An uncharacteristically reserved Donald Trump took to the Mar-a-Lago stage on Tuesday night. Perhaps smarting from a less-than-stellar turn by his anointed candidates in the Midterms, or perhaps finally tiring from age and exertion, Trump declared his 2024 Presidential run in almost robotic cadence. It was a far cry from the hyped-up MAGA-warrior who took to the rally stage in Pennsylvania a week earlier, taking gratuitous pot-shots at his emergent rival and home state Governor, Ron DeSantis.

Fatigued or not, Trump is in the race to win. Any illusions he was only ever using Presidential politics as a means of self-promotion should have evaporated that fateful night in November 2016. What’s increasingly evident, however, is how rapidly enthusiasm for ‘Trump 2024’ is evaporating amongst his base. Perhaps that’s why Trump – a born showman who feeds viscerally on the energy of his crowds, didn’t quite hit his stride at the podium on Tuesday.

In large part, the right’s pundit class has jumped off the Trump train and onto the DeSantis bandwagon. And why not? DeSantis is essentially Trump without the baggage. He’s actively practiced good governance in Florida, and succeeded where Trump failed in surrounding himself with loyal advisors prepared to act in the best interests of the electorate. He’s a magnificent Governor, and surely stands out as ‘man-most-likely’, in the broad surveyance of Presidential hopefuls for decades to come.

The American right’s argument on Trump is now thus: He won’t change, so he can’t win; ergo, we’ll change, so we can win. The right – broadly – now believes that lest they lose all hope of winning over reticent ‘Never-trump’ voters, they need a new leader. That leader is clearly Ron DeSantis. However, DeSantis’ success against Trump, both inside and outside the Republican party, is by no means assured.

That Trump fancies himself over DeSantis is a fact almost universally attributed to the sheer force of his ego. His wanton obstinacy in refusing to give an inch in conceding seems to underscore this. But framing any looming battle with a party-anointed DeSantis (or other opponents) as a case of ‘Trump just being Trump’, eschews the considerable tactical calculations that the 45th President brings to his candidacy.

Trump knows with near certainty that if the 2024 Republican primary manifests as a pugilists’ battle to save America from certain death, he’ll likely be victorious. DeSantis is a fighter. But he hasn’t faced the threat of lifelong investigation, a hostile administrative state, and a media class in cahoots with a national security apparatus religiously devoted to his annihilation. Trump has, and his ability to remain competitive regardless, shows something of a superhuman capacity to withstand political stress. Trump will be betting that the nature of the contest alone will see him emerge as the better candidate to achieve long-held America-first aims.

Trump also has considerable reason to believe the state of the Union may well devolve quickly enough to see the American people seek him out again. Economic and security indicators are flashing bright red. Joe Biden’s strategic weakness has plunged Europe into chaos, and an ascendant China holds decreasing fears over America’s capacity to hold it accountable in the Pacific. Global war is a real possibility. Trump knows this, and made sure it was included in his announcement as a deliberate mark against Biden’s name.

Biden too, has destroyed American energy independence. The consequent effect on inflation has now ensured energy costs will continue to percolate as an issue within the electorate. Whilst DeSantis can run on energy, he can’t do so as effectively as Trump, who ‘owns’ the issue lock stock and barrel, having staked his claim as the President who achieved net-exporter-of-energy status for the United States. Energy prices are only going to continue to spiral under Biden, ruining the living standards of hundreds of millions of Americans.

Illegal immigration will also continue to worsen in years ahead. On November 16 New York Senator Chuck Schumer advertised Democrat intentions to give amnesty to over 11 million illegal immigrants currently residing in the United States, most of whom arrived via the Biden regime’s wide-open Southern border. This is the stuff of banana republics. Trump knows that even the most tolerant and open-hearted Americans won’t abide this wholesale destruction of nationhood by proxy. Who, might we ask, owns strong borders more than Trump? Again, DeSantis will be competitive, but ‘build the wall’ he did not.

Blind Freddy knows that even had Republicans taken back both houses at the midterms, there is little that can stop America continuing its precipitous decline under Joe Biden. Nothing short of a determined new Commander in Chief, or a veto-proof Republican supermajority prepared to enact a radical America-first legislative program can stop that now.

Trump may be unconventional, but he is not without shrewd political judgment. His run was calculated in 2016, and it is calculated now. He sees the United States as a mighty mass of problems, pushed towards its death by hostile forces, and trapped helplessly in the clouds of its own inertia. He knows things will get worse from here, and that America may well seek out a more powerful force (however much baggage that force may carry) as the only thing that can arrest the nation’s slide.

Ben Crocker’s substack is Crocker’s Columns.