I have to wonder how many more elections will the Republican establishment; both politicians and rich donors, attempt to foist the hopeless anti-populist candidates that they always put forward. It was one thing back in 2000 when we bought into George W Bush. Sure, he was the son of a former president and the governor of Texas. And he claimed he was a born-again Christian. How could we go wrong? But then we got Iraq and compassionate conservatism with all that entailed.
And then we got John McCain and Mitt Romney. That one-two punch was enough to awaken even the most complacent conservative to the reality of the Uni-Party. These were hopeless losers who would rather let the Democrats have all the social justice victories they dreamed of as long as their favorite military equipment manufacturer received enough contracts to keep the checks rolling into their election funds.
But finally, we got to 2016 and the spectacle of JEB! Bush telling Donald Trump that illegal aliens crashing our border was an act of love that we must honor by providing them with citizenship. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Donald Trump buried Jeb Bush in 2016 and with him he buried the chances of lame, rollover and play dead, establishment Republicans getting a free pass to be our mostly unsuccessful presidential candidates.
However, hope springs eternal in the hearts and wallets of the Koch Brothers and other super-wealthy Republican backers and in the idiot sons of the Mayflower descendants. But now they’ve discovered a new ploy; diversity idiots. And so was born the horror that is Nikki Haley. She sounds like Jeb Bush but she’s noticeably manlier. And because of this stiffer spine she’s even more forceful in her embrace of increasing immigration and fighting wars in whatever third world countries have yet to be invaded. She likes the Ukraine and Gaza wars. A lot. And given a little time I’m sure she could warm up to a Belarussian adventure and maybe one day Kazakhstan. She truly is a wonder to behold.
So, my question is, will there ever be a point when the donors to the Republican party will stop providing hundreds of millions of dollars to Potemkin conservative candidates in the hope of covering both bets in the presidential elections? Many people would say no, that the necessity of forcing an establishment candidate on Republican voters is critical. After all, they’ve been doing this since Gerald Ford in 1976 and it’s worked for the most part. Election after election we convinced ourselves that whatever empty suit they hauled up on the stage was better than Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton or Barack Obama. Why should things change now?
But I don’t think that’s the case. I listen to the media talking heads talking about how exciting Nikki Haley is and what a breath of fresh air she brings to the Republican race. And it sounds so absurd that I think, “Nah, only the hopeless morons would fall for that.” And based on her numbers it all seems about right. At best she’s polling high single digits. Basically, she’s got the anti-Trumpers and the truly mentally challenged (although there is a large overlap in the Venn diagram of those two subsets). To me it seems that the establishment Republican candidates have been exposed once and for all.
What seems like the next step is the formal acknowledgement by the donors that they will either have to come to terms with the direction of the Republican party or go over to the Democrats. I guess they could start their own party but I think they’re too lazy for that.
Now alternatively, if the powers that be in the party rig the 2024 primaries so that Donald Trump doesn’t end up as the candidate, that will change things significantly. I think it will end the Republican party as a legitimate political home for the conservative half of the country. And I would guess that a new party would begin to form to replace it. Because it would be a pretty absurd situation where something like 30% of the electorate just stayed home during the election of the United States president.
But anyway, I will say I am a little disappointed that Donald Trump won’t be participating in the Republican debates. I would love to see Trump get to knock JEB! off just one more time.