How will Republicans recover from their subservience to Donald Trump? One of our favorite pundits has for years predicted that they would split into two parties — the traditionalists and the Know-Nothings — but that was before 2020. Now their utter destruction seems so imminent that we're not sure. Please, tell us — who besides impotent 60-year-old white guys would vote for a party that supported this?
Yes, "suburban housewives" across America will not look kindly on Trumpian storm troopers tear-gassing and manhandling the Portland, Oregon, Wall of Moms.
Meanwhile, leading lights (or lowlights) in the erstwhile Party of Lincoln are jockeying for position. Either they're deluded into thinking that Benedict Donald will coast to a glorious second term, or they're calculating how they can pick up the pieces in time for 2024. It's unclear. But certain folks are trying to stake out some territory. Nikki Haley, for example, has decided to suck up to Trump — apparently believing that she has a built-in GOP constituency, to which she just needs to add a sprinkling of the MAGA haters.
Sorry to rain on your parade, Nikki, but you are going to be the Jeb Bush of 2024. You'll get some fawning inside-the-Beltway media coverage about how you're the natural heir for the "reasonable" Republican Party. But that won't be enough. After a decorous interval of surface politeness, the Tom Cottons and the Ben Sasses and the Josh Hawleys and the Donald Trump Jrs. of the world — bloodthirsty extremists all — will savage you with Ted Yoho-type misogyny, abetted by a MAGA base still furious that you lowered the Confederate flag in South Carolina.
Nobody in the tattered GOP will be buying what Nikki Haley will be selling. Especially since it'll be tainted by her support of the guy who allowed storm troopers to beat up Portland moms. We cats HISS.
UPDATE: Bill Kristol is predicting that Benedict Donald, desperate to shake up the race, will dump Mike Pence in favor of Haley on or around August 15. How would the other GOP contenders feel about Nikki getting handed the inside lane for 2024? Is that why Josh Hawley is suddenly drawing a line in the sand about Roe? Or why Tom Cotton is bleating about slavery? Stay tuned.
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