The Bush to Obama to Trump to Biden to Trump Again pipeline is roller-coaster. But I'm afraid it really does exist.

Plenty of lay voters ping-pong between whichever political leader is popular or trending, because their media of choice is more interested in spinning out an exciting, engaging narrative than building any kind of ideology or class character within the audience. Trump was going to "Drain the Swamp" in the same way Obama was going to "Yes We Can" and Bush was going to "Restore Honor and Integrity To The White House".

The end of this ride is just burnout. People getting whiplash from being dragged liberal/conservative/liberal/conservative by their nose for too long and just growing cold and cynical. This lasts until a sufficiently exciting media campaign juices them back up again for one more rug pull.

If you're hoping that there's some subset of people who are Getting What They Deserve, you're falling into the same trap that gave us Trump to begin with. You're losing any kind of faith in a better country or a better kind of politics and just settling for "I hope my ideological opponents are miserable".

The people who really won the Trump '24 campaign are the ones currently crawling into the brains of Third Way Democrats like a worm RFK picked up off a dead dog's carcass. They're not suffering. They're not going to lose the next election cycle, no matter what happens. They won't be the one's getting their faces eaten. They'll just change out their skins for a new set of spots.