Trump has now done it. He has announced he is running for president again. I think he could see his popularity fading -- even among Republicans. And his enormous ego simply could not take that. He hates being called a loser (even though he is). He hates not being the boos of the Republican Party (although some in the GOP are already talking about a "post-Trump" party). And he's hoping his candidacy can stave off the several criminal indictments headed his way soon (the way being president protected his criminality). I doubt Trump can be re-elected to the presidency, but he might be able to get the GOP nomination -- he still has a lot of hardcore followers.
Isaac Arnsdorf and Micheal Scherer, at The Washington Post, remind us of Trump's only real "accomplishments", and it's a sad list. They write:
Since winning his party’s nomination in 2016, Trump has driven a partisan realignment — inspiring massive turnout among rural and non-college-educated White voters while pushing more prosperous suburban parts of the country into the Democratic column. He has also overseen a dramatic shift in the ideological focus of the American right, embracing a more restrictive approach to immigration, a more skeptical view of foreign military intervention and a new interest in tariffs as a way to protect American industry.
And he has profoundly altered the tenor of American public life — shattering long-held standards of decorum and civility with often shocking attacks on political rivals, judges and reporters. He has frequently made racist and antisemitic remarks, mocked people with disabilities and denigrated developing countries, bragged about sexual assault and paid hush money to a porn star, praised dictators, declined to disavow extremists, inspired his supporters to resort to violence and defended white supremacists and Jan. 6 rioters.
