Ron DeSantis began 2023 poised to crush Donald Trump. But a combination of bad luck and an inept campaign destroyed his early lead, opening the door for a clown car of other candidates to try to take his place in second. This culminated in an explosive series of debates, where an increasingly nasty feud between Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy left Haley with the momentum to finally unite the opposition to Trump, including an unprecedented intervention by the donor class. But while DeSantis, Ramaswamy, Haley, and the other candidates squabbled amongst themselves, Donald Trump solidified an overwhelming polling lead.

In the first bonus episode of TrumpLand, we begin the story of the 2024 Republican presidential primary with the aftermath of the 2020 election. After Donald Trump left office, leaving behind a wrecked party and shaken country, the conservative movement had to figure out a new path forward. The parental rights movement, Christian Nationalists, and National Conservatives attempted to harness the backlash to the Black Lives Matter Movement and pandemic restrictions into a new conservative revolution, but with mixed results. Trump stormed back onto the scene in the 2022 midterms, but his endorsed candidates underperformed, leading many Republicans to call on the party to reject him in 2024. And as a bruised but defiant Trump launched his 2024 campaign, many pointed to a promising conservative alternative: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

0:00 - Intro

3:23 - The Next Revolution

9:02 - National Conservatism and the Culture Wars

17:14 - The Midterms

28:08 - Disarray

32:19 - DeFuture

After securing the Republican presidential nomination, Donald Trump faced Hillary Clinton in the 2016 general election. And he spent the entire campaign apparently destroying what little chance he had at victory through gaffes, missteps, and controversies, culminating with the infamous Access Hollywood tape. But, it turned out, none of that mattered. After analyzing Trump's victory, we give a broad overview of the Trump presidency, and end with a review of the series as a whole, focusing on what we should take away from the events of 2016 and how they can help us understand our world today.

0:00 - Intro

1:52 - The Democrats

5:33 - I'm With Her

14:05 - The Results

23:36 - The "Resistance"

29:17 - 2017-2018: Welcome to TrumpLand

42:24 -2019-2020: Meltdown

52:49 - Review: Why Trump? What Now?