First, let me start out by saying that I believe the New York Post gave the Trump announcement the treatment it rightfully deserved.
Right now, the GOP is going to be led by Donald Trump, the failed former President who oversaw three disastrous election cycles - 2018, 2020, and 2022. The Republican National Committee, barring some stroke of actual intelligence on the part of the organization, will be led by Ronna Romney McDaniel, who likewise oversaw three disastrous elections.
House Republicans will be led by Kevin McCarthy, who would have overseen three disastrous elections had his affair with Renee Elmers not become known to his colleagues and they jumped ship to Paul Ryan.
Senate Republicans will be led by Mitch McConnell, who also oversaw disastrous elections, but unlike the other three actually put in the work to try and stave those disasters off. But he’s been in the Senate since the 1980s.
Trump is only motivated by what’s best for Trump. McDaniel is motivated by what’s best for McDaniel. McCarthy is not only motivated by what’s best for McCarthy, but he is legitimately the absolute best politician I have ever seen not hold a single ideological conviction. McConnell, likewise, serves McConnell (but, again, smarter than the others).
It is time for all of them to go.
McConnell is a relic of the distant past. He represents the Chamber of Commerce Republicans who don’t see small government as the ideal but as a nuisance to bending government power toward business interests. But the working class Americans of the left and the right are growing tired of those special interests.
Donald Trump is a relic of the recent past. He represents the conservative base that was so tired of being played by the establishment and Chamber of Commerce types on one side and the hostile progressives on the other that they went with someone who would disrupt both. But the disruption has come and gone. It isn’t working anymore.
Ronna McDaniel and Kevin McCarthy represent the present. They are dysfunctional, directionless leaders who have no idea how to actually lead the people they are supposed to be leading. They were given an opportunity and, rather than do something with it, just guided the ship into a downward spiral.
There are options, of course, but the Republican Party is an absolute mess right now. What’s clear from the midterms is that Republicans who are focused on fixing the present and saving the future are the ones voters gravitate toward. The ones who were focused on the grievances of the present and how they were cheated in the past are the ones voters ran away from.
Trump/MAGA candidates who were focused on stopping the steal that wasn’t ran on average five points behind Republicans who didn’t. Republican voters crossed over to vote for the status quo - the Democrats - rather than people who were fighting the battles of the past. That should be a sign that a man who first ran for president six years ago and hasn’t won anything since should step aside and let the next generation of leader through.
But that would require self-reflection and sacrifice, two things that are foreign to Trump (and, if you believe the Democrats, Trump doesn’t like anything foreign).
The problem for the Republican Party, however, is that there are two problematic groups. The first is the group that will only vote for Trump and will never stop thinking the 2020 election was stolen and that he was the greatest president of all time. The second group is made up of people who will refuse to vote Republican until Donald Trump and his influence is fully purged from the party. Both of those groups will continue to cost the GOP elections.
I wrote a while back that Trumpism naturally gives way to DeSantism. I still believe this is true.
Take Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, for example. He appears one of the Republicans in the best position to take the Trumpism movement and redirect it toward specific, often winnable causes that simply can't be drowned out by the media coverage. He has very successfully handled the COVID-19 crisis in his state. He has made vaccines available to those who want to keep from getting it and endorsed and made available a life-saving treatment for those who get it.
He has shifted the national conversation on education to parents' rights and away from the unions' demands. He has fought media malpractice without making it a spectacle - they have ended up with far more egg on their face when their lies are easily exposed.
He has been fighting on limited, but extremely winnable grounds, and he has raised his profile tremendously. If he is capturing the movement (as some polling and some talk is suggesting) then this new movement, DeSantism, stands a chance going forward.
Look at what it got DeSantis. He won re-election by almost 20 points, shifted Hispanic, Black, and Asian American votes his way at a higher rate than any other Republican, and has single-handedly turned Florida from purple to red. That is a big deal, and it’s one reason that so many people see him as a very viable contender in 2024.
But the aging orange man from Mar-a-Lago cannot let it go. He is terrified that his time is up and has decided to announce early in order to make people see him and still fear him. But his announcement was met with more excitement from mainstream and progressive media than conservative media. It was a lackluster speech that had no discernable impact other than to get Democrats to cut ads from his endorsement of Herschel Walker to run until the runoff between him and Raphael Warnock. That endorsement may hurt Walker. It certainly won’t help.
The Republican Party has to move forward instead of looking back. But they won’t be able to so long as Trump keeps happening to them.