Donald J. Trump will be the Republican nominee for President of the United States, again. Nikki Haley fought the good fight, but unless Trump is sent up the river, it’s as plain as his comb-over, that he will be his party’s nominee.
Usually, when a presidential candidate loses, his role as party kingmaker is diminished, if not eradicated. But not Trump. Even though he lost (yes he did) in 2020, he reigns supreme as the Republican leader. He is the capo di tutti capi of the GOP. Any Republican candidate who wants a shot at elected office, must travel to Mar-a-Lago to bend the knee and proclaim their fealty to the orange lord.
But, if Trump loses again this year, will his headlock on the GOP loosen? In other words, is Trump-ism a cult within the GOP that will disappear with the demise of its leader, or is it a permanent part of one of America’s two main political parties?
Numbers don’t always tell the entire story, but let’s take a look at what’s come out of the primaries so far.
Yes, Trump has won them all, but there is certainly a significant group of Republican voters who’ve had enough of Trump and who’ve voted against him. Forty-nine percent in Iowa, 46% in New Hampshire, 40% in South Carolina and this past Tuesday in Michigan, 32%.
As an incumbent, he should be getting 80, 90% of the vote.
There simply aren’t enough MAGA-ites by themselves to put Trump back in the White House. If a small percentage of those anti-Trump voters stay home on election day, or vote Democrat, and if Biden can hold together a semblance of the coalition that got him elected, Trump will lose.
So, here’s the day after question. If Trump is defeated, will Republican MAGA-ism be rendered impotent?
Here’s what I hope for and what all Americans, regardless of their political persuasion, should hope for.
When it is finally and irrevocably shown the emperor has no clothes, that Trump lost again to a doddering and a teetering Joe Biden, there will be a huge power vacuum in the GOP. Mitch McConnell’s gone. House Speaker Mike Johnson is weak. Will Nikki Haley be the one to lead the party away from Trump-ism and back to Bush-ism, if not Reagan-ism? Maybe, if that’s the role she wants to play, instead of making beaucoup bucks in the private sector. For sure, the fight will be bloody and the outcome is far from certain.
The moment of reckoning is nigh for Republicans to retake their party from the cult of Trump.
Right now it’s impossible to get any clarity because the 600 pound gorilla is still thumping his chest. Trump maintained his clout after his 2020 loss and the GOP losses in the Georgia races that gave the Democrats control of the Senate. But if he loses in 2024, I don’t see how his gravitational pull can remain strong.
So about now, you may be thinking to yourself, even though Joe Biden is a weak President, who will be even weaker in a second term, at least his reelection is worth the demise of Trump-ism and the chance of some semblance of sanity returning to the Republican Party. Okay, that’s one scenario.
But what if Donald Trump doesn’t lose and is elected President? Then what?
If Trump is reelected, the GOP will never again be the party of the Wall Street Journal. It will permanently be the party of Truth Social. With Trump back in the White House, the MAGA’s will view all traditional Republicans as traitors.
More importantly, the American two-party system will be irrevocably changed. On one side you’ll have the Trump party and on the other side, you will have the progressive party. Centrist Democrats, already being pushed aside by the progressives, will be overwhelmed by the leftists who’ll say the only way to counteract the extremism of the GOP is with their own extremism. They’ll say the old way of running the party has proven to be a losing proposition, it gave us Donald J. Trump for a second time.
This could give rise to a third party of disaffected Republicans and disgruntled Democrats. But before you cheer that possibility, remember that third parties have a checkered history of success in American politics.
Teddy Roosevelt ran for President on the Bull Moose Party ticket in 1912 and it gave the election to Woodrow Wilson. Ross Perot ran on a third party line and many believe he cost George H.W. Bush the election, handing the White House to Bill Clinton. And Ralph Nader may have been the reason Al Gore lost Florida in 2000. Nader got more than 97-thousand votes in the Sunshine State. You’ll remember that George W. Bush won Florida by a mere 537 votes, hanging chads and all.
That’s why there’s a lot more at stake on Tuesday, November 5, 2024 than just a one-time election.
We are at an inflection point in American politics. Trump didn’t disappear after January 6. He is still the master puppeteer of the Republican Party and the outcome of his presidential campaign will dictate the future of our democracy for Republicans and for Democrats.
On November 6, not only know will we know who’s president, we will also know a lot about the future of our two-party system and of our nation.
Put that in your vape pen and smoke it for the next nine months.