Trump Must Pivot From 2020 And Move On

Trump should talk about election integrity, but not as a victim.

Suppose that former President Trump was officially certified after the 2020 elections. So many things happening today in the Trump world would never have come to pass.

There would’ve been no January 6. There would not have been the second impeachment or the painful January 6 committee.

None of the current lawsuits would even be in court. The Fulton County prosecutor would be focusing on local crimes rather than making a name for herself for a future run for statewide office in Georgia. People probably would never have learned about Alvin Bragg. Jeanne E. Carroll would’ve been forgotten in the heap of history. You do not bring a criminal lawsuit, even in a liberal New York City courtroom, against a sitting US president.

On the policy front, America would never have been involved in the Russia-Ukraine war because there would not have been a war. Without the Federal Reserve's aggressive monetary tightening policy, the economy would have continued to thrive, and inflation would have been completely manageable. Energy prices globally would be well contained, and Europe would not be so perilously close to a recession. Budweiser would continue to be America’s leading beer brand.

As the leading contender from both parties for the 2024 nomination, Donald Trump can point to all of the above pluses and more to remind voters that election integrity issues in 2020 have cost the world immensely.

But insisting again that he won in 2020 risks alienating the independent voter, who is currently strongly behind him because of the overreach of the Biden Justice Department.

Appearing on Fox for a sit-down interview with Bret Baier, the 45th president had this brief exchange:

Baier: What do you say to the female independent suburban voter…to win her back?

Trump: First of all, I won in 2020 by a lot. Let’s get that straight.

The host was not impressed and tried to confront him. But as Trump always does, he continued repeating the same phrases that have sown the seeds of voter confusion for many Americans. Whom do we believe?

Trump may need the voters to be on his side long before the 2024 elections. The general impression among independent voters is that he is being politically persecuted like no one else. In the Fox interview, he alluded to the items in those boxes at Mar a Lago, suggesting that many were personal items. If Trump wants people to believe these assertions, he should not talk about how he won big in 2020. Instead, he should talk about something that is not as controversial, like how energy prices were down during his administration or how black and Hispanic unemployment was at all-time lows. People can relate to these latter facts.

But independent voters do not know the facts in the 2020 election because that has now become a he-said-she-said issue. History will record the failure of the William Barr Justice Department not to investigate those statewide election laws that pushed through ballot changes before the 2020 elections, the various courts that never agreed to look at election integrity, and the failure of the J6 committee to not talk about anything that triggered those people from going to the Capitol as major flaws in the American vision of self-government. This is not the time for Trump to discuss these historical failures of a great democracy.

There is also another intriguing question. Suppose Trump wins the White House again in 2024. Would he constantly refer to the 2020 election by insisting that he won from the bully pulpit of the oval office? How will he ever get anything meaningful done during his second term if every newscast or media piece constantly refers to this assertion as ‘false” rather than his other potential accomplishments?

If Trump were to end the war, the introductory sentence would include a phrase saying that he falsely claimed he won in 2020. “In Riyadh, President Trump, who still insists falsely that he won in 2020, and President Putin agreed that there would be an immediate cease-fire in the war.”

The world does not have to be reminded about 2020 every time they see Trump. Until he accepts this basic fact, his pathway to becoming the 47th president is riddled with potholes.

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