I’m not a huge Rick Wilson fan, but, damn, he has a way with words.
Wilson is the one who coined Cheeto Jesus
Speaking of future GOP pivots - I’m not sure 2024 is the year to look at. To me at least, even if Trump’s power is waning, he’s still the 500lb orangutan for the immediate future, no one will want to seriously mess with him yet, and DeSantis may figure he’s got the time to consolidate as heir apparent. Especially if Trump further burdens himself and the GOP in 2024 with more outrageous candidates.
2028 though, if the above proves correct (and given that 4 years is a lot of time for a man of Trump’s health and habits), DeSantis would be well positioned to be the young Turk (by political standards) ready to fix all those old problems with a mandate from his people. But trying to plan out two years in this crazy is one thing, so I wouldn’t make any bets on 6. Still, it would be about the right time for a major pivot all things considered.
Or he runs to fuck over the GQP.
Trump is much more likely to run as an Independent than for the Vice Presidency. Something tells me he did not have a lot of respect for that position.
I don’t see any potential for a serious party. There are too many obstacles in its path.
First, it’s a vanity project. Donald Trump isn’t looking to start a movement. He’s only looking for a vehicle to promote himself. He won’t want anyone else in the new party who’s substantial enough to draw attention away from him.
Second, the people in this party will lack political experience. The GAP will get the demonstrators but the party regulars are going to stay in the GOP. And you need the regulars to run a campaign; they’re the ones who know how to do things like organize mailing lists, stage events, find potential donors, check registration lists, print and distribute promotional material, run field offices, get names on ballots, etc.
Third, the GAP will only attract the also-rans. Anyone who has a potential career in politics will go with the Republicans or the Democrats, where they have a path to office. The GAP will only attract the people who couldn’t make it in the big leagues.
Fourth, this new party has no cause. A successful third party needs a cause to draw people in. You have to have a goal. You have to be trying to do something like abolishing slavery or banning alcohol or establishing a public health care system.
They have one viable strategy but it’s the one we don’t talk about.
Agree totally with your excellent post. Especially that whatever form Trump’s activities of the next 2+ years takes, it’ll ultimately be a vanity project, not a real effort. (Unless it’s organized by others and he’s more or less their figurehead.)
I will quibble on this part though:
The MAGAs absolutely have a cause. Three of them in fact.
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Worship of a bombastic wannabe tyrant. They deeply want to remake the USA in that image.
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Overturning what they cynically believe is a corrupt system of power sharing between R & D elites who care nothing for “the common man”.
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USA first, last, and only; screw the rest of the world; they simply don’t matter to a country of our size and stature. The outside world can and should be completely ignored.
If Trump (or DeSantis or …) can clearly articulate those last two points while personally embodying enough of the first point, they can totally build a party around that. As Godwin might have said: “It worked for Hitler; it can work here.”
I was gonna add ethnocentrism as a fourth platform, but I think it nestles comfortably under this one.
I’m feeling pretty optimistic after this last round of elections. I think a lot of Republicans have realized they can never win again as long as Trump is their leader. But a lot are still completely brainwashed, so I’m stockpiling popcorn and looking forward to a long and bitterly divisive primary season leading to total electoral collapse in 2024. Trump can’t win if he’s the nominee, and if he’s not, he’ll either run as an independent or just stay on the sidelines whining about vote fraud and demoralizing the party.
Guardian: Republicans split over 2024 run, predict “blood on the floor”.
Another thing I’m looking forward to (in the “entertainment value” sense, not in the “this is a good thing for the country” sense) is seeing McCarthy or whoever try to function as Speaker of the House with a razor-thin majority comprised largely of crazy idiots.
Looks like we could be seeing bloodbaths in the GOP leadership races in both Houses. Cruz and Hawley were indignantly tweeting yesterday about how the Senate Pubbies shouldn’t elect a leader until after the Georgia runoff, which on the one hand makes perfect logical sense, but on the other hand, why would you care if you plan to just re-elect Moscow Mitch by acclamation anyway?
Thanks for that Guardian article. What’s horrifying about it is the clear insight it gives into the grassroots R thinking.
It’s not that the grassroots folks don’t like Trumpism. They love Trumpism and all it stands for. It’s just that they think Trump can’t be elected post-insurrection so they want a different R face to implement the same Trumpism just slightly disguised.
The MAGAs aren’t going away. The Republican leadership has to either find a candidate who can win without the MAGAs or a candidate who is close enough to Trump to attract some or most of the MAGAs. If they decide that DeSantis is their guy, and Trump decides to run, expect a bloodbath during the primary that can only help the opposition party.
That’s not really a cause. It’s more of a set of beliefs.
It defines who the MAGAs are but it doesn’t give a clue what they want to do. And you can see this if you try to figure out what their agenda is. Things like making America great again, overturning the corrupt system, and screwing the rest of the world are slogans, not parts of a plan.
I’ll admit putting Trump back in the presidency is a concrete item. But then what? Trump himself didn’t have a specific plan to do any of the things listed above when he was in office.
The closest Trump and the MAGAs ever had to a specific goal was building the border wall (which they failed to do). But “build the wall” isn’t a cause you can form a party around.
I see your point about beliefs versus causes. Let’s try this:
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Cause: to change our government’s de facto primary organizing principle to single-party right-wing racist authoritarianism.
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Cause: To ensure Democrats and RINOs (as determined by the RW whack-jobs) have no role in government.
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Cause: Terminate all mutual defense treaties, withdraw from World Bank, IMF, UN, WTO, etc.
Yes, your typical slobbering Trumpista could not articulate those points on their own. But if a MAGA-oriented think tank (or RW media circus talking head such as Hannity) offered those as concrete policy prescriptions the rank and file would eat that shit up.
Their party platform is in plain view. All we have to do is be willing to see it and say it. Trump himself just makes random but reliably deplorable and splenetic noise. It’s the folks behind and alongside him we need to worry a lot more about.
In a way, Trump’s utter lack of any actual “plans” works in his favor. The MAGAts can imagine that he’ll do anything, which means they can think he’ll do the things that the individual MAGAts want done. And with no actual plans on paper, how could anyone refute that belief?
In a sensible world, if you had two Trump supporters, one of whom wanted X, and the other Not-X, you could point to some kind of policy statement that says “Trump will do X”, and at least the Not-X supporter might consider a different vote. But now, when Trump hasn’t said anything about X, good or bad? They can both go on happily believing that Trump will satisfy them, and Trump himself will of course never disabuse them of that notion, because all he really wants is their votes.
It’s kind of Zen, in a way. The Cause of No Cause.
I spoke with a Trump voter who patiently explained to me that it’s obvious that a wall wouldn’t do much to stop people from crossing the border illegally; it’d inconvenience them, it’d slow them down, but it’s ultimately pretty useless — unless you plan on having guys with guns there, and your goal is making it plenty easier for said guys with said guns.
And said Trump voter figured that was what Trump must have in mind, because, well, Build The Wall couldn’t possibly be the whole plan…
Jerry Seinfeld Voice: “It’s a campaign about nothing!!!”
Nihilism - the game the whole party can play.
Except that it’s not working. Trump has topped out on the amount of people who will vote for him because they like him personally. And it’s not enough to get him elected. (It wasn’t really enough to get him elected in 2016. Trump needed the votes of people who didn’t care about him but were willing to vote for anyone who was the Republican nominee.)
So Trump can settle for making money by running for office but not winning. Or he can try to expand his appeal to people who might not like him personally but would be willing to vote for him if he was pushing for a cause they supported.