What's The Real 2024 Subtext?

A CNN op-ed from Julian Zelizer, a Princeton history professor, from last Friday asks some productive questions about Trump's so-far highly successful 2024 candidacy:

Following Trump’s strong showing in the New Hampshire primary, which has effectively knocked his final opponent — former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley — out of the race, some of his critics continue to search for slivers of good news.

They point to the fact that despite “almost” being an incumbent, he didn’t receive a share of the vote on par with what previous incumbents have encountered in primary contests. Incumbents usually bring to the table unequaled name recognition, fund-raising capacity and the benefit of looking presidential as they run for reelection. Trump has most of this, with his supporters holding on to the memory of him in the Oval Office, and with many of his backers believing he literally won the presidency in 2020, yet Haley pulled a decent part of the electorate away from him.

The ambiguity of Trump's quasi-incumbent status is generally acknowledged, not least by Joe Biden himself over the weekend:

While giving an economic speech to voters in South Carolina, Biden stated, “Did you see what he recently said about. . . he wants to see the economy crash this year? A Sitting President.”

Prof Zelizer come close to the point when he notes that many of Trump's backers believe he literally won the election. On the other hand, I think it's more accurate to say they'll sign on to the idea that the election was "stolen". The connotation of the word goes far beyond any literal definition of a property crime; definition 3 for "steal" in this on line dictionary is "to take or gain insidiously or artfully", as in "he stole her heart" or "she stole the spotlight".

Wikipedia continues to characterize Trump's insistence that the 2020 election was "stolen" as a "conspiracy theory":

As of June 2021, Trump has continued to echo the conspiracy theory that the election was "stolen"; particularly focusing on the efforts of Arizona Senate Republicans to audit the results of the election in Maricopa County and on a lawsuit disputing the results of the election in Georgia.

But even absent proof of electoral fraud sufficient to overturn ballot results, the use of the word "stolen" outside a specific legal context isn't a conspiracy theory; it's no more of a big lie than to claim an umpire is blind or someone can't organize a two-car funeral, when after all, if we check the facts, he quite possibly can, and for that matter, the umpire can see perfecly well.

The fact is that since 2020, the American public has seen a sequence of stories from establishment opinionmakers that have been, at minimum, hinky, ranging from COVID and its multifold subsidiary embargoes that have proven unnecessary and destructive; to George Floyd, Black Lives Matter, and "mostly peaceful protests"; to January 6 and the many unanswered questions about government provocateurs, deliberately withheld National Guard troops, and mysteriously unexploded pipe bombs.

If there was an effort to conceal from the public the simple question of whether Joe Biden was actually capable of performing in the chief executive role, the metaphorical use of the word "stolen" is entirely appropriate. Biden's increasingly visible struggle just to handle the basics of his job -- for whatever reason -- is a major 2024 issue:

The most pressing political challenge confronting President Joe Biden as he drifts uncontested toward renomination is that which he can do the least about: voters’ profound misgivings about his age and fitness to serve another full term.

Yet what’s striking, and to his allies increasingly unnerving, is Biden’s unwillingness even to try to fully address questions about his capacity to run for reelection next year, when he’ll turn 82.

There's been a mostly unexpressed misgiving over the past four years that Biden was misrepresented, both as a capable executive and as a unifying figure, in the 2020 election, with the outcome "stolen" in the metaphorical sense beyond any need to prove specific electoral fraud. Nor can this misgiving be dismissed as just a conspiracy theory; thre's a significant feeling of discomfort about Biden's occupancy in the White House that 's reflected in a desire, if not to reverse the 2020 election outright, at least to do it over.

This is what's behind the ambiguity in Trump's status as a quasi-incumbent, a sense that if he wasn't duly elected in 2020, by all indications, he should have been, and the 2024 election will be a do-over.