Your humble author has noted repeatedly this year that the Presidential race seems less of a campaign to win than a game of chicken, with each side trying to be as bad as possible while still remaining second worst. The problem with this strategy is that once you’ve won, you’ve ceased to be the second worst option.
This is perilous at best. Most election years for Republicans after Trump became President resulted in either subpar election results overall, or even absolute disasters. The one exception was the 2021 off year elections in Virginia and New Jersey where Trump was not a factor. This year, Trump, as of the writing of this post, is likely favored to win a second and non-consecutive term.
But whatever internal breaks and checks on the grifters and fringe existed in in his first term will not be there for a second—his first administration did best when he let competent people do their job, and did the worst when the grifters and fringe had their way.
The old purported “establishment” has long been purged and “MAGA” is the establishment now to a greater degree than the old “establishment” ever was. Even if Trump were to lose, he’d just become the de facto 2028 GOP nominee for President.
Now, instead of judiciously applying to the breaks after winning that game of chicken, we could very well have hit the gas and go “peddle to the metal”. From mocking association to Middle Class and LARPing as a blue collar workers to lamenting that America isn’t like so many foreign countries who can be ruled by a strongman who will fix everything, there isn’t much there beyond being the water that conforms to the shape of Trump and his Republican Party proxy.
If he wins, it could be a Pyrrhic victory for the GOP. That purging of the older “establishment” included the removal of competent people, leaving a void that those grifters and the fringe have quickly filled. They wanted to get rid of the “GOPe”? Trump was the monkey paw that made that wish come true.
The GOP has been turned into a vehicle to drag Donald Trump over the line of 270 Electoral Votes It has been maximized to do that at the expense of all else. His winninc coalition would be his coalition and his alone. We’ve already seen for nearly a decade now that his popularity is not transferable to other candidates—2022 providing a bumber crop of those Trumpy candidates who lost winnable races while non-Trumpy candidates won—and due to the 22nd Amendment, Trump would never be on the ballot again to provide even potential coattails.
Trump lost in 2020 in large part due to Biden being as close to “Generic Democrat” as possible, allowing people to vote against Trump rather than for Biden. But even then Trumps personal popularity kept it from being a blowout. The GOP would no longer have the benefits of Trump, while retaining all the negatives. The Republican Party won’t return to what it was before Trump, but thee will be a post-Trump Republicans Party that will be evenmore different than Gingrich and the Republican Revolution of ‘94 was to they heyday of the Reagan White House.
Many Republicans are biding their time and preparing themselves to be one of those who shape this new post-Trump Republican pary. Thos proberbial “interesting times” are indeed upon us.
