Never Again Trump Can the GOP stop an indicted ex-president?
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Things weren’t going so well for Ron DeSantis even before Donald Trump was indicted. The Florida governor had dropped 30 points behind the ex-president in the last pre-indictment poll of Republicans and Republican-leaners. Back in mid-February, a major poll had showed DeSantis running almost even with Trump in a presumed primary contest.
You can insert your guess here as to why DeSantis has slumped so badly. His evasions and reversals on the Russian war in Ukraine? Trump’s hits on the governor’s votes against retirement benefits, culminating in a seven-figure anti-DeSantis ad campaign by a pro-Trump super PAC? Some X factor of personality or charisma—or the lack thereof? Or are observers looking in the wrong direction? Maybe it was not DeSantis who deflated, but Trump who rose—boosted by advance news of his imminent indictment.
Whatever the reason, Republican interest in the DeSantis brand of Diet Trump has dwindled.
Republican politics in the Trump era has been an exercise in dominance. Trump behaves as an abusive bully. Potential rivals meekly submit. He looks like the leader of the pack; they look like weaklings.
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DeSantis presented himself as a fearless tough guy, as in this reelection ad from 2022, titled “Top Gov.” In a flight suit and with a B-roll of combat jets, DeSantis vowed: “Never, ever back down from a fight.”
But when Trump started fights with him, DeSantis always backed down. When Trump promoted a meme accusing DeSantis of grooming teenage girls with alcohol, DeSantis scarcely retorted. When Trump denounced one of the governor’s most cherished bills as “the biggest insurance company BAILOUT to Globalist Insurance Companies, IN HISTORY,” DeSantis did not defend his measure. He abjectly retreated , barring cameras and reporters from the signing ceremony for his new law.
The DeSantis campaign has been built on an impossible contradiction. His message to his party was: I offer you Trump’s style, minus Trump’s scandals. That offer only made sense on the assumption that Trump’s scandals were bad. Yet when any major new Trump scandal has erupted, DeSantis has jumped to deny or defend it.
Amid the first shock of the January 6 attack on Congress, DeSantis condemned the violence—though he took care to avoid mentioning Trump, the man who had incited the riot. By the first anniversary, however, DeSantis had shifted ground. “They are going to take this and milk this for anything they could to try to be able to smear anyone who ever supported Donald Trump,” he said at a press conference. “When they try to act like this is something akin to the September 11 attacks, that is an insult to the people who were going into those buildings. And it’s an insult to people when you say it’s an ‘insurrection’ and then a year later, nobody has been charged with that.”
After the FBI raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in August 2022 to retrieve government documents, DeSantis denounced the law-enforcement action at an Arizona rally, alongside two of the most extremist candidates of the 2022 cycle, Kari Lake and Blake Masters: “These agencies have now been weaponized to be used against people that the government doesn’t like.”
Now, with the indictment, DeSantis has again raced to Trump’s side. He has damned the indictment as “un-American” and repeated his “weaponization” language. But if all of this is true, then what would be the case for running against Trump?
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The only case for DeSantis—or any alternative, be it Nikki Haley or Glenn Youngkin or Mike Pompeo or Mike Pence —is to acknowledge that it’s a problem that the past president stands criminally accused; to acknowledge that Trump is not a victim, but the author of his own legal trouble. Otherwise, who needs a replacement for the original? Why hire the tribute band?
Many prominent Republicans want Trump gone. But they are caught in a trap of their own bad faith: They want prosecutors to do for them the job they are too scared and broken to do for themselves. But they also, for their own crass political advantage, want to pretend to be on Trump’s side during the prosecution—while inwardly cheering on the prosecutors.
Bad faith is a coward’s method, and these bad-faith Republicans are earning the coward’s reward. They hope that the legal system will rescue them from their own humiliating submission, but they are acting to deliver the Republican nomination to Trump for a third time. If Trump does win the nomination, they’ll submit again.
