Andrew Sullivan: “There has been no comeback like this since Nixon. Trump now leads Biden in the swing states, and in the country at large. His issues — inflation, immigration, crime — are ascendant again. The multiple lawsuits against him have backfired, shoring up his Republican support, and lending credence to his largely spurious, but rhetorically effective, claim that he is the target of a witch hunt. (The new court ruling in Colorado is likely to have the same effect.) He has played this jujitsu masterfully, keeping the focus on himself, bobbing and weaving in a stream of countless lies and threats, taking his authoritarian pitch to new heights.”
“‘Dictator on Day One’ sounds like a branding the Democrats might have deployed to destroy him. In fact, it’s helping him win the GOP nomination in a landslide. On the GOP’s most vulnerable issues — abortion and entitlements — he has inoculated himself. It’s his election to lose. The Resistance turned out to be one of his greatest assets.”
“It may be that his unique noxiousness could derail his momentum, as the prospect of four more years of chaos looms. The New Hampshire primary may change the atmosphere, as it has in the past, and a Haley candidacy would be lethal against Biden. But it’s beyond clear now that the way to beat Trump is to compete on policy grounds — controlling mass migration, intensifying law enforcement, touting legislative wins like the CHIPS Act — rather than to disqualify him on grounds that the American public has largely rejected.”
