Who Are They?
I have to admit, nothing, absolutely nothing, surprises me about this new political party, the MAGA Party. I know, it used to be the Republican Party, the Party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Reagan, my father, and many of my good friends. But it’s not any more. It kind of reminds me of the opening scene in Men in Black, when the alien “bug” lands, then crawls inside the skin of Edgar, the poor farmer played by Vincent D’Onofrio, and struggles to inhabit his body.
Trump crawled inside the Party, literally taking over all of the working mechanisms. There is little difference between the Republican National Committee and the Trump Campaign. And there’s no difference between the Trump Campaign and Trump himself. Multiple millions of dollars of supposed campaign money is paying for Trump’s personal legal fees. Money that might have gone to support some Governor or Senate candidate, instead is paying for the series of terrible, awful, lousy lawyers representing Trump in courtrooms in New York, Washington, Atlanta and (that hotbed of legal action) Fort Pierce, Florida.
So it shouldn’t be a surprise that those candidates running against Donald Trump in the 2024 primaries are failing. It’s Trump’s Party – why would anyone else “suit” the voters in MAGA world? Sure, Donald Trump received 51% of the Iowa caucus vote, about 56,000 (out of the more than 800,000 registered Republicans in the state( SOS)). The MAGA Party is definitely smaller than the “old” Republican Party used to be. But ones who are still there and active, the vast majority; they are red-hatted Trumpers. It’s really a surprise that 49% voted for anyone else.
Primary Season
Sure, Nikki Haley is “still standing”, but she looks a whole lot like John Kasich back in 2016. The “fever dream” of non-MAGA Republicans was that if they could only get “one-on-one”, then the “majority” of Republicans could rise up against Donald Trump. But there isn’t a Never-Trump majority out there. If Haley does well in New Hampshire, it’s because the folks who are more likely to vote for Joe Biden (or Joe Manchin) in November, cross over to hurt Trump. Even that’s a media fever-dream, but it doesn’t matter.
Should Haley win in New Hampshire, it will simply extend the agony. The South Carolina primary is a month away, but there is no magic trick that will turn her own home state from Trumpism to Haley-ism. All that Haley can hope for is the influx of all of the anti-MAGA money. But there’s just some things that money can’t buy. South Carolina’s fealty to the twice-impeached, four times indicted former President is almost as strong as their addiction to the low country boil called “Frogmore Stew”.
Paragraph Six
This is the beginning of paragraph six – a fitting place for the end of Ron DeSantis. He was the “anointed one”, the boy-Governor picked to stand in for Donald Trump. He had all of the “issues chops”; things like his stand against Covid protections, his attack on “Woke America”, and his abuse of LGBTQ children in Florida. And he had none of the liabilities: no one was charging him with ninety-one felony counts. He wasn’t (isn’t) likely to see the inside of a Federal prison soon.
So he ran as Trump’s “mini-me”, with millions of dollars in funding to back him up. And as he got out in public, we found that, like Democrat Howard Dean back in 2004, the more people saw him, the less they like him. DeSantis was just awkward and weird, when it came to “retail politics”, shaking hands and kissing babies. And he was running to be the “replacement” when the “real thing” was still there, Trump.
It was the momentum of all that money that propped DeSantis up for over a year. But, like Howard Dean, it was in the first taste of actual voting that “the Party” got their chance to weigh in. And they did so, in small numbers in a snow storm – they wanted Trump.
DeSantis didn’t face the public in the end – he left us a message on “X”. Sure he said the right things, “…when there is no course forward, no path to the nomination, it’s time to suspend…”, but DeSantis also had the opportunity to lay a future path for his Party. But he didn’t: instead he “kissed the ring” of Donald Trump, one more time. He still wants to be in the MAGA Party, even if he lost to the MAGA King.
It was as awkward as the big white boots the DeSantis got caught wearing, or the “controversy” over whether he was “Dee-Santis” or “Duh-Santis”. Even he wasn’t sure. But the MAGA Party was sure about him.
Fore-Shadow
This as opposed to the end of the Chris Christie campaign, just a couple of weeks ago. Christie didn’t hide behind “X”, he stood out in a town-meeting and talked to people, something DeSantis couldn’t do. And while Christie has a kind-of New Jersey gangster “aura”, he made the purpose of his failed campaign clear. He, like Haley, wanted to be the nexus of the “traditional Republicans”. He still seems to believe that there are some out there. And Christie made the important point, even in his toughest moment. Democrat, Republican, or even MAGA: Trump is dangerous for America, and stopping him should be the national priority.
If you didn’t hear the speech (eleven minutes), you should check it out (Christie).
Christie, DeSantis, Haley: the side-shows are almost over. By the end of February we will be onto the general election; Trump versus Biden – the Re-Match. It’s the crucible America needs to go through one more time. And, if Biden wins, perhaps we can get back to the Republican Party of past generations. Because if Trump wins, we will all be in MAGA world, perhaps for longer than just four more years.
