Lacking these traditional credentials, Trump sought out “the underserved market within the Republican electorate by giving those voters what they might have wanted, but weren’t getting from the other mainstream selections.”

When Trump got into the 2016 primary race, “he did not have a clear coalition, nor did he have the things candidates normally have when running for president: political experience, governing experience, or a track record supporting party issues and ideologies,” Joseph Uscinski, a political scientist at the University of Miami, wrote in an email. In the meantime, the rest of us wish for Trump’s political future the same fate that befell Walsh’s earlier brief excursion into politics - one-and-done.Trump’s success in transforming the party has radically changed the path to the Republican presidential nomination: the traditional elitist route through state and national party leaders, the Washington lobbying and interest group community and top fund-raisers across the country no longer ensures success, and may, instead, prove a liability.įor those seeking to emulate Trump - Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Ron DeSantis, for example - the basic question is whether Trump’s trajectory is replicable or whether there are unexplored avenues to victory at the 2024 Republican National Convention. In an oxymoron for the ages, he wants to be a better Trump - which makes him as manifestly unfit to be president as the man he seeks to replace. Walsh believes Trumpism, in all its venality and cruelty, can survive without Trump. In recent days, Sean Spicer, who spun outrageous lies as Trump’s first White House press secretary, was cast on the upcoming season of “Dancing with the Stars.” Joe Arpaio, the bigoted former Arizona sheriff charged with contempt of court and later pardoned by Trump, has announced that he is again running for his old job. Still, one should never underestimate this nation’s capacity to grant a white man another redemption arc. Among Republicans, the president’s poll numbers are still high, even if they’ve been a bit flaccid lately. Republicans don’t mind policies that keep children in cages or foster voter suppression they just want it wrapped in a less ill-fitting suit. And there it is - the same extreme views, but none of the daily cringing. “He’s a much better version of President Trump,” Kristol said. On CNN this week, he half-joked that Rick Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator, should offer a primary challenge to the sitting president.

So does Bill Kristol, a conservative writer and Trump critic. Walsh wants to present another choice for those fretting that 2020 could mean GOP disaster if a buffoon remains at the top of the ticket. Republicans haven’t spent the past 50 years crafting warnings about welfare queens, railing about “law and order,” and rebranding a hatred of women’s reproductive rights as pro-women, to have Trump say out loud what they privately believe. That’s what Never Trumpers find off-putting, and it’s why they can’t be trusted. Unable to couch his worst instincts, Trump tipped the GOP’s ugly hand. Republicans don’t mind supporting misogynist or racist policies, of course they just hate it when everyone else notices. Walsh is part of that cult, but Trump’s relentless idiocy is hurting the GOP brand. But he’s aiming for the same voters who’ve fashioned Trumpism into a fierce white-identity cult. Walsh is selling himself as a more coherent Trump with a better hairdo. Now running as a Trump alternative, Walsh (sans musket, I assume) wants to take the country back from Trump - but not Trumpism itself.

Trumps cult animosity shows sign up