“The problem with 2016 is that people waited ’til they were at their politically weakest point before they started pounding Trump,” said Tim Miller, a former top campaign aide to Jeb Bush who now writes for The Bulwark. “Could that have worked for Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz if they started in September? I don’t know, but it helps not to be on your deathbed.”

Miller and others point out that Trump’s defeats in office go well beyond the loss of just his job. Despite Trump’s repeated claims of “promises made, promises kept,” most of his big-ticket promises from 2016 never came to fruition.

The attack riff practically writes itself: “Remember how Trump kept saying how easy it would be to balance the federal budget (‘very quickly’), repeal Obamacare and replace it (‘with something terrific’), and sign a massive infrastructure bill? None of those things actually happened, except the infrastructure bill—which was signed by Joe Biden.”

Trump’s “big, beautiful wall” along the southern border? Only about 80 miles of new barrier were built where no structure was in place previously. Trump mostly presided over repairs and enhancements to the existing wall. And Mexico paid for none of it.