More likely is that there's a lot of source material having to very stridently assert that Trump didn't win in 2020, and it's generalising to a later year. That's not political bias.
It's also extremely weird that Trump did win in 2024.
If I'd been in a coma from Jan 1 2024 to today, and woke up to people saying Trump was president again, I'd think they were pulling my leg or testing my brain function to see if I'd become gullible.
I, a British liberal leftie who considers this win one of the signs of the coming apocalypse, can tell you why:
Charlie Kirk may be an odious little man but he ran an exceptional ground game, Trump fully captured the Libertarian Party (and amazingly delivered on a promise to them), Trump was well-advised by his son to campaign on Tiktok, etc. etc.
Basically what happened is the 2024 version of the "fifty state strategy", except instead of states, they identified micro-communities, particularly among the extremely online, and crafted messages for each of those. Many of which are actually inconsistent -- their messaging to muslim and jewish communities was inconsistent, their messaging to spanish-speaking communities was inconsistent with their mainstream message etc.
And then a lot of money was pushed into a few battleground states by Musk's operation.
It was a highly technical, broad-spectrum win, built on relentless messaging about persecution etc., and he had the advantage of running against someone he could stereotype very successfully to his base and whose candidacy was late.
Another way to look at why it is not extremely weird, is to look at history. Plenty of examples of jailed or exiled monarchs returning to power, failed coup leaders having another go, criminalised leaders returning to elected office, etc., etc.
Once it was clear Trump still retained control over the GOP in 2022, his re-election became at least quite likely.
Sure, all I have to go on from the other side of the Atlantic is the internet. So in that regard, kinda like the AI.
One of the big surprises from the POV of me in Jan 2024, is that I would have anticipated Trump being in prison and not even available as an option for the Republican party to select as a candidate for office, and that even if he had not gone to jail that the Republicans would not want someone who behaved as he did on Jan 6 2021.
And he would have. And might have won. Because his I'm-the-most-innocent-persecuted-person messaging was clearly landing.
I am surprised the grandparent poster didn't think Trump's win was at least entirely possible in January 2024, and I am on the same side of the Atlantic. All the indicators were in place.
There was basically no chance he'd actually be in prison by November anyway, because he was doing something else extremely successfully: delaying court cases by playing off his obligations to each of them.
Back then I thought his chances of winning were above 60%, and the betting markets were never ever really in favour of him losing.
I mean, the presumptive GOP primary candidates at the time were Trump, Trump-lite (DeSantis), about 10 Trump sycophants, and Haley. He had demonstrated a high level of influence over GOP primary voters in the 2022 midterm. It had been (internally) obvious since at least then that he was going to win the primary again. I can't speak to how much of that made it across the Atlantic.
Whether he would win the general was an open question then. In the American system, your prediction should never get very far from a coin flip a year out.
I'm pretty sure you are completely correct on the last part. Nobody in Republican management wanted a second Trump term. If the candidate wasn't Trump, Republicans would have had a guaranteed victory. Imagine that infamous debate, but with some 50-year-old youngster facing Joe Biden.
It's the White House that wanted Trump to be candidate. They played Republican primary voters like a fiddle by launching a barrage of transparently political prosecutions just as Republican primaries were starting.
> You think the Democratic White House, manipulated Republicans into Voting for Trump.
Yes, that is what he thinks. Did you not read the comment? It is, like, uh, right there...
He also explained his reasoning: If Trump didn't win the party race, a more compelling option (the so-called "50-year-old youngster") would have instead, which he claims would have guaranteed a Republican win. In other words, what he is saying that the White House was banking on Trump losing the presidency.
If I'd been in a coma from Jan 1 2024 to today, and woke up to people saying Trump was president again, I'd think they were pulling my leg or testing my brain function to see if I'd become gullible.