If you have a sense of deja vu, it’s because what’s going on now in GOP donor world is a repetition of 2015 at this point. Some of the big Republican money donors were holding out and they were not so sure of a Trump nomination. But when push came to shove, out came the checkbooks and the rest is history.
Now, Charles Koch is reportedly drawing a line in the sand. His AFP PAC (Americans for Prosperity) is prepared to donate mega bucks, but not for Donald Trump. This is a switcheroo. Let’s see how long it lasts. Washington Post:
“The best thing for the country would be to have a president in 2025 who represents a new chapter,” Emily Seidel, chief executive of the network’s flagship group, Americans for Prosperity (AFP), wrote in a memo released publicly on Sunday. The three-page missive repeatedly suggests that AFP is taking on the responsibility of stopping Trump, with Seidel writing: “Lots of people are frustrated. But very few people are in a position to do something about it. AFP is. Now is the time to rise to the occasion.” […]
While the memo didn’t name a spending target, AFP’s affiliated super PAC spent more than $69 million in the 2022 cycle, according to Federal Election Commission disclosures. The Koch network joins the Club for Growth, another of the largest outside spenders, and several of the party’s biggest individual donors, such as finance billionaires Kenneth C. Griffin and Stephen A. Schwarzman in signaling their opposition to Trump’s current campaign. Others are holding back for now.
They held back before and they came through for Trump. At this point, I wouldn’t necessarily bet the farm on the proposition that they won’t go for Trump again.
The decision by the powerful network to challenge Trump marks an escalation of a long-simmering feud over the GOP’s core policy commitments. Trump’s brand of economic nationalism has clashed with the free-trade inclinations of the Koch network. “The globalist Koch Brothers, who have become a total joke in real Republican circles, are against Strong Borders and Powerful Trade,” Trump wrote on Twitter in 2018, referring to Charles and his brother David, who died in 2019. Trump and the Koch network have been more aligned on opposing foreign interventions and reducing nonviolent criminal sentences.
The industrialist brothers assembled an influential network of groups that have sought to have a major impact in the political process. Sunday’s memo expressed frustration with the direction of American politics in the Trump era. “The Republican Party is nominating bad candidates who are advocating for things that go against core American principles. And the American people are rejecting them,” Seidel wrote. “If we want better candidates, we’ve got to get involved in elections earlier and in more primaries.”
I can’t argue with the logic of this last couple of statements. Not one jot. The GOP is nominating horrific candidates, that not only go against core American principles, but against plain standards of decency and common sense. It would be interesting to see a GOP where performative jackassery was not the norm and governance was taken seriously.
We’ll know by the end of summer, we are told, where all the big money is going. I think that we’ll know by the beginning of summer whether Trump has a prayer or not. He’s less than spectacular in his run for the 2024 nomination right now and unless that changes dramatically, he’ll have no campaign worth speaking of by the beginning of summer.
As I’ve said before, I think Trump will basically run unopposed until he runs out of steam and then Ron DeSantis will probably make his move.
And then — then, we might see Trump go third party and then the GOP is totally screwed. It could happen. That may be what we’re looking at in 2024. It is not outside the realm of possibility, as crazy as it is. Trump can’t lose gracefully, that much we know. He can’t pass the baton on to somebody else. He’s not a team player. He will do what is good for him when the time comes.
Here’s a wild thought: Do you suppose Koch would pay Trump not to run? That might be the easiest way for the GOP to deal with all this.
Rich as Koch is he’s not rich enough to pay Trump not to run. I doubt the combined fortunes of Jeff Bezos and that of Musk & Zuckerberg (pre Twitter ownership for Musk & pre Meta for Zuck) would be enough to soothe Trump’s ego. As for Koch and AFP I have the same concern you do – for all the threats not to cough up the money in the end if Trump looks like he’s going to be leading the GOP in 2024 then both he and batshit insane candidates he demands be supported will get money. The rationalization will of course be ‘he’s SURELY learned his lesson now and can be at least partially controlled.” The reality of course is that if he proved to be beyond control before we ain’t seen nothing yet!
Hitler got control in much the same way – people simply didn’t think he could do it – and he did. trump made Hitler his hero so what should we expect of trump ? Now we are reading stories of the legal side having problems in deciding to indict him for the multiple crimes he’s committed – he is as slippery as an eel – as brainless as he is his instinct for survival is well primed over many years. He is the very epitome of evil – those eyes – cold as a fish ! Shudder !
TFG will never go third party. Except for maybe the Libertarians, who I don’t think would back Trump, no other third party has automatic ballot lines in enough states to make a 3rd party run for president worthwhile. To run as an Independent, he would have to get enough petition signatures in each state to get on the ballot and that’s way too much work for Orange Anus. What he will do is burn the house down, if he’s not the nominee. Destruction is something he’s good at and enjoys doing. So everyone can calm down about Biden running against a much younger DeSatan. If he manages to get the nomination, TFG will personally insure that that Floriduh Man can’t win.