Republican Donors Ponder Post-Trumpworld

 

From this morning's Washington Post:

"In private conversations among donors, operatives and other 2024 presidential hopefuls, a growing number of Republicans are trying to seize what they believe may be their best opportunity to sideline Trump and usher in a new generation of party leaders.

Many blame Tuesday’s midterm results — Republicans made smaller-than-expected gains in the House and failed to gain control of the Senate — on the former president, who during the primaries elevated extremist candidates who fared poorly in the general election. The discouraging election outcomes, combined with Trump’s 2020 loss to Biden, have increased both public and private talk of considering a post-Trump world.

Many of the party’s top donors are actively trying to back other candidates and are tired of Trump, according to Republican officials and operatives in touch with them, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose private conversations." (our emphasis)

Many in the Malignant Loser's cult / party have tried and failed to derail him before, starting with the Access Hollywood tape that indelibly marked him as a sexual predator. Even his open, violent coup attempt at the Capitol after losing the 2020 election failed to move his party away from him. So how to deal with him? Former New Jersey Governor and beach hog Chris Christie is quoted in the Post article with a suggestion that may resonate:

"....the pitch for defeating him is also simple: Trump is a loser who is dragging the rest of the party down with him.

'How about this? When Donald Trump won in 2016, he said we were going to get so tired of winning we would ask him to stop winning so much,' Christie said. 'In 2018, we lose the House. In 2020, we lose the Senate and the White House. In 2021, we lose two winnable [Senate] seats in Georgia. And in 2022, we vastly underperform historic norms given inflation and gas prices and crime and a president at 40 percent. I’m tired of losing.'” (our emphasis)

If nothing else, being labeled a "loser" is the narcissistic Malignant Loser's worst primordial fear, plucking at his damaged and fragile id. So, yes, his competitors and all of us should continue to go with it gleefully. The question is whether the Malignant Loser will then lash out and destroy the party that has enabled him and that has produced candidates that are lesser images of him. Let's hope so, and that it brings about a long-term realignment in our politics in rejecting rage, bigotry and the fascist underbelly of Trumpism.