I wanted to make sure you saw my note the other day because it just came out that Trump’s hosting his version of the Apprentice to pick a 2024 running mate. Of course Mike Pence got a “you’re fired.” But why else would potential candidates be traveling to Mar-a-Lago? And if you’ve been reading our emails, this gross quote from Politico about how Trump’s picking his next apprentice, er,  VP should tell you everything you need to know:

I only have one question for you. Does this look like someone who isn’t running for President in 2024? 

Everyone else is going to keep denying it and get caught sleeping on this. Not us. Not you. 

Trump is not going away. Make sure we’re ready for him. Because who else can stop him?

-Rick

Friend, 

Trump is an ongoing political reality. His imitators and acolytes will try to launder Trumpism and racial nationalism with less overt insanity and more Ivy League gloss. (See DeSantis, Ron)

One way or another, Trump will be the GOP nominee. 

If we do this right – and it’s going to take all of us to do it – we can accomplish two things.

1. Do you want to leverage Trump’s destructive jealousy against his successors to weaken them for 2024, 2028, and beyond?
   
2. Or, if Trump gets struck by a meteor, do you want a no-holds-barred, divided, brutal GOP primary that alienates voters? (Remember; the scandals and cruelty that didn’t sink Trump will make many voters recoil. Look what happened to MAGA darling Sean Parnell this week.)

Given the unbelievable loyalty he commands from base Republican voters, anything that divides them from the rest of whatever is left of the GOP is a benefit to pro-democracy forces.

A lot of the complaints about the strategy from dollar-store-Sun-Tzu types rest on delusion.

The conceit of some elevated fight against Trumpism, based on decency or policy, is a fool‘s errand. Authoritarians attack institutions across the spectrum and opportunistically corrode any weak spot.

I’ve been in the fight against Trump for six years now. Relentlessly. Tirelessly. I’ve learned that the other side of this fight never sleeps. Never gives up. Never feels a moment of shame or remorse or regret.  

And they never miss an opportunity to attack delusion. And profit from it.

The analogy isn’t as simple as just cutting the head off a snake. It’s a vertically integrated power structure that is rapidly metastasized across the entire former conservative movement. They’re backed by Fox and Facebook, and spewing weaponized propaganda to break the spirit of the pro-democracy movement. 

If you can’t or won’t understand that, you have to attack the entire hydra with the same kind of multivariate attacks they use to both break the Democratic Party and democracy writ large, then you’re not really in the fight, are you?

Are you, Friend?

The long road ahead will offer no shortcuts. There will be no smooth reset to the old ways of politics on either side of the equation.

There are plenty right now who dislike blunt truth. But there’s plenty of pablum and happy talk out there for them. I’m just grateful that’s not you, Friend, and that millions of Americans stand with us. Keep us in this fight. 

End rant.

-Rick