IMHO, the sackcloth and ashes routine is unwarranted. Trump will get to finish the job that Bannon got him to start - fire all the GOP incumbents opposed to the Trump agenda during the primary process. He’ll then have people who owe him when he returns to the White House in 2024.
You may think this is far-fetched and whistling past the graveyard. But there are solid historical reasons for optimism. Let’s assume the Democrats’ basic premise is true, i.e. that Trump lost fair and square. Trump’s loss wasn’t terrible - a couple of hundred thousand votes short in the swing states that decide the White House race. This is in the face of two outlier events - a mass casualty pandemic and the resultant economic depression representing the worst downturn since the Great Depression.
The Democrats expected a complete sweep of the states, both at the White House and Congressional levels. FDR got a 413 electoral vote victory margin. Biden’s was 74. The 1932 House elections gave the Democrats a 196-seat margin, vs the ~12-seat margin they got in 2020. The 1932 Senate elections moved the Democrats to a 22-seat margin, vs the 1-seat margin (thanks to the VP tie breaker vote) they just got after the 2021 GA runoffs. This was a blue wave a toddler could safely paddle in, not a tsunami.
If you accept the Democratic premise that Trump lost by 7m votes, that’s a Biden popular vote margin of 4%. FDR’s victory margin over Hoover? 28%.
That’s why they’re trying to prevent Trump from running again. He’s no Herbert Hoover, whose political career was over the day the results came in. The Dems aren’t afraid Trump will get the 2024 GOP nomination and lose in the general. They’re worried that one hiccup or other before 2024 will send Trump back to the White House with commanding GOP majorities, but this time cleansed of the never-Trumpers who gave him so much trouble in his first term.
If Trump intends to run again, the interval from now until presidential season should* involve the installation of Republicans who support the Trump agenda in the midterms, and the removal of those who don’t. Bannon’s quest to populate elected offices with Trump supporters needs to resume, so that when Trump re-enters the White House, his agenda is ready to go from Day 1.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1932_United_States_presidential_election
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1932_United_States_Senate_elections
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_Senate_elections
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1932_United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections
You could also compare the numbers to those from the Spanish Flu election of 1920. Something similar happened, except this time, the incumbent Democrats lost big, with the GOP getting a 2/3 majority in the House. They would probably have gotten the same thing in the Senate, if every seat was up for grabs, rather than just 1/3. Point being that the pollsters were presumably modeling their blue wave poll results on 1920 and 1932, which were disastrous for the incumbents and resulted in ~300 and up electoral vote victory margins (i.e. winner - loser EV’s). Now that was a mandate. Whereas Biden had a ~70 EV margin, based on 1-2% popular vote margins in the swing states being litigated over. He’s skating on very thin ice.
* The big question is obviously whether Trump will run. Given what we’ve seen of Trump’s decision-making process, maybe he himself doesn’t know the answer.
The thing about such a comeback is that it’s so rare, it would be another superlative to add to his record - a real feather in his cap. Health permitting, I don’t see him not running. Fred Trump only began displaying signs of dementia at age 86, dying at age 93, so it would not surprise me if the Donald were physically up to the challenges of another term in the White House.
Why did Trump fall out with Bannon in 2017?
Nothing will change in a second term, including the fact that Trump will re-appoint or retain hundreds of Biden, Obama, and Bush loyalists.
On the other hand, Trump is the only Republican who can win a presidential election, and he will always be more Conservative than the Democrat alternative.