The Pretend GOP Contest
As the party "rivals" exit the stage and quickly endorse Trump, his ascendancy looks as inevitable as ever
Tomorrow’s GOP primary in New Hampshire, the first real primary with a voting public (Iowa was a caucus), is likely the last chance to stop Donald Trump’s cakewalk to the nomination. All of a sudden, in a last ditch effort, Nikki Haley is trying to confront Trump and his mental fitness after he mistook her for Nancy Pelosi.
“The concern I have is—I’m not saying anything derogatory—but when you’re dealing with the pressures of the presidency, we can’t have someone else that we question whether they’re mentally fit to do this,” Haley said Saturday. “We can’t.”
Seriously? That response is so lame, so reluctant, so indicative of her fear of upsetting Trump. Apparently, that’s the best she can do, not only after he confused her with the former House Speaker but has attacked her name and family heritage for days. It’s pathetic.
This is certainly too little too late—and just the most vivid example of the spinelessness of Haley, her fellow campaigners and the party in general.
Clearly, they fear Trump’s wrath and the wrath of his cult. Clearly, they can read the high disapproval ratings of former rivals Chris Christie and Asa Hutchinson, who actually voiced their criticism…before exiting the so-called race. Clearly, they lack the courage to genuinely take on the mafia-boss-cum-sociopath-cum-criminal-defendant-cum-cult-leader-cum-leading-GOP-candidate, thereby ensuring his ascendancy to the nomination.
The speed of their bow-down to Trump communicates they were never really running for president. It seems embarrassingly clear Tim Scott, Vivek Ramaswamy—and soon Haley—are really imagining becoming the next vice president.
DeSantis, who couldn’t really bring himself to confront Trump despite spending some $150 million and facing incessant, humiliating attacks from Trump, dropped out yesterday. The endorsement followed instantly: “I signed a pledge to support the Republican nominee, and I will honor that pledge. [Trump] has my endorsement because we can’t go back to the old Republican guard of yesteryear.”
Scott, who could never bring himself to criticize Trump, dropped out Saturday and endorsed him. “We need a president who will unite our country,” Scott said laughably in Concord, N.H., while the malignant one looked on. “We need Donald Trump.” (Note that Scott did not endorse his fellow Carolinian, Haley, who he claims is his friend and ally.)
Ramaswamy, who praised Trump throughout, dropped out last Tuesday and endorsed his hero. The worship—and the craven ambition—could not be clearer. "I expect to join him tomorrow in New Hampshire,” he told ABC News, “and I think that I will expect to join him on the campaign trail after that as well, because I think it's important that he becomes the next president of the United States."
Enablers one and all. It’s been hard to take any of this pretend contest seriously.
According to a new CNN poll conducted after the Iowa caucuses, Trump’s lead over Haley is in double digits, 50 percent versus 39 percent. Even if DeSantis’ supporters turned to Haley, he was only polling at 6 percent, not enough to make a difference.
I’m inclined to ask: Oh, Nikki, what was it all for? Was it really for the possibility to be VP on a ticket with Trump? The next Mike Pence with an obsequious, oleaginous, adoring gaze (until it all falls apart)?
I’d like to imagine that this was really about principle, that Haley and the others were running because they knew that Donald Trump is a danger to America and democracy, and any of them (OK, not DeSantis, not Ramaswamy) would be better than him.
But it would be foolish to think that principle is driving the Republicans these days. They want to retake the White House and they’ll soon be all-in for Trump, no matter what.
I can barely stand the thought of their daily expressions of fealty to the man who belongs behind bars. What a year this will be for us all.
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Just trying to figure out how to mentally and emotionally survive Republicans’ fealty and Trump’s candidacy. When he was elected the first time, I cried off and on for a week before I was able to wrap my head around it. I never thought we’d have to take a second ride on that horror-filled roller coaster. When you asked before what was the horror movie that stuck with us the most, the 2016 election is near the top...because it was REAL..a remake of Rosemary’s Baby. She says, at one point during the movie (when the devil is raping her) “This is no dream! This is really happening!!”
This, Donald Trump, as candidate for president and director of the republicans in Congress at this moment...is really happening...and we have nowhere to go but to the ballet box and then under the bed to wait for the storm of either election denialism or the next four years to pass.
Thanks for expressing how I feel.