While Republicans often refer to themselves as the “family values party,” some of them also seem to have a habit of wishing death upon their enemies. And each other. While Lauren Boebert has been known to lead a church full of parishioners in praying for the death of Joe Biden (on more than one occasion), Republican lawmakers who are worried about what sort of havoc Donald Trump could wreak on the country — and the GOP — with his 2024 presidential run are apparently quietly wishing he’d just keel over somewhere between the first and eighteenth holes.
As the GOP tries to figure out the best way to win back the White House in 2024, the big question on many people’s minds is: How will Trump help or hinder that goal? Given his most recent track record (read: he lost in 2020), official and potential presidential candidates are doing their best to carefully analyze what sort of power Trump’s seemingly shrinking base might hold. And as Politico reports, many Republicans are reportedly just hoping that a heart attack on the golf course might take care of the problem.
As David Siders and Meridith McGraw wrote for Politico:
Despite his difficulties since he left office, about a third of Republicans and Republican-leaning voters still consider themselves supporters more of Trump than the Republican Party, according to a recent NBC News poll. Many of them aren’t going anywhere. Fully 28 percent of Republican primary voters are so devoted to the former president that they said they’d support him even if he ran as an independent, according to a national survey last month from The Bulwark and longtime Republican pollster Whit Ayres. Indeed, the “Always Trump” component of the party is so pronounced that it’s affecting how Trump’s opponents operate around him.
Fergus Cullen, former chair of New Hampshire’s Republican Party, gave a pretty blunt answer about what he’s hearing around the GOP watercooler: “All these folks are just hoping that Trump’s going to have a heart attack on a golf course one day, and that’s going to solve this problem for them. Not much of a strategy.”
Maybe not, but it’s certainly effective.
An unnamed source close to Trump told Politico that the former/would-be POTUS doesn’t take his supporters for granted.
“He ran on a platform of the forgotten man and woman in America,” said the