OPINION:
President Biden has only needed a month or so to cancel Donald Trump’s four-year campaign to “make America first.” Before six weeks had passed, Mr. Trump was back, harkening to a crowd of admirers chanting, “Four more years!” Predictions are for soothsayers and weathermen, but it would be no stranger than a slowing septuagenarian winning the presidency from his basement for Americans to opt for a once and future president.
Mr. Trump made his return from post-impeachment isolation to the spotlight Sunday at “America Uncanceled” — the 2021 gathering of political activists put on by the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). With its customary venue across the Potomac River from the nation’s capital off-limits owing to the pandemic, the four-day conference unfolded in Orlando, Florida, “an oasis of freedom,” in the words of Gov. Ron DeSantis, up the interstate from the Trump home at Mar-a-Lago.
With a 90-minute speech to hundreds assembled, and likely millions livestreaming, Mr. Trump led what resembled the first political rally of the 2024 campaign. Pledging to join party faithful in working to reclaim both the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate from Democrats in 2022, he intoned, “And then a Republican president will make a triumphant return to the White House. And I wonder who that will be?” Who, who, who will that be?” Canceled he is not.
In the meantime, Mr. Trump is free to remind Americans of the “disastrous” Biden policies that have effectively put America last: returning to the Obama-era immigration rules that entice illegals by the hundreds of thousands to flood the southern border, rejoining deficient international agreements on climate change and Iran’s nuclear program, and crippling American energy independence with the cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline.
Perhaps most unfair is Mr. Biden’s refusal to credit Team Trump with the success of “Operation Warp Speed” in creating multiple coronavirus vaccines in record time, or even to manage a hat-tip for his own disease-defeating inoculation.
Mr. Trump is the clear favorite for the Republican nomination in 2024, according to The Washington Times/CPAC straw poll. He garnered 55% of the vote, while home-state hero Mr. DeSantis was runner-up with 21%, and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem was a distant third with 4%. Asked whether the former president should run, 68% replied in the affirmative.
If anything, Democrats’ two impeachment trials — including the acquitted charge of leading an insurrection against the U.S. government — have galvanized the view among many Americans that only Mr. Trump, flaws and all, has the fortitude to cancel the leftward surge that Mr. Biden leads.
In the annals of presidential history, Grover Cleveland alone has managed to win the White House, lose it and win it back four years later. That timespan is an eternity in politics, and no one is master of his own fate. Still, a presidential past could be prologue for Donald Trump.
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