Trump allies say he's the future of the GOP. Americans want him out of politics.

While some of Donald Trump’s longtime political allies insist he has a future in politics, including possibly another run for the presidency in 2024, recent polling indicates that most Republicans don’t want him to run in 2024 — and most Americans want him out of politics altogether.

Trump was impeached in the House of Representatives for the second time Jan. 13, this time for his role in inciting the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol the week before by far-right extremists; his trial in the Senate begins on Tuesday.

Trump loyalists claim that his political clout remains secure.

In an appearance on CBS Monday, Sen. Lindsey Graham said,

I think I’m ready to move on. I’m ready to end the impeachment trial because I think it is blatantly unconstitutional. I’m ready to get on with trying to solve the nation’s problems. And as to Donald Trump, he is the most popular figure in the Republican Party. He had a consequential presidency. January the 6th was a very bad day for America, and he’ll get his share of blame in history. But I do believe that in 2022, the Republican Party is going to come roaring back because our friends on the Democratic Party — on the Democratic side are going to change immigration policy to have caravan after caravan hit our borders.

“You still believe President Trump is the best face for the Republican Party? Yes or no?” interviewer Margaret Brennan later asked.

“I think he’s — I think he’s the — yeah, I think, yeah. I think — I think Donald Trump’s policies served the country well. I think Donald Trump has to rehabilitate himself as a politician,” Graham answered.

On Sunday, Trump’s former campaign manager Brad Parscale tweeted that Trump should run for president in 2024:

If Trump asked me how to win again. I would run on being impeached twice. They are about to give him super powers. They just aren’t smart enough to see it. It’s why we laughed at Mike Tyson in the Hangover. They just don’t get it yet. They are about to make him a martyr.

“He’s Teflon, right?” a Trump campaign official told Politico this week. “It’s been a month since the Capitol riot and I would say, for the most part, the GOP has coalesced back behind him.”

Recent data paints a less rosy picture of Trump’s future political career.

According to a FiveThirtyEight poll, 50.2% of Americans think Trump should be convicted in the Senate for inciting the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, and 55.1% want to ban him from holding future office. Among Republicans, FiveThirty Eight found that 13.2% think he should be convicted in the Senate and 19.8% think he should be barred from future office.

An Echelon Insights poll found 21% of Republican voters think Trump should be convicted, and nearly 30% of them think he should be banned from future office.

The same poll found that in December, 65% of Republican voters said they’d like to see Trump run for president in 2024 — but that after Jan. 6, that figure dropped by 20 points to 45%.

A Pew Research poll conducted in mid-January found that 68% of Americans do not want Trump to remain a significant player in American politics.

Some experts say that a Trump comeback cannot be ruled out. Ipsos pollster Clifford Young told the BBC, “I don’t think what we’re seeing suggests he loses political relevance and resonance. Anyone who says that is kidding themselves. He still has a significant base.”

Trump has not announced his future political aspirations. He told a small crowd at his departure from Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on President Joe Biden’s Inauguration Day, “We will be back in some form,” but has said nothing specific.

Trump faces potential criminal charges and civil litigation in connection with a number of alleged offenses, both federal and state, some of which involve his namesake company.

And this week, the office of Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said that it had opened an investigation into alleged attempts by Trump to overturn the state’s 2020 presidential election results, including a phone call to Raffensperger in which Trump allegedly told him, “All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state.”

Reports persist that Trump may have plans to start his own cable TV network.

Asked during an appearance on CNN whether “Trump TV” was a real possibility, the CEO of right-wing network Newsmax, Christopher Ruddy, avoided the question. “I certainly would love to have Donald Trump on Newsmax a lot, whether he’s president or not. I think he is great television,” he said.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.