It was July 2020 and I was with my family at a waterpark in Arizona. I had no idea that my cell phone, stowed away for the day in a park locker, was blowing up with people eager to ask me if I had heard what just happened.
Foremost among those who left texts, messages, and voicemails was Babylon Bee founder and Not the Bee cofounder Adam Ford, begging me to call him back as soon as I got a chance.
That day, the 7th of July, famed radio host and father of modern conservatism Rush Limbaugh had read from an opinion piece I had written live on the air. It was one of the coolest moments for me, having grown up listening to Limbaugh and appreciating his ability to cut through the muck and morass of politics to speak to issues directly.
My article that he read from that day, which you can still see archived here, was entitled "President Trump Can Win in 2020 By Doing This 1 Thing." What's funny was that I have never been, and I wasn't then, aboard the Trump Train. I had written what I saw as a simple analysis of what Trump had to do in order to win the 2020 election.
For the record, he did not do that one thing, and he did not win the 2020 election.
Though Limbaugh is gone now, and though I still am in an almost bewildered state of disbelief that the Republican Party has decided to go with the almost 78-year-old former president as their nominee again in 2024, I find myself offering the Trump campaign the one thing that they can do to win the upcoming presidential election.
By the way, what I'm about to write holds true whether the campaign ends up being against Biden (which I highly doubt will be the case), Michelle Obama, Hillary, Gavin Newsom, or anyone else.
If Donald J. Trump wants to serve as America's 47th president, he needs to focus like a laser on one issue: The national security and economic security crises instigated and aggravated by the four-year failure at our southern border.
President Biden began his disastrous term by officially ending the border emergency that Trump had declared, and has persisted in downplaying the unfolding catastrophe. Whistling past that graveyard has appeased and pleased the radical open-borders wing of his political movement, but the shrewd maneuvers of Republican governors like Ron DeSantis of Florida and Greg Abbott of Texas have changed the dynamic entirely.
Now Democrat-run cities like Chicago and New York are being forced to deal with a minuscule fraction of the illegal immigrant influx that southern states have endured, and they are at the breaking point. This places the Biden team in an impossible position to navigate: Continuing to please the open-borders Left will cost them support of legions of Democrat voters in the inner cities. Reversing course costs them their base.
As the challenger in this race, Trump should be able to reinvent his campaign strategy, and this should be it.
Talk about the border all day, every day.
Tie all other issues - economics, inflation, purchasing power, social programs, national security - to this crisis. Press and don't relent.
This is the singular message that he needs to be putting out all the time:
Now that Texas has courageously gone toe-to-toe with the federal government by strengthening its own border, all while the feds attempt to weaken it, Trump would be wise to look to the Lone Star State for his running mate. Forget Kristi Noem, Tim Scott, or any of the other names being discussed. Go for broke and select Governor Greg Abbott to show how serious he is about getting the problem fixed.
This has nothing to do with my preferences, this is simply an analysis of how he wins. Open and shut.
Now, do I think he'll do any of that? Of course not. I'm not sure he's capable of it even if he wanted to. First, he's far too self-absorbed to avoid the angry, victim-centric, vendetta-driven rants like this:
This is precisely why the Left and the mainstream media (but I repeat myself) wanted Trump so desperately. He is notoriously undisciplined and will happily be baited into centering the upcoming election around his favorite topic: Him.
