Weekend preview/quick take: Putin's invasion of Ukraine, and Trump's 2024 campaign

 This weekend, I'll ask the crass, but unfortunately important question:  has Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine done anything to change the 2024 electoral landscape here?  My current thinking, reserving the right to change my mind about anything, anytime, is that yes.  It has.  Perversely, it helps Trump.  By any moral standard, it should destroy Trump, but he should have been undone by his obvious lack of intelligence or qualifications, the "grab 'em by the pussy" tape, and any number of other traits and events in his political career.  Yes, he lost in 2020, but he didn't go away.  Like herpes, he never goes away, but he is far more deadly.  "Surely, this will be the thing that makes Republicans see how bad he is and abandon him," and it never happens.  And stop calling me "Shirley."  And stop making me make that reference.  That movie sucked.

Yes, the Ukraine invasion reveals the moral cost of Trump's subservience to Putin, particularly grotesque given his attempt to shake down Zelensky on weapons for a campaign statement against Biden.  Yes, Donald Trump went on to praise Putin as "genius" during the most terrifyingly vile actions taken so far in the 21st Century, 9/11 included.

But here's how it plays out.  Regardless of how tough the GOP talks about Putin now, the only thing that ends Trump's death-grip on the GOP is Trump's death.  Once the campaign starts in earnest, Trump will say it's all Biden's fault, and it never would have happened if he had been president, and 2020 was stolen, and the entire party will line up behind him, as spinelessly subservient to him as he is to Putin.  Effect on the GOP primary?  Nada.

Then, the general election.  General elections turn on the economy and presidential approval.  Inflation doesn't directly affect the general election, but it can affect the incumbent's approval.  Drive up inflation with fuel prices, and that helps Trump.  Stagflation?  Even better for Trump.

There's shit we need to do, but there's a price we pay, and there is a cost to the incumbent's approval because the American public is, generally speaking, useless and stupid.  Who benefits?  Trump.

So this is my thinking right now.  Elaboration to come.