime, that is unlikely to change. At best, this is a two-man race. If President Trump does declare his candidacy in the next couple of months, it might be a one-man race. (And no, I can’t imagine a set of facts that would persuade DeSantis to run second banana on a Trump-DeSantis ticket. Vice president isn’t a springboard to the presidency; it is the waiting room for political obscurity. If you eliminate the death or resignation of the president, George Bush was the first vice president to be elected in his own right since Martin Van Buren.)

Bottom line: if President Trump wants the nomination in 2024, I think logic dictates that he wins. Given the damage the Democrats have inflicted upon the nation, there isn’t a Democrat with national stature who beats President Trump.

This brings me back to 2016. People, like the New York Post, who are locking themselves into opposing a Trump 2024 candidacy are consigning themselves to residing in the Monkeypox Ward with the staff of the Lincoln Project. I’m not sure what purpose it serves to assume that you have sufficient power to determine which candidate a party will select–no media outlet in New York City has that power–and to place yourself in the position of having found one candidate so deficient that you will be forced to support the other.

For the rest of us, I’m afraid we are returning to the economy seats on Flight 93 (read Michael Anton’s 2016 essay, The Flight 93 Election, for the reference). Just as in 2016, we will find the nation in crisis. Truth be told, the situation today is much more dire than in 2016. Literally, millions of illegal aliens will be residing in the United States by the time November 2024 rolls around. The economy will still be in crisis. Food and energy prices will still be high. We will probably be in the middle of hyperinflation and a housing market collapse. Our military will be a bunch of woke transgendered types with magenta hair mewling about “white rage” and other bullsh**. Racial bigotry will be taught in every school in the land. Just as in 2016, we will have to charge the cockpit to rescue the country from the political establishment of both parties and the media who would rather see the country burn down than be saved by the wrong man backed by the wrong type of people. This time, though, we know the guy we’re putting in the pilot’s seat is someone we know can land the plane, and he’s being opposed by people because they don’t like his style.