DO ANY OF THESE PEOPLE STAND A CHANCE... AGAINST TRUMP?

On the trail with the candidates (supposedly) vying for the Republican nomination

- OLIVIA NUZZI

IN THEORY, IT SHOULD BE enough that he is a certified loser. Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump once before, and it could happen again. In that election, Trump’s major liabilities were his mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic and its related economic fallout. For this one, he is campaigning in between stops on a national tour of court appearances and arrestdates. The risk for the Republican  Party is not just that history will repeat itself but that it will elaborate.

Yet with each successive indictment, Trump grows stronger. His support deepens. It has always been true that Trump’s fans see him as their id. Now, his legal troubles have had the effect of turning this very rich and powerful man into a proxy for anyone who feels like the victim of a conspiracy cooked up by the system. Outside the courthouses where he stands accused of fraud and election interference and mishandling of classified documents, among 91 felony counts in four criminal cases, they tell you this is all playing out exactly as they suspected, just as Trump said it would. The deep state had set him up, and now it would hold its trials. In the official Donald J. Trump campaign store, he sells the image of his persecution, his mug shot splashed on merchandise that says never surrender and not guilty.

The other candidates made decisions to run informed by political science and traditional experience. Trump would not enter the race, the thinking went, because his term in office had ended so poorly, and if on the off chance he did run, he would be rejected. Just as in 2016, these calculations did not appreciate that Trump is not a political phenomenon. He is better understood as a celestial event, like the appearance of a black hole. Everyone in his orbit is defined in relation to his gravitational pull.