This Isn't 2015

As of July 2015, the closest equivalent point to late May 2023 that I can find in a search for polling data, here's where the presidential race stood, according to CNN:

With nearly all of the expected 2016 presidential candidates formally in the race, a new CNN/ORC national poll finds two recent entrants to the GOP field on the rise, while Hillary Clinton maintains her position atop the Democratic field, though holding a slightly slimmer lead.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and businessman Donald Trump top the list of GOP presidential contenders following their back-to-back campaign launches in mid-June, and are the only two Republican candidates holding double-digit support among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents.

. . . Looking ahead to the general election, Clinton continues to hold significant leads over Bush (54% Clinton to 41% Bush) and Christie (56% Clinton to 37% Christie). She has also opened up wide leads over Rubio (56% Clinton to 39% Rubio) and Walker (57% Clinton to 38% Walker), as those two have slipped among independents. Clinton’s clearest advantage, however, is over Donald Trump, 59% say they would vote for Clinton if the 2016 match-up were between her and Trump, 34% say they would back Trump.

This story at the never-Trump Red State aggregator buries the lede:

The Harvard Harris poll conducted online between May 17-18 among 2,004 registered voters has some fascinating takeaways that don’t look good for Joe Biden and the Democratic narrative pushed by the liberal media.

But it takes quite a while to get to the main point:

The poll also shows that Biden is in deep trouble because large majorities of people think he’s not mentally fit and he’s too old. The poll also has Donald Trump beating him by 7 points and Kamala Harris by 11. Those are pretty big numbers, but people can remember that they had it much better under Trump than under Biden/Harris, and they can see what a mess Biden is now.

And so far, there's not much support for wishful thinking about DeSantis:

In the GOP primary, the poll showed Trump widening his lead on Ron DeSantis and the rest of the field. He’s at 58 percent, with DeSantis at 16 percent, and the rest still further back.

. . . DeSantis’ numbers against Biden or Harris are only even, according to the poll.

This follows the clear shock within bien pensant opinion at Trump's CNN New Hampshire town hall. Christiane Amanpour called the event an "earthquake":

More than 3 million viewers watched the town hall, which featured Trump repeating his false claims that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen,” and critics knocked CNN for giving Trump a prime time platform to repeat that lie and many others. Moderator Kaitlan Collins attempted to fact check Trump in real time, but cheered on by a supportive audience of Republicans, the former president spoke over Collins and refused to concede making any false statements.

Amanpour, who served as the commencement speaker at Columbia as well as accepted the Columbia Journalism Award on Wednesday, said the town hall format served Trump well, but not viewers. “I still respectfully disagree with allowing Donald Trump to appear in that particular format,” she said. “We know Trump and his tendencies, everyone does. He just seizes the stage and dominates,” no matter how determined a moderator is to hold him accountable.

The standard line here is that Trump "lied" that the 2020 election was "stolen", but even in its own fact-check of Trump's town hall, CNN was forced to acknowledge that he used the term "rigged", not "stolen".

Just minutes after the town hall began, Trump claimed the 2020 election was “rigged.”

Facts First: This is Trump’s regular lie. He lost the 2020 election to Biden fair and square, 306 to 232 in the Electoral College. Biden earned more than 7 million more votes than Trump did. Trump’s own campaign and senior officials in his administration found no evidence for his claims of widespread fraud.

But the letter from 51 former intelligence officials claiming the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation has recently been characterized by politicians other than Trump as an attempt to influence the 2020 election. The Durham Report implicates the FBI in attempts to interfere in the electoral process as well.

Legacy media, in calling the Trump town hall an "earthquake", is backhandedly acknowledging that it's been misreading the public mood -- efforts to fact-check Trump's statements at the town hall and afterward simply fell flat; the audience laughed in all the wrong places. The problem as well is that Trump has long since acquired immunity to all the usual accusations. The Access Hollywood tape and Stormy Daniels didn't work in 2016, and E Jean Carroll isn't working now.

The same thing seems to be happening with all the Russia collusion and similar stories, and this extends to January 6, and for that matter the Mar-a-Lago classified documents. There's enough in the Durham Report to feed suspicion that the Stasified FBI is behind the other things as well.

So far, Trump's opponents are going to have to come up with something new, and so far, they haven't. That which doesn't kill himn is making him stronger. The applicable narratives are neo-noir: The Dark Knight Rises, the Bourne trilogy, John Wick. There's a new political paradigm here. A writer's guide to hero archetypes brings up The Warrior:

This is exactly what it says. It's every Jason Bourne or John Wick movie, not to mention most of Tom Cruise's work in the last two decades. It's the guy (or girl, hence Salt or Black Widow) who gets knocked down but keeps getting up because America/freedom/Sparta/save the victim, etc.

In the current imaginative context, this is John Wick going against Dylan Mulvaney, Bud Light, and Sam Brinton, who are effectively surrogates for Joe Biden, who in turn is disturbingly close to the Emperor Palpatine. This is not a contest.

But as a figure who plays on the public imagination, Trump is more than that. He's Till Eulenspiegel, and as I've already said, the truth-teller and the practical joker, both Holden Caulfield and Froggy Gremlin. The last strategy that'll work with someone like that will be for a Hillary Clinton, a Christiane Amanpour, a Kaitlan Collins, or a Miss Watson to frown on him disapprovingly from above. Bwetween the warrior hero and Till Eulenspiegel, he's going to be tough to beat, and his opponents are still in denial over what they're up against.