Mark Leibovich over at the Atlantic has a suggestion for those in ‘his’ party that want him to stay out of the Presidential race….
Me?
I want him to become the nominee….
Biden would surly kick his ass again…
But Leibovich has a simple way to set the Big Guy on self destruct….
Just keep calling him a ‘Loser’, like he is and hates so much he’s still whining and crying about….
Mike Pence and Ron DeSantis ARE seriously running already and will have to decide how to get around Trump…..
Trump’s bizarre and enduring hold over his party has made it verboten for many Republicans to even utter publicly the unpleasant fact of his defeat—something they will readily acknowledge in private. I caught up recently with several Trump-opposing Republican strategists and former associates of the president who argued this restraint should end. The best way for a Republican to depose Trump in 2024, they said, will be to call Trump a loser, as early and as brutally as possible—and keep pointing out the absurdity of treating a one-term, twice-impeached, 75-year-old former president like a kingmaker and heir apparent. In other words, don’t worry about hurting Special Boy’s feelings.
“Why on earth would we hitch our wagons again to a crybaby sore loser who lost the popular vote twice, lost the House, lost the Senate, and lost the White House, and so on?” said Barbara Comstock, a longtime political consultant and former Republican congresswoman from Virginia. “For Republicans, whether they embrace the Big Lie or not, Trump is vulnerable to having the stench of disaster on him.”
Trump’s wasn’t an ordinary election defeat, either. Some nervy Republican challenger needs to remind everyone how rare it is for an incumbent president to lose reelection, and also that Trump was perhaps the most graceless loser and insufferable whiner in presidential history—the first outgoing commander in chief in 152 years to skip his successor’s swearing-in. And that he dragged a lot of Republicans down with him. As Comstock hinted, Trump was the first president since Herbert Hoover to preside over his party’s loss of the House, Senate, and White House in a single term. Said nervy Republican challenger could even (just for fun) remind the former president that he once called the person he lost to “the worst presidential candidate in the history of presidential politics.”….
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We’re already seeing contours of some early strategies for running against Trump. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is mostly ignoring the former president while establishing his own cachet of lib-owning, base-arousing, culture-splitting bona fides. Former Vice President Mike Pence is pursuing a loyal-deputy and next-man-up course, despite his refusal to go along with Trump’s January 6 caper, which rendered him dead to his old boss and sentenced to hanging by Trump’s “Stop the steal” brigades.
Both of these are Trump-adjacent approaches predicated on keeping the faith with “the base” while asserting that, in many ways, Trump was still a great president. Essentially, DeSantis and Pence are positioning themselves as more competent and disciplined versions of Trump, without the baggage.
I doubt that this Trump-but-different tactic would work, especially with Trump himself in the race. Plus, why waste so much good material? A “He’s a loser” strategy would be way more direct and satisfying, and would have the added benefit of driving Trump nuts.
This sounds like more work than most Republicans want to do.
On the outside yea Scott….
But like the piece says….
Under the rug?
The group IS stepping away from Trump….
They have to….
If they want Biden’s job and THAT they do……
Trump IS his own worst enemy and he does HATE to ‘lose’…..