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Bret Stephens
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by Bret Stephens
opinion columnist
Whether Donald Trump’s hat is in the ring, he is finished as a serious contender for the highest office.
This is not a line that should be written lightly. First, because he has been eliminated so many times in the afterlife, after mocking John McCain’s military record; after the film “Access Hollywood”; after 6 January; After the committee’s hearings on January 6, it is unwise to do so again. Second, because every time they dismiss him, his supporters seem to derive their power from his supposed irrelevance. And third, because the line will actually be hung around my neck if I’m wrong.
But I don’t.
Last week, his loyal supporters, despite everything, learned that Trump may no longer offer what they sought most: power. bring the working-class electorate back into the republican fold; restoring nationalism to conservative ideology; The rejection of the authority of the so-called Mavens was served. Now others can do the same better, without the drama and division. He is yesterday’s man.
This is a fact from an objective reading of political reality: Trump has charged Republicans dearly in the medium term.
In the Senate and gubernatorial primaries, the former president presented his approvals based on loyalty rather than eligibility. He transformed electoral denial into an oath of allegiance. In the same states where classic Republicans won comfortably (Chris Sununu in New Hampshire, Brian Kemp in Georgia, Mike DeWine in Ohio), Trump’s candidates underperformed or lost, a contrast that belies the concept that Democrats won only by cheating. Circumventing rules or taking credit for early voting.
But none of this would be enough to discourage Trump loyalists, just as Republican defeats in the House of Representatives in 2018, the White House in 2020 and the Senate in 2021 were not enough. Three more points were needed.
The first is shock.
Republicans had hoped for a resounding victory last week, as much as Democrats had hoped for one for Hillary Clinton in 2016. Many polls predicted one, as did the general ebb and flow of American politics. Joe Biden is an unpopular incumbent who presides over an inflationary economy and a border. crisis. For the Republican Party, such a low performance is an unapologetic moment for the party, and the only coherent explanation for this is the specter of Trump.
The moment is that Trump is even though everything is deserted through many of his regularly tireless apologists and facilitators in the right-wing media, whose influence will be felt downstream.
This includes Fox News’ Laura Ingraham: “If the electorate concludes that it is putting its own ego or its own grudges ahead of what is smart for the country, they will look elsewhere. “This includes Townhall’s Kurt Schlichter: “Trump has problems and we have to deal with them,” he admitted. This includes Victor Davis Hanson: “Will a shameless Trump now accentuate his insults, shout at the moon, play his current role as an angry Ajax to the end, and thus end up being a tragic hero, cherished for his afterlife but thought of as too poisonous for the existing company?”
None of those is a total repudiation, they come close. And they bring us to the third explanation for why Trump is still finished: his sluggish pre-election sweep of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, whose 19-point victory over Democrat Charlie Crist was one of the Republican Party’s unequivocal few election night standouts.
The sin here is not that Trump violated Ronald Reagan’s eleventh commandment: “You shall speak ill of any of my fellow Republicans. “Trump has violated this commandment as freely as many others. Basic needs above all is a winner.
A wiser Trump would have embraced DeSantis’ victory, treating the governor as his star student and designated successor. But Trump couldn’t and can’t do it. And what the Republican base sees in DeSantis is everything they love about Trump: combativeness, self-confidence. and contempt for elite opinion, minus non-public luggage and self-sabotaging behavior. In the war for the affection of American conservatives, the former president increasingly feels like the jealous, slimy husband, the governor like the horny and filthy rich. Neighbor.
The box of potential primary contenders may still be far from Trump, just as Hillary Clinton largely cleared the box the last time she ran for office. But with his midterm defeat, Trump has shown once again that he is poisonous and can never win. A general election behind. He would not live up to a younger, more charismatic number one candidate, just as Clinton was unfit for Barack Obama in 2008.
The box is open for a genuine Republican candidate. It is time for you to intervene.
Times Opinion will publish a variety of responses in one lengthy article.
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