President Donald Trump is in the business of winning. He won in 2016 despite the prognosticators universally giving him no chance. He won again by a landslide in 2020, but the powers-that-be stole the victory from him. He’ll win again in 2024 if he decides to run, and hopefully by then we will have sniffed out enough of the voter fraud elements to prevent a repeat of 2020.
But it’s not just him who does the winning. He likes to pick winners and losers, especially when it comes to Republican candidates for public office. It’s more than just a hobby to him. He does so to solidify his position as the de facto leader of the Republican Party even if Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy are anointed to lead the Senate and/or House in the midterm elections.
Over the past few weeks, he has been making some peculiar endorsements. Some of them make a lot of sense; he had a big night with a pair of true America First candidates in Michigan. But oftentimes he has selected people who are clearly not aligned with the America First agenda or the MAGA movement. He’s chosen some who are essentially Democrats with a false (R) next to their names on the ballot. Dr. Mehmet Oz comes to mind as being the next Mitt Romney as a total RINO who will work against the policies Trump would put into place in 2025.
I’m going to explain why he does this, but I need to offer two disclaimers. First, I am not in any way trying to express approval for his endorsement style. It may seem like I’m trying to justify his moves by explaining the logic behind them, but as an America First purist I would never sacrifice my political worldview for the sake of an endorsement strategy. If I were advising Trump, I would recommend endorsing the best person to fill the office for the sake of their jurisdiction and the nation. I’d rather endorse someone who will likely lose but who would do an amazing job than a probable winner who will be a Democrat-lite in office.
The second caveat is this: I don’t really care about his endorsements. Knowing what I know about why he’s picking who he’s picking, his and pretty much every other endorsement of a candidate is completely worthless in my books. I hold it somewhat against him that he’s taking the strategic route rather than the ideologically sound route, but by no means will that dissuade me from supporting him should he choose to run again. He’d be more likely to lose my support by continuing to promote the jabs than by endorsing RINOs for the midterms.
With that said, here are the reasons why he’s making so many bad endorsements. The first and most important one is his desire to always be on the winning side. This isn’t just ego. It’s part of his strategy in maintaining the highest position of influence over the GOP. If he makes too many endorsements that don’t win, corporate media will be blasting out for weeks about how he has lost his importance in the eyes of Republican voters.
Moreover, he’s a numbers guy. He always had an unhealthy obsession with polls and statistics, and having the highest possible success percentage is extremely important to him. He wants to emerge from the primaries and then the midterms by being able to say something to the effect of, “99% of the people I endorsed won their races.”
The second reason he’s endorsing some RINOs is because of donor considerations. There are two groups of people in his ear about candidates: His advisors and representatives of his potential large donors. They make their recommendations based on what’s best for them. For his advisors, political considerations are more important than ideology. They’re supposed to pick winners. For his donors, it’s all about influencing Trump to back their people, and they’re willing to promise campaign and PAC contributions in exchange.
This second reason behind his endorsements may sound like shady politics, but here’s the thing. It’s just politics. I don’t like it but that’s really just the way it is. Trump is solid when it counts. His policies promote an America First agenda and he will hold the RINOs’ feet to the fire when the time comes. We saw what he did to Mitt Romney. Lest we forget, Trump endorsed him, too.
The third and most important reason is a personal situation with Trump. It’s both a strength and a weakness that he accumulates allies for the purpose of future consideration. He loves loyalty and expects those he helps to be there for him when he calls. In business, it was a tremendous strength. In politics, it yielded Rex Tillerson, Reince Priebus, Jeff Sessions, Omarosa Manigault Newman, Anthony Scaramucci, and a long list of other friends and allies who ended up being awful as part of his White House.
While I’m not concerned about his endorsements, I’m extremely concerned if he continues the practice into his second administration. They only way he’ll ever be able to drain the swamp is if he stops propping up swamp creatures. Mike Pence, John Kelly, and Bill Barr come to mind as people he surrounded himself with who were actually working against him the whole time. That can’t happen the second time around. He needs better discernment and a willingness to stop making promises.
The fatal flaw in his political style is that he’s a loyal person who expects others to maintain their loyalty to him. But other people generally aren’t like him. They will do what’s best for themselves, and if that means working against Trump behind his back, they’ll do it.
I was interviewed by Chad Caton on Brighteon TV to discuss this very topic:
We need to help America First candidates win their primaries, and sometimes that means going against Donald Trump’s endorsements. In the long run, he and America will be stronger because of these actions.