Last week, Donald Trump all but announced he will run for president in 2024. “In my own mind, I’ve already made that decision,” Trump told Olivia Nuzzi of New York magazine, adding that the main question for him was not whether he would run but whether to announce his campaign before or after the 2022 midterm elections. Trump has also been meeting with big donors to gauge support for a 2024 run, Politico reported.

It would be great if we could treat Trump as the loser has-been that in many ways he is. Does anyone really want to think about another four years of this? But unfortunately, we still have to take Trump seriously. He remains the most popular figure in the Republican Party by far. And more importantly, he’s the man the intersecting forces of right-wing activism and the right-wing judiciary need for 2024.

Any other ex-president who had achieved so little in office, who had lost the Electoral College and the popular vote by significant margins, who improvised a failed and ridiculous coup d’état, and who faced the real possibility of indictment and other serious legal problems across multiple venues might have considered sitting 2024 out.