Why I'm Starting to Doubt Trump Even Wants to Be President

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Jun 16, 2016 at 2:45 PM

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Why I'm Starting to Doubt Trump Even Wants to Be President Is he really just playing the long game to build a new media empire?

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But the incredible recent plunge in Trump's poll numbers vis-a-vis Hillary Rodham Clinton is scaring the Ensure out of what we laughingly call the Republican establishment.

LOL!

BY CHARLES P. PIERCE
JUN 16, 2016

This week's episode of Seven Days In Mayhem features me changing my mind.

Ever since the rise of He, Trump, I have resolutely resisted the arguments of people who told me that he didn't really want the job of being president, that he was only in it to build his brand, that he was simply ego-surfing on the waves of affection produced by simpletons.

I thought he actually believed he could do the job of being president better than all those other pathetic, low-energy losers who lined up against him. I thought that, the more he won, the more he validated himself in the echoing canyons of his mind.

Now, though, I'm not sure. Maybe the whole thing was pure grift from the start.

Vanity Fair informs us that there already are plans in the works to create Trump TV once the campaign craters in November, assuming the campaign gets that far.

According to several people briefed on the discussions, the presumptive Republican nominee is examining the opportunity presented by the "audience" currently supporting him.

He has also discussed the possibility of launching a "mini-media conglomerate" outside of his existing TV-production business, Trump Productions LLC. He has, according to one of these people, enlisted the consultation of his daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who owns the The New York Observer.

Trump's rationale, according to this person, is that, "win or lose, we are onto something here. We've triggered a base of the population that hasn't had a voice in a long time." For his part, Kushner was heard at a New York dinner party saying that "the people here don't understand what I'm seeing. You go to these arenas and people go crazy for him."

However, for this scheme to work, he almost has to play the campaign game out until the final whistle. If he drops out, the whole scheme would collapse.

(What's more "low-energy" than dropping out of a presidential campaign because The Washington Post hurt your fee-fee?)

So, while I still think he'll be on the ballot to get whacked, I am less sure that he truly wants the job than I was.

Meanwhile, the hopeless grenade-jugglers of the #NeverTrump movement seem to be taking some heart in this latest development.

Maybe they can get a few of the sugar daddies off oxygen and promise He, Trump to finance his massive vanity project in exchange for his promise to get out of the way and let the party nominate a giant like…well, they're still not sure about that.

(Help us, Willard Romney. You're our only hope.)

The primary argument against this remains the obvious fact that these people would screw up a two-car funeral if you spotted them the hearse.

Note Michael Brendan Dougherty's caution that, if you want to euchre He, Trump out of the nomination, you still have to deal with Tailgunner Ted Cruz and, god, who wants to do that in the heat of high summer in Cleveland?

But the incredible recent plunge in Trump's poll numbers vis-a-vis Hillary Rodham Clinton is scaring the Ensure out of what we laughingly call the Republican establishment. We may rapidly be getting to the point where anything is possible.

But, then again, there's the example of Hugh Hewitt, who has become an Important Pundit, somehow has been assimilated over the last couple of weeks.

As recently as June 8, Hewitt was calling He, Trump a "stage-four cancer" that the GOP couldn't ignore. On Thursday, though, we learned from Tiger Beat On The Potomac that Hewitt was apologizing for his misdiagnosis. It wasn't a stage-four cancer. The patient really was feeling much better.

From TBOTP:

What changed his mind? Trump's speeches on Friday and Monday, addressing religious liberty at the Faith & Freedom Coalition conference and responding to the Orlando, Florida, attack, respectively. Hewitt wrote that Trump "has returned to a winning message and walled off the assorted 'never Trump' holdouts trying to upend his nomination."

Hewitt's endorsement comes after Trump, in the aftermath of the Orlando massacre, repeatedly insinuated that President Barack Obama supports terrorism.

"Trump's task now is clear: It's time to abandon his off-the-cuff remarks, disengage from his battles with the media and methodically prosecute the case that throughout her career, [Hillary] Clinton has consistently displayed a disqualifying lack of judgment," Hewitt continued. "He needs to develop this argument, detail it and drive it home."

God, you talk about quibbling over the price. Somebody really wants to be the evening anchor on Trump News TV.

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