Cogent and insightful analysis as always. I agree this is not the year for a third-party candidate but if I pull back to the 30,000-fout level it kind of looks like we already have one...and he's a toss-up to win the general at this point.
I am, of course, talking about Trump and the MAGA movement. While it has no policy core but rather a personality cult, MAGA is, in fact, a third-party movement that has consumed the Republican party from within. The remains of the GOP - short-handed as "never-Trumpers" - are standing around wringing their hands for a solution to their problem but they don't seem to realize they're looking in the rearview mirror at an event that has already happened and is irreversible: we now have a liberal party (Dems), a conservative party (GOP) and a populist party (MAGA).
I don't see any way to knit the MAGA and GOP parties back together. Even after the passing of their odious leader, lots of would-be inheritors of his mantle are waiting in the wings and they've learned the playbook for connecting with their supporters. It won't happen in 2024 but I'm reasonably confident that there'll either be three conventions or that will be the year when the Republican national committee votes to formally change its name.
That means the remains of the GOP are in a power position. Neither the Dems nor MAGA have enough core supporters to win. If the GOP stalwarts truly view Trump as a threat to conservatism - which he is unless you want to define "conservativism" as "anything Donald Trump wants in any instant" - they should make their peace with center-left Biden and tilt that way. If, on the other hand, they still see opportunities to get policy wins under Trump and are willing to tolerate the awfulness of a second Tump term to get it, then they should hold their nose and go that way. Worked pretty well in the first term; as long as Trump got credit or praise for it, they could do pretty much whatever they wanted.
A word of caution to my conservative friends trying to figure out which way to fall on that question: if the reports are to be believed, Trump's fellow travelers - the Stephen Millers, the Heritage Foundation, etc. - are planning a much more organized and deliberate takeover of government this time and - unlike Trump - have their own policy objectives that include isolationism, extremely limited immigration and taking an indiscriminate weedwhacker to America's regulatory framework. As we're seeing now with the border bill/Ukraine/Israel kerfuffle playing out, there's not a lot of common ground there between the conservatives and the MAGAnauts.
Cogent and insightful analysis as always. I agree this is not the year for a third-party candidate but if I pull back to the 30,000-fout level it kind of looks like we already have one...and he's a toss-up to win the general at this point.
I am, of course, talking about Trump and the MAGA movement. While it has no policy core but rather a personality cult, MAGA is, in fact, a third-party movement that has consumed the Republican party from within. The remains of the GOP - short-handed as "never-Trumpers" - are standing around wringing their hands for a solution to their problem but they don't seem to realize they're looking in the rearview mirror at an event that has already happened and is irreversible: we now have a liberal party (Dems), a conservative party (GOP) and a populist party (MAGA).
I don't see any way to knit the MAGA and GOP parties back together. Even after the passing of their odious leader, lots of would-be inheritors of his mantle are waiting in the wings and they've learned the playbook for connecting with their supporters. It won't happen in 2024 but I'm reasonably confident that there'll either be three conventions or that will be the year when the Republican national committee votes to formally change its name.
That means the remains of the GOP are in a power position. Neither the Dems nor MAGA have enough core supporters to win. If the GOP stalwarts truly view Trump as a threat to conservatism - which he is unless you want to define "conservativism" as "anything Donald Trump wants in any instant" - they should make their peace with center-left Biden and tilt that way. If, on the other hand, they still see opportunities to get policy wins under Trump and are willing to tolerate the awfulness of a second Tump term to get it, then they should hold their nose and go that way. Worked pretty well in the first term; as long as Trump got credit or praise for it, they could do pretty much whatever they wanted.
A word of caution to my conservative friends trying to figure out which way to fall on that question: if the reports are to be believed, Trump's fellow travelers - the Stephen Millers, the Heritage Foundation, etc. - are planning a much more organized and deliberate takeover of government this time and - unlike Trump - have their own policy objectives that include isolationism, extremely limited immigration and taking an indiscriminate weedwhacker to America's regulatory framework. As we're seeing now with the border bill/Ukraine/Israel kerfuffle playing out, there's not a lot of common ground there between the conservatives and the MAGAnauts.