Here are some excerpts from his column:
The disaster that is the Biden administration has been a godsend for Trump. Had President Joe Biden simply plagiarized the successful Trump agenda, there would have followed no border disaster, no energy crisis, no hyperinflation and no disastrous flight from Afghanistan.Contrary, perhaps, to much conventional opinion, a lot of conservatives hope he does not. A Trump candidacy could fracture the GOP and make it much more likely that Democrats retain the White House.
Had Biden followed through on his “unity” rhetoric, he could have lorded over Trump’s successful record as his own, while contrasting his Uncle-Joe ecumenicalism with Trump’s supposed polarization. Of course, serious people knew from the start that was utterly impossible. A cognitively challenged Biden was a captive of ideologues.
Thus, he was bound to pursue an extremist agenda that could only end as it now has — in disaster and record low polls.
Still, how ironic that the Biden catastrophe revived a Trump candidacy. Biden likely will cause the Democrats to lose Congress. His pick of a dismal Kamala Harris as vice president has likely ensured, for now, fewer viable Democratic presidential candidates in 2024.
So, will Trump run?
What many on the conservative side are hoping for is a "Trump without Trump" candidate. That is someone with Trump's policies, stamina and resolve in the face of often unfair attacks, but without the narcissism, boorishness and crassness that Mr. Trump too often exhibited.
There's reason to doubt that he would run again. His age, his business involvements, the attacks on his family, and, Hanson notes, "An otherwise nihilist progressive and media agenda would reawaken solely to destroy Trump — not his policies against which the Left has offered nothing of substance."
Whoever gets the Republican nomination, Hanson observes, "will run on secure borders, energy independence, deregulation, Jacksonian foreign policy, a populist, middle-class, nationalism and deterrence against China — albeit with much-needed new emphasis on destructive deficit spending."
Candidates like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Sen. Tom Cotton are all close with or have worked for Trump and would, more or less, carry through the Trump agenda. The Trump record itself between 2017 and 2021 would be assessed more positively, especially in comparison to what preceded and followed it, and with Trump in retirement.
Trump...would likely not make the same mistake he made in 2017 when he appointed a series of "disloyal outliers or Republican Party apparatchiks" to positions in his administration. "Much less would he trust the ossified hierarchy of the FBI, CIA, DIA, CDC, NIH, or any of the other alphabetic, deep-state soups."
One point that Trump supporters would doubtless try to hammer home is "that a non-Trump Trump candidate would never endure, much less brawl against, left-wing madness. They would claim that avoiding cul-de-sac spats while doubling down on the Trump agenda sounds nice — in the fashion that, theoretically, there could be sunshine without the sun."
Perhaps, but, Hanson writes,
In the end, none of the above considerations will likely matter.This is surely correct. Given a choice between Trump and Biden (or Harris, or a Hillary clone), it's hard to doubt that many Republicans and a lot of independents wouldn't just hold their noses and vote for Trump.
Instead, the outcome of the midterms will tell a lot. A clear but not overwhelming Republican win will likely discourage Trump and empower his critics.
But a historic blowout will spur Trump. In the end, even if most Republicans would prefer he not run, they will likely vote for him over the hard-left alternative.
Hanson adds some interesting predictions about the Democratic 2024 field:
As for the Democratic landscape, it will not be the case that Joe Biden may choose to run. He will not run because the decision will not be his.If the Democrats get pummeled this November, I suspect they'll look for a governor whom they can pass off as a centrist, someone like Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania or Jared polis of Colorado, but Hanson is probably correct when he concludes that:
Even if he manages to last another two years in office, Democratic grandees know his cognitive faculties are eroding rapidly. They read polls and know what his non compos mentis optics have done to their party.
These same interests are just as terrified of Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Those two believe that the Biden disaster was not due to his embrace of hard socialism, but to his insufficient embrace of socialism.
Given the poverty of alternatives, all sorts of names will arise, from Mike Bloomberg-like billionaires and Michelle Obama to most of those dismal 2020 primary retreads.
In the end, a Republican nominee can win who convincingly promises a secure border, a pathway to a balanced budget, energy independence, a crackdown on crime and a strong, nonpolitical military with a commitment to missile defense.After the November mid-terms I anticipate that there'll be a lot of talk in GOP circles about a Ron DeSantis/Tim Scott ticket, but we'll see.
And the nominee would have to do all that neither with gratuitous insults nor playing by wishy-washy Marquess of Queensberry rules against those whose toxic agendas here and abroad have created the present disaster.