As people wonder whether Donald Trump will run again in 2024, some, like National Review’s Charles C.W. Cooke, hope that he won’t. Others, like The Spectator’s Roger Kimball, argue that mentality is what got us into a mess to begin with. He rebuts Cooke by arguing:

I confess that I have never been able to get my mind around the animus that fuels the anti-Trump, well, mania. Charlie’s word is apt. I understand that there are plenty of things to criticize about Trump. Indeed, I went into the 2016 election writing a passel of columns criticizing him when not ridiculing him. After the briefest dalliance with Scott Walker, I was an enthusiastic supporter of Ted Cruz, a politician I continue to admire.

But as Charlie observes, “politics matters,” and when Cruz bowed out and the real choice … was between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton I regarded as impossible. Among other things, I think she is (with the possible exception of Joe Biden) among the most corrupt people ever to run for the office. But I also didn’t like the idea of passing the presidency as a prize between a handful of families. Anyway, faute de mieux, it was Trump.

At least, it was faute de mieux at the beginning. As the campaign went into the home stretch, I found myself agreeing with more and more of what Trump said. The United States needed to protect the border: check. We needed to put America First on everything from trade to national security: check. Democratic-run inner cities were disasters: check. We needed to exploit our energy resources — especially our abundant supplies of coal, gas and oil: check. We needed to say no to the “green energy” fanatics: check. We needed judges and justices who embodied the judicial philosophy of Antonin Scalia: check. You know the list: it is long and robust.

To everyone’s amazement, Trump won. What then? He began keeping his promises. One by one, he kept them. The border? Yes. The Keystone pipeline and fracking? Yes. By the time Trump left office, America was energy independent; indeed, it was a net exporter of energy. Now Joe Biden is begging Iran and Venezuela to sell us oil. Three Supreme Court justices and hundreds of federal judges? Yes. The stock market boomed under Trump even as unemployment, especially minority unemployment, sank to historic lows. He enacted historic tax cuts. He spent a trillion or two upgrading the military. He moved our embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. The world was supposed to end when he did that, but it didn’t.

The list goes on and on. About the only promise that Trump made that he couldn’t deliver on was ending Obamacare, but that was because of the venal John McCain, who put his personal hatred of Trump above his party’s and his country’s interest.

Was Trump “divisive”? Yes, but more so than Joe Biden? Is he “extraordinarily selfish,” as Charlie says? I don’t know. Stories of his personal generosity to individuals abound, but who cares? Politicians are not running for sainthood. In my judgment, Trump had the single most successful first term of any president in recent memory.

As for the election complaints and January 6, Kimball says, “The more we learn about the 2020 election, the more understandable Trump’s unhappiness is,” as well as his supporters.

The biggest mark against Trump, says Kimball, is his age: “If my math is right, Trump would be the same age in January 2025 that Joe Biden was when he took office. That is not encouraging. … That said, I would eagerly support Trump should he be the nominee.” He concludes:

Trump is an intruder on the regime class of American politics. Once upon a time, it boasted lots of homespun elements. But for decades now it has been the province of an administrative elite whose perfect incarnation is Davos Man. Such people believe they have a natural, almost an hereditary, right to rule. The American people disabused them of that presumption in 2016. The elite was aghast and vowed never to let it happen again.

That’s why they are moving heaven and earth to prevent a return showing in 2024.

Read the whole thing here.