Susan Arnold, writing at Townhall, August 11, reported that Republican support for Donald J. Trump to seek a second term as president increased, significantly, in the aftermath of the FBI swoop-down on his Mar-a-Lago home, August 8.  What if this is just as Democrat Machiavellians figured?  What if the Democrat political masterminds (definitely not including our hapless president) believe that their best chance to hold the presidency in 2025 would be if Donald J. Trump is the GOP candidate in 2024?

Think about it.  The Democrats, by now — those who direct party strategy — know Mr. Trump inside-out.  In particular, they are well experienced in baiting him to make some remark to throttle him with.  Sure, they did not force him from office during his first term, but they succeeded in blocking him from coming to a rapprochement with Russia.  The Democrat resistance didn't keep Mr. Trump from improving the economy, but, by and large, they kept him on the defensive with the Mueller probe, lasting nearly two years, followed by two impeachments.  And then there was the 2020 summer of rage, in which leftist rioters put so many inner cities to the torch — without much meaningful push-back from local police forces, nor federal forces controlled by President Trump.

Here is a question pollsters have not dared put to the U.S. voter: did you vote for Biden believing that your community would go up in flames if Donald Trump were re-elected in 2020?  Such a question would be justified by all those store-owners across the homeland who covered their windows with plywood boards in the days before the 2020 elections, fearing leftist rioting had Trump been re-elected.

If voters elected Biden in 2020 over Trump, wouldn't they be likely to vote for the Democrat over Mr. Trump in 2024?  For Democrats, Donald J. Trump is a known figure, and for all their demonizing him — indeed, because they demonize him with abandon — he is hardly an intimidating personality.  A Republican candidate like Florida governor Ron DeSantis, nearly half the age of Mr. Trump, might be a political personality more difficult to deal with.

Bear in mind, if Democrats have no qualms about tying into knots the wishes of President Trump, would the bureaucracy be intimidated by him?  Think back to the impeachment testimony of foreign policy adviser Fiona Hill, who made it clear that she expected it was Mr. Trump's responsibility to do as he was told, that policy did not originate from the top down.  A candidate like Gov. DeSantis would likely brook no resistance from bureaucratic functionaries and, from his time as Florida governor, would know very well how to deal with resisters on staff.

If indeed a Trump candidacy in 2024, for the Democrats, is the functional equivalent of putting a Democrat B'rer Rabbit in the briar patch, increased GOP support for a third Trump run for the presidency might well gladden the hearts of the Machiavellians on the left, who seem to run rings around Republicans a lot more often than not.

Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.