'Astonishing acts of self-sabotage': Donald Trump's 2024 campaign 'couldn't be going any worse'

In an analysis on how things are going for Donald Trump since his overly-hyped 2024 presidential campaign launch at Mar-a-Lago weeks ago, Guardian political analyst David Smith claims the former president has lost the "sizzle" that made him such a hot property in 2016 as he skips the type of political rallies in front of supporters that have kept him in the eyes of voters.

As Smith notes, what has followed is Trump being involved in controversies like meeting with notorious anti-Semites at his Mar-a-Lago resort as well as a major criminal conviction in a Manhattan courtroom and multiple criminal and civil lawsuit investigations closing in.

As Smith wrote, "The swagger of 2016 has given way to somnolence in 2022. Opinion polls are grim. Legal setbacks are piling up. A run of dismal results in the midterm elections, culminating in another Republican loss in Georgia this week, have punctured his aura of invincibility within the party."

Adding, "Trump has performed astonishing acts of self-sabotage, from dining with antisemites to calling for the constitution to be shredded. He has eschewed a widely-anticipated spree of public rallies, instead remaining largely out of the public gaze," Smith suggested, in most cases, this would be the beginning of the end of any other politician's political career.

According to American University history professor Alan Lichtman, the former president is off to a brutal start if he hopes to be re-elected again in 2024.

“It couldn’t be going any worse,” he explained. "And it’s not because Donald Trump is making mistakes. It’s because Donald Trump is being Donald Trump."

Having said that, Lichtman elaborated, “He was something new and fresh and interesting back in 2016. He has presided over three disastrous election cycles for Republicans in 2018, 2020 and 2022 and he’s the same old Donald Trump, caring only about himself, wrapped up in his own grievances and his own whining. It’s just not playing anymore for the American people.”

According to the Guardian's Smith, "So it was that Trump’s Mar-a-Lago speech was widely derided as a damp squib, lacking his usual bombast and brio and even his daughter, Ivanka, has decided to sit this one out. Since then, the campaign has been running on autopilot and little has been seen of the former president hunkered down in Florida, venturing out only to play golf."

More importantly, he observed that the Trump rallies that should have followed the 2024 announcement are nowhere to be seen.

"Trump’s rambunctious campaign rallies, expected to give early momentum to his third consecutive run for president, have mysteriously failed to materialize. In June 2015, by contrast, he declared his candidacy after riding down an escalator in New York and held his first rally in Iowa just 10 hours later, moving on to New Hampshire a day later," he wrote.

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