If The GOP Presidential Field Doesn’t Get It Together And Change Tactics, Trump Is A Lock For 2024

I’m getting Deja vu all over again here. If this 3rd rate bunch of refugee ragamuffins on the GOP doesn’t get their shit together and change their tactics by the time the real primaries start, I may just go back to my archives, dust them overr, change the names, and post ’em again. Because the names are the only thing that is going to change.

I have already written that candidates like Haley, Pence, Pimpeo and Pissantis are hell bent on getting into their own lanes, and ignoring the 44 car pileup that is Trump. Now that might, just might work if the primaries were nothing but a never ending series of rallies and polls leading up to the convention. But that isn’t the way that the primaries work.

Because sooner or later, if they stick around long enough, they’re going to end up standing on a stage next to the Trumpinator, the political one man slaughterhouse. And just ignoring Traitor Tot’s crude insults and making your canned campaign points won’t work. Trust me on this, I’ve spent seven long years paddling with my water wings in the fetid swamp of Trump’s brain. He feasts on weakness the way he snarf double bacon cheeseburgers and KFC.

Their plan would have worked fine if they were John McCain in 2008, or Mitt Romney in 2012. But that’s because GOP politics was traditional then. But in the era of FrankenTrump, GOP primaries are no longer a political version of Good Will Hunting, todays GOP primaries are more like Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. for the simple reason that it’s what the base wants! And until someone pries it from his cold, dead fingers, it’s still Trump’s party. Full stop.

Let’s take a quick look back at the 2016 primaries. It’s instructional simply because Trump was a green novice at politics. If ever there was a time to take Trump down, it was with 15 seasoned, career GOP professional politicians. They should have played beach volleyball with him. But instead;

• Trump immediately nicknamed Jeb! Bush, the presumed frontrunner as Low Energy Jeb. And Bush’s pithy, scathing response was to be so low energy that his aide carried around a portable defibrillator rather than the nuclear football
• Trump instantly nicknamed the short of stature Marco Rubio Little Marco. Rubio made one attempt to slap back at Trump in his own language, referring to the size of Trump’s hands on the debate stage, and making a snide reference to his manhood. Trump totally shameless, especially in public responded There’s no problem there, believe me, there’s no problem there, and went on to mock Rubio’s pathetic GOP response to the SOTU by saying on stage, Ah-Ah-Ah, I’m Marco Rubio!, and spraying a bottle of water all over the stage
• Chris Christie tried to take Trump on personally, but the wrong way. Rather than turning it into a typical Jersey alley knife fight, Christie tried heaping scorn on Trump’s infantile ideas and stupid plans. This included a truly ridiculous WWE style mano-a-mano Mexican standoff on the debate stage, which security had to break up. But Krispy Kreme backed off first, and was done
• Now for the worst, and most instructional. Cancun Teddy Cruz spent the entire campaign trying to run the Nikki Haley playbook. He studiously ignored Trump’s barbs, figuring he would flame out, and not wanting to offend his voters. Then Trump posted a glamour shot of Melania next to an unflattering shot of Cruz’s wife Heidi, looking like a Brothers Grimm harridan, and Cruz went postal. He angrily denounced Trump as a craven coward and bully, and warned him to Stay the hell away from Heidi and my kids! No! No! No! The right response would have been to bring up Melania allegedly abusing her visitors visa to work as a model, and possibly*hint-hint* an escort! Now that’s the kind of a knock to the nuts that would have had Trump backing off and reconsidering.

That. Shit. Won’t. Work. Haley’s Comet Cleanser spoke at C-Pac today, Trump’s home court, and never mentioned Trump directly once. Instead she repeatedly referred to herself as the vanguard of the new conservatism. Her reception was polite but cool, and as soon as her speech was over, she boogied to go back on the trail. Let’s see how Pimpeo does tomorrow.

These knuckleheads have to get it through their heads that the Trump GOP primaries are Roman blood sport, complete with severed heads and dismembered limbs because that’s the way the base likes it! And if you’re not ready to pick up a broadsword and hack pieces off of Trump, you may as well stay home.

Here’s a prefect example of what I’m talking about. Trump started out by calling his chief rival Florida Governor Ron Pissantis Meatball Ron. When that didn’t resonate, he switched gears and called Pissantis a pedophile, who groomed kids when he was a high school teacher. DeSantis’ response was to tell an interviewer that One of the reasons for his success as Governor was his ability to ignore the outside noise. Even to a moderate Republican, or an independent voter, that makes DeSantis look like the weakest person on the planet, who isn’t even capable of defending himself. Who wants to vote for a total wuss?

And funnily enough, since none of the other either declared candidates, or prospective candidates are trying to appeal to Trump’s voters, the pickings are lush. They can;

• Hammer him on the hush money payment to Stormy Daniels through Michael Cohen. Make him defend it. And since the Manhattan DA is looking into that, anything he says can be used in court against him
• Drag up Ivanka Trump’s 40+ Chinese patents what were awarded withing hours of her sitting next to Chinese President Xi at a state dinner
• Bring up his son in law Jared Kushner getting a $2 billion investment in his cheesedick investment fund shortly after making a last official visit to Saudi Arabia, and ensuring that MBS wasn’t held responsible for journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s death
• Hammer him on the numerous profligate profits his DC hotel reaped as a benefir of foreign governments spending money there in return for access to him
• Slap him for the multiple civil sexual assault lawsuits that have been filed by pretty much every woman who met Trump in the last 30 years

None of this is going to have any effect on Trump’s base voters. But remember, it’s not Trump’s voters that they’re after, it’s everybody else! And the way to unite them, is to remind them that anybody is better than Trump! And the way to start to peel some of his base away is to hammer him so hard that he starts to look weak. That’s the one thing they can’t tolerate.