GOP Pollster Frank Luntz Hits The Panic Button on Trump’s Possible Reelection: ‘Conceivable That in 2024 The Country Comes Apart’
Pollster Frank Luntz, who is best known for his work with Republican candidates and as a media commentator, offered a dire warning to the U.S. public this week in an interview published by The Sydney Morning Herald.
Luntz spoke with Latika Bourke while in London addressing the Centre for Policy Studies’ Margaret Thatcher conference and walked back comments he made in 2021 in which he declared former President Donald Trump would never return to the presidency.
“I now have to acknowledge that it is a distinct possibility that Donald Trump could be elected president – I did not believe that one year ago,” Luntz told Bourke. In the interview, published Monday, Luntz argued that Trump’s domestic opponents and the way the court cases against him have been handled have dealt Trump back in and given him a real shot at winning another general election.
“I did not believe that the search of Mar-a-Lago would be handled so badly, I did not believe that the indictment of him in New York would be handled so badly,” Luntz argued, adding:
I did not believe that his opponents would be so inept as to actually strengthen him and the combination of all of those makes him now viable, not just in the Republican primary but in the general election.
Luntz then explained to Bourke that Trump’s positioning in the 2024 race is an existential threat to U.S. democracy and even went so far as to quantify the odds of the U.S. breaking apart.
“It’s now conceivable that in 2024 the country comes apart,” he declared, adding:
We have a 15 percent likelihood of that destroying American democracy depending on what happens.
NATO is in jeopardy, clearly. Ukraine will no longer receive American support. Our legal system will be in jeopardy – I don’t want to contemplate it.
It was never conceivable before, just as January 6 wasn’t conceivable, just as the election day wasn’t conceivable, just as Roe v Wade being overturned wasn’t conceivable.
The Roman Empire could never fall until it fell, the sun never set on the British Empire until it came apart, the Greeks created civilisation and now look where Greece is.
“Everything that I would have [previously] said to you was impossible is actually happening,” Luntz told Bourke at one point referring back to his interview in October 2021, in which he said, “He will not win. If Trump runs again he will be nominated by the Republicans, but he will never be elected president because there are too many people who hate him.”
Luntz went on to argue that media silos and the lack of agreed-upon general facts in the country are threatening to tear down U.S. democracy. “Democracies can survive negativity and they can survive division. They cannot survive rejection of the truth because in the end, the foundation of democracy is knowing the truth, that’s how voters vote correctly,” Luntz said in the interview.
“The moment you stop seeking the truth and start rejecting it, actively, that’s the moment when you lose this wonderful system of government, and we are there right now,” he concluded.
Luntz went on to explain how Trump has used the indictments against him to create his own narrative and win back voters. “He actually knows the language of victimisation better than any politician I’ve seen anywhere across the globe, and he uses it effectively and has caused people to rally around him.”
“So he’s actually stronger today under two indictments, being found guilty of sexual assault, he’s actually politically stronger today than he was one year ago,” Luntz argued.
