So I know I'm a bit late to the discussion but I wanted to add my two cents.
I'm not a fan of Donald Trump personally, but I *will* say that some of what he did was way overdue (actually reaching out to minorities in a serious manner, the judicial confirmations, taking a harder stance on China and trade, putting Europe on notice that we really aren't happy with their shenanigans, moving the embassy to Jerusalem and actually getting Gulf states to normalize relations with Israel, fixing the massive damage done to our military readiness, dramatically improving the VA, and axing a bunch of inane red tape).
But I also have a number of problems on other fronts: Adding $7 trillion to the national debt, constantly picking stupid fights with the press, making mountains out of molehills on things like the size of his inauguration crowds, or things where he bloviated about our efforts to fight COVID and what it would really take. I much prefer the bitter truth to sugar coated bullshit. And to me, that’s what Trump kept spewing.
And then there was the fact that, after he narrowly lost the election (and I do think it was an honest narrow loss, just like it was an honest narrow win in 2016), he wouldn't stop ranting about the election being stolen despite the fact that when he made both the 2018 and 2020 (and as it turned out, the 2021 Senate races) about him personally rather than the issues and the GOP suffered defeats in all three, says that I'm not the only one who found this all both insane and not a little disturbing. Or the fact that he seemed to change advisors more frequently than some people do socks, and every time someone would leave, he'd bash them on Twitter for what he perceived as various shortcomings (whether deserved or not, this is not only an extremely rude and disrespectful thing to do, and only makes hiring quality talent harder, as nobody is happy working for an asshole).
Then, of course, came the incident on January 6th. While I'm not entirely convinced he deliberately incited an attack on the Capitol, he *really* failed to deal with the mess once it occurred when he refused to allow the Guard to move in and help, and then, instead of immediately going "Look, I'm angry too but this is out of line!" he waited until after the Guard had moved in (largely due to Ralph Northam and Larry Hogan ordering their state forces sent before he did so he wouldn't get upstaged), and then made a lukewarm address about it that smacked far more of a CYA thing than anything else.
So, despite all the things he did that I like, I won't support him. I can't, because I don't approve of his shenanigans any more than I did Obama's or do Biden's. Or anyone else's.
That said, I accept that Biden is the president, but I strongly believe he's the wrong man for the job. I do find the whole concept of "wokeness" to be an absurd farce and one that's only going to cause further trouble down the line, right up until it runs into the buzzsaw of reality. How much damage it will do in the meantime, I don't know.
And if we are going to minimize that damage, then we conservatives need to accept that there is a more populist bent than before to our politics, and take into account the thoughts and views of those who feel (quite rightly in a lot of cases) that they've been left behind due to favoritism among the political class (what people refer to as The Establishment). The Establishment needs to remember that it ultimately works for the public, not the other way around, and I think the vast majority of politicians on both sides have forgotten that.
But I also think that the populists have to remember that there is a wrong way of doing things, and copying the left's tactics of "mostly peaceful protests" (read: riots) do not actually help the situation and indeed make their side look demented. Because this is the sort of thing that’s played hell in Latin America over the years. Force the left to own their irresponsibility: it’s no coincidence that during the riots over the summer, Trump’s approval rating actually ticked up because he was seen as standing up for law and order.
So, no, I don’t think Trump is the right candidate for 2024, unless your goal is to get a Democrat elected in a landslide. I do think this may take a few years as people look to figure out which direction(s) the GOP needs to take in order to get back on track, and I think a more populist government (that is, one actually responding to the needs of the public rather than a mass of ‘experts’ who don’t know their asses from a hole in the ground) is coming. The danger is if it takes a form of actual socialism (not that social democracy is really any better...) rather than going back to federalism and accepting that while the feds are supreme, they need to scale back on their operations and focus on things like foreign affairs and defense, where one size really does fit all. Not a bunch of doomed social engineering projects that in the end have failed to deliver.
