Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
This "state of the Republican party" essay in The Atlantic ...
Last edited Tue Jan 31, 2023, 12:10 PM - Edit history (1)
"Republicans’ 2024 Magical Thinking"By McKay Coppins
..."There is an old quote that has been attributed to Lee Atwater: ‘When your enemy is in the process of drowning, throw him a brick,’” Sullivan told me. “None of Donald Trump’s opponents ever have the balls to throw him the damn brick. They just hope someone else will. Hope isn’t a winning strategy.”
For conservatives who want to prevent a similar fiasco in 2024, the emerging field of GOP presidential prospects might seem like cause to celebrate. After all, the healthiest way to rid their party of Trump would be to simply beat him. But a sprawling cast of challengers could just as easily end up splitting the anti-Trump electorate, as it did in 2016, and allow Trump to win primaries with a plurality of voters. It would also make coalescing around an alternative harder for party leaders.
One current Republican representative told me that although most of his colleagues might quietly hope for a new nominee, few would be willing to endorse a non-Trump candidate early enough in the primary calendar to make a difference. They would instead “keep their powder dry” and “see what those first states do.” For all of Trump’s supposedly diminished political clout, he remains a strong favorite in primary polls, where he leads his nearest rival by about 15 points. And few of the other top figures in the party—Ron DeSantis, Mike Pompeo, Nikki Haley—have demonstrated an ability to take on Trump directly and look stronger for it.
Meijer, who voted to impeach Trump after January 6 and went on to lose his 2022 primary to a far-right Trump loyalist, attributes Republican leaders’ current skittishness about confronting Trump to the party’s “ideological rootlessness.” The GOP’s defenestration of long-held conservative ideals in favor of an ad hoc personality cult left Republicans without a clear post-Trump identity. Combine that with what Meijer calls “the generalized cowardice of political figures writ large,” and you have a party in paralysis: “There’s no capacity [to say], ‘All right, let’s clean the slate and figure out what we stand for and build from there.’”
For conservatives who want to prevent a similar fiasco in 2024, the emerging field of GOP presidential prospects might seem like cause to celebrate. After all, the healthiest way to rid their party of Trump would be to simply beat him. But a sprawling cast of challengers could just as easily end up splitting the anti-Trump electorate, as it did in 2016, and allow Trump to win primaries with a plurality of voters. It would also make coalescing around an alternative harder for party leaders.
One current Republican representative told me that although most of his colleagues might quietly hope for a new nominee, few would be willing to endorse a non-Trump candidate early enough in the primary calendar to make a difference. They would instead “keep their powder dry” and “see what those first states do.” For all of Trump’s supposedly diminished political clout, he remains a strong favorite in primary polls, where he leads his nearest rival by about 15 points. And few of the other top figures in the party—Ron DeSantis, Mike Pompeo, Nikki Haley—have demonstrated an ability to take on Trump directly and look stronger for it.
Meijer, who voted to impeach Trump after January 6 and went on to lose his 2022 primary to a far-right Trump loyalist, attributes Republican leaders’ current skittishness about confronting Trump to the party’s “ideological rootlessness.” The GOP’s defenestration of long-held conservative ideals in favor of an ad hoc personality cult left Republicans without a clear post-Trump identity. Combine that with what Meijer calls “the generalized cowardice of political figures writ large,” and you have a party in paralysis: “There’s no capacity [to say], ‘All right, let’s clean the slate and figure out what we stand for and build from there.’”
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2023/01/2024-republican-primary-donald-trump-deus-ex-machina/672888/
Shows that when they follow oligarchs, they can't think without them.
We on the Left have moved the oligarch needle through rule of law, popular vote wins, and good governance.
La lucha continua. Si se puede.
7 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
