He’s baaaack: Trump’s impending return is a challenge for Republicans, Democrats and the nation

Many Republicans running for office this year proudly embrace Donald Trump and all the odious things he stands for. Others, at least slightly uncomfortable being associated with his fact-free election denialism, the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, and a long train of other abuses, merely insist that Trump isn’t on the ballot running, they are. But it’s now looking all but certain that Trump will be on the ballot, running for the White House for a third time as the presumptive GOP standard-bearer.

Trumpworld insiders tell reporters that the 45th president is looking at a 2024 kickoff next week, with plans to become the 21st century’s Grover Cleveland, serving two non-consecutive terms. If this news doesn’t goose midterm turnout on both sides, we don’t know what could.

We’ve said it before and must repeat: Donald Trump is not fit to be president. He wasn’t when rode the golden escalator down to Trump Tower’s basement to launch his campaign in 2015 and he wasn’t when he bested a crowded GOP field to take the nomination in 2016. He was unfit when he beat Hillary Clinton in the Electoral College and he was unfit when he took the oath of office, an oath he would break over and over.

Trump should have been convicted by the Senate and removed from office in his first impeachment trial over an attempt to strongarm Ukraine to smear Joe Biden, and he should have been convicted by the Senate and permanently barred from office in his second impeachment trial for encouraging a putsch on Jan. 6.

Instead, like a monster in the horror flick yet to be finally vanquished, he rises up again. His tight grasp of a significant chunk of Republican voters means that sane GOP voters, interest groups and candidates might need to coalesce around a single challenger to face down Trump over the soul of the party. Will they? Or will the Republican Party allow itself to be held captive for another four years by the worst demagogue ever to occupy the Oval Office?