It’s incredible to see the lengths the Republican Party and former President Donald Trump can go to make the 2024 election as difficult as possible.
In any other sane election cycle, we’d be talking about who’s emerging as a front-runner for the GOP nomination.
But this is not another sane election cycle. It’s a continuation of the voyage of the U.S.S. Trump. On this voyage, we see a captain too proud to admit the ship took on water long ago and that the shells from January 6 have all but ensured that this boat will never return to the presidential port.
Some voters might be hesitant to abandon ship, especially with such a fond memory of winning. 2016 was a different era in politics, and holding on to faith in one person rather than the ideas and values of a party will ensure a repeat of 2020.
We don’t know where Trump stands in any honest metric other than that he wants to win. He’s dodged the televised debates twice. Diehard supporters have said they don’t need to hear from the former president, and that’s a massive concern. It’s a degradation of thousands of years of debate.
Policy on its own sounds great where there’s no challenge. It’s impossible to lose a game of chess when you’re the only one at the table, but it’s picking the lowest of fruits to say that you won something.
He had a town-hall-style sit-down with Tucker Carlson on the website formerly known as Twitter. Carlson might be a great debater in his own right, but he’s not throwing any curveballs at Donny. A day later he turned himself in, posted bail and the now infamous mugshot, and went back to his regularly scheduled program of bullying his former contemporaries.
Trump’s scorched earth approach to his next campaign is polarizing among republican voters and detrimental to the politicians. Former allies Mike Pence, Mitch McConnell and Ron DeSantis have become sworn enemies in his dreams of returning to the White House.
Trump and his son Don Jr. have taken any dislike they have with GOP candidates and plastered it over their social media, no matter how trivial or hypocritical these gripes might be. It’s low-brow cheap pop that runs its course quickly.
Junior called out candidates Chris Christie for being overweight and DeSantis for putting on makeup before his debate last week.
The irony isn’t lost on the Trumps.
It’s a travesty because putting a Republican in the White House isn’t an insane task as of now.
Joe Biden hasn’t been the most beloved president in recent history. A lot of voters saw him as the lesser of two evils. It came down to two candidates for the oldest president in history, and more Americans took their chances with Biden. He might not have the same level of media attention as Trump garnered, but he’s still a less-than-ideal candidate who certainly benefited from everything leading up to the 2020 election.
Some of the Republicans in the debate field, namely DeSantis and the surprise sensation Vivek Ramaswamy, truly have the policy and persona to take on an aging, stumbling Biden.
These two, and the other declared candidates, all have a valuable trait that will help with moderate voters: they aren’t Trump.
Democrats spent plenty of time since 2016 to make Trump the most unlikable candidate out there. He has character flaws. He was impeached twice — yet acquitted. He has criminal charges.
You can see these effects in some early polls. Biden’s ahead in most of them. Even in the few where Trump is in the lead, it’s by a very slim margin.
No matter how many rabid Republicans he has in his corner, it doesn’t negate the equally passionate left-wing support for whoever runs against him. It does, however, greatly impact the undecided moderates.
Trump’s continued to ignore the wave of “Never-Trumpers” that helped keep him from going back into office and instead has focused on widely disputed claims about election interference and fighting his own party.
There’s no shame in admitting when you’re licked. A wise pitcher knows when to retire from the mound, but a foolish one lets pride interfere and only benefits the opposition.
Continuing to fight his own just diminishes the chances of whoever takes the GOP nod in next year’s primaries. Standing to support a lost cause does just as much damage.
If you vote red, it’s time to do some soul-searching when it comes time to pick out a primary candidate.
If you vote blue, you’ve got time to get your popcorn ready for another round of tax-funded theatrics.
