Psych 101

 The Liz Cheney Saga proves that if Donald Trump wants to be the GOP nominee, he will be.

Does he want to be?

I don't know enough about malignant narcissism, but it seems to me he would not want to expose himself to the shame of losing again. My understanding is that narcissists try and avoid embarrassment. The primary reason Trump refuses to concede is that his narcissism makes that impossible. However, he DID lose and somewhere inside that rancid sack of Diet Coke, Adderall and pureed hamburdlars he know he lost.

The people who claim to know him, assert that he never really wanted to be president when he ran in 2016. He just wanted to run, be defeated by some Silver Spoon shit like Bush and then launch something akin to OANN. He then won and had to do actual work for the first time...which he did not do...was miserable and then was humiliated by a guy even older than him.

So, his ideal stratagem in 2024 is to feint a run and get the parade of toadies and sycophants that constitutes today's Party of Lincoln to slobber and fawn all over him. He will do his Volkstrum rallies, because he likes those. The more he can have his ass kissed without actually having to do any work the more it is in his sweet spot.

But he could win the nomination again by accident. He could feint a run and everyone clears the field for him. If he wins the nomination, he could absolutely win the presidency, as we saw in 2016. However, I really feel like his grip over independents has weakened considerably. He ended his Reign of Error with an approval rating of around 34% and largely stayed there.

Basically, a third of our countrymen are part of a cult of personality surrounding a grifter and shitstain of a human being - literally among the worst persons this country has coughed up.

But I don't think he can grow from that level. The support he can count on could win him the primary, but I don't think it gets him close to winning the presidency, so it's in GOP elites interest to keep him on the sidelines.

Things can change, but this feels like a solid guess.