Despite media reports that Trump is perpetually furious and feeling besieged, he has never shown the slightest brittleness or sense of being overwhelmed in public. He’s always his same ebullient, combative, outrageous self.
He’s the least likely president to get worn down by an impeachment fight. What would discourage or deflate the normal human energizes him.
The same applies even more to his running for reelection. After enduring several years of having to govern, not his natural aptitude, why would he throw away the opportunity to campaign, which he clearly relishes?
Because he’d be convinced he’d lose? Short of a Mueller catastrophe, this doesn’t seem very likely. Remember: All sorts of people tried to convince him he’d lose last time, and they were all wrong. Having won the presidency once polling at a little over 40 percent in the RealClearPolitics average, he’d surely figure that he could do it again.
or any president, winning a second term is the highest validation. Trump, so sensitive to status, must feel this imperative more than most.
Naked self-interest also counsels against retiring to his tent. Back in New York, he’d have an enormous legal target on his back, and none of the institutional protections of the presidency. He could be indicted by the Southern District of New York over the Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal payments. Going from most powerful man in the world to a defendant in an embarrassing criminal trial would be a very unwelcome comedown.
Besides all this, no one should really hope for a premature end to the Trump presidency. Whatever the exact circumstances, it’d be a trauma to the republic and not accepted by a significant plurality of the electorate. The wish fulfillment of Trump’s critics is better directed toward the less spectacular, yet difficult-enough task of beating him in 2020.