When Trump ran for president in 2016, he at least paid lip service to issues Republican voters cared about: immigration, opioid addiction, trade disparities, and so on. The corruption, authoritarianism, and incitements to violence were present even then, of course. And they continued. In 2020, ABC News counted 54 instances in which people who committed or plotted violence specifically cited Trump’s words as their motive or their justification.
This time, however, Trump is offering no lip service. On his social media and in his opening-rally speech in Waco, Texas, on March 25, Trump has celebrated and justified the deadly events of January 6, 2021. On Truth Social, he predicted “death & destruction” when he was indicted.
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Republicans nodded along when Paul Ryan assured CNN’s Jake Tapper that Trump was fading on his own. They took solace when Rupert Murdoch instituted a “soft ban” against Trump on his TV network, which instead hailed DeSantis as the party’s new leader.
All of that is proving false. Trump is triumphing—as an explicitly insurrectionary leader, on a platform of impunity for his own lawbreaking and presidential pardons for his supporters.
Inwardly anti-Trump Republicans reassure themselves that Trump at least cannot win the presidency again. Maybe they will have to endure him for a few more excruciating months—but November 2024 will arrive soon enough, and after that they’ll be done with him. This is false comfort. If Trump secures the Republican nomination, of course he can win the election. Maybe because of his bad record and personal obnoxiousness, he’s got a little less than the usual 50–50 chance, but not much less. The incumbent president and vice president have electoral vulnerabilities, too. And there could be anti-incumbent shocks—a recession, a natural disaster, a border crisis—between now and Election Day. Maybe Trump cannot win on his own merits, but Biden can fall victim to events.
The former New Jersey governor—and early Trump endorser—Chris Christie now describes his past support for Trump as a “strategic error.” He’s not wrong, if several years late. Suppose that enough Republicans had deserted Trump in 2016 to convert his popular-vote deficit into an Electoral College defeat. What would have happened next? Hillary Clinton would have won the presidency, and of course Republicans would not have liked that. But there would have been a Republican-controlled House and Senate to check her—with margins that surely would have expanded in the midterm elections of 2018. Republicans would have scored important state and local gains that year too. Then the coronavirus pandemic would have struck, and the election of 2020 likely would have resulted in a GOP landslide. So not exactly the end of the world from a Republican point of view—better than things are now, right?
The inhibitions against correcting the strategic error of 2016 are daunting even to people of character—and the anti-Trump dissenters within the party elite are not all people of character. Yet the price of repeating the error will be heavy—heavy for Republicans if Trump costs them the presidency once again, or tragically heavy for the United States and the world if Trump somehow scores a second win.
A proverb says that even a worm will turn. The controlling elite within the Republican Party rejected “Never Trump” in 2016. Now they have a second chance to put country before party: “Never Again Trump.” Let the lapel flag mean something. Don’t give up. Back an alternative to Trump, and win if you can. But if you can’t win with your candidate, keep fighting Trump. This time, no surrender.
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"This time, no surrender."
With DeSantis leading the way waving a white flag? Bonne chance et tout ce genre de choses.
Trump has a big advantage in the primaries, given liberal activist groups like the Lincoln project and the MSM working on his behalf to attack his opponents. That's billons of dollars aiding his cause.
Exactly, the democrats will continue to destroy trumps opponents hoping he wins the nomination, 100 % assured Pedophile and cackles will be a sure thing. But, if Trump wins they will be blaming everyone but themselves for how we got there. The party of no personal responsibility at it’s finest.
Not to mention all the free press the news media will give him by constantly talking about him and keeping his name in front of everybody 24/7.
the former 'president' the supreme whackjob - is the one who is keeping himself in front of everybody 24/7 and the endless defense of the indefensible by his enablers/supporters/whackjobs/gop/gqp doesn't help either
Trump's advantage is gop primaries are winner takes all si he only needs about thirty five percent of gop primary votes to secure the gop nomination, thus insuring Biden's second term...
Mike Pence at least made some noise about Trump.
Asa Hutchinson announced his bid and says Trump should withdraw. He is the first republican I have heard say that.
I give him credit for nothing. He shouldn't have had to consult with anyone what to do on 1/6 and defy the subpoenas afterwards. He's a two faced enabler of the former 'president'
Pence? I really think that he is in it just to be in it. He stands no reasonable chance and many view him as you do. But at least he seemed to be shaking off the dogmatic Trump disease ...until he wasn't.
It's amusing how confident the Dems have become, they think the election is all but over.
The show is just beginning...watch how the lefties plunge blindly ahead and destroy their chances
Just like pre 2022 republicans ... /S
Perhaps...but that had more to do with the lingering stench of Trump, rather than any great love for the Dems.
Another red wave??? That last one worked on so well for you.
Stop Trump? Republicans are going to use Trump. Indicting Trump has set the course for the 2024 Presidential election. And Democrats are now in the position of having to defend themselves rather than controlling the narrative.
Democrats wanted the 2024 election to be all about Trump. With an indictment of Trump that is now guaranteed. Democrats should give thanks for what they are about to receive.
The former 'president' wants everything to be all about himself.
You project.
The former President has become a poster child for political persecution.
What has happened allows Republicans to sympathize with Trump without supporting Trump. Trump is becoming a George Floyd type figure in Republican politics.
So, the former 'president' is the victim here.
Yes, the former president can be seen as a victim here thanks to Alvin.
“…the former president can be seen as a victim here…”
….only through the most myopic, mystifying and mysterious of lenses.
The politics are shaping up the same as with George Floyd. Floyd wasn't an upstanding citizen and wasn't a role model. But no matter who or what George Floyd was, what happened to Floyd shouldn't have been allowed to happen.
Not at all, Alvin should have let this one go. There are a few others that are more serious and were not part of a campaign promise.
Nothing is being allowed to happen to the turd. He's finally going to be held accountable, hopefully.
Outside Trump's golf course today
"Trump
No More Bullshit
2024"
Well that takes a load off my mind.
Is that a positive or negative meme?
TRUMP
BEHIND BARS
20-24 YEARS
Here is a thought to be considered, concerning Trump and the GOP. It is possible that if Trump goes down he will talk and reveal things concerning finance and other items that could be very damaging to the GOP. If the 'so called Trump base' heeds his (Trump's) accusations it is possible that a portion of that vote could either switch sides or sit it out.
And for those of you that may demand an explanation as to what these 'financial and other things' might be, consider this----It is Donald J. Trump who is the fulcum of this discussion so.............use your own imagination.
Kompromat is real. It is this that keeps Putin and other autocrats in power. Thusly I am assuming that although Trump does not understand the complexities of many things he does understand 'kompromat' and the cover it can provide.
Trump is no stranger to throwing his supporters, employees, attorneys, family, etc. under the bus.
Trump doesn’t take the bus, maybe you meant a 757.
“…Trump doesn’t take the bus, maybe you meant a 757….”
….trump couldn’t change a tire, but incites the use of a .357….
Hell, he probably couldn't spell tire.
which he doesn't know how to use, either
Probably thinks it is an airplane.
One of the nice things about all this is that as felons many have lost their right to vote.
So much for innocent until proven guilty lefties?
Indicted is not the same as convicted. Given Braggs conviction record it is not even a given he can get a conviction- even in TDS driven NY.
This indictment isn't even legal. Statute of limitations ran out 2 years ago. State has no legal standing over a Federal crime (especially one that the FEC and DOJ chose not to prosecute). So unless Bragg has some completely unrelated charges he is waiting to drop- Democrats are again using the law to their our political advantages again.
Tin horn dictators the world over are envious of the two tier justice system Democrats have created in the US.
you know that's always been the case.
Don't bring up facts. You know it makes some cry.
You have no clue what is in the sealed indictment. You think it's just the stormy hush money payments and the subsequent cover up/falsifying of business records/campaign finance records? Get real.
Reading is fundamental- try it sometime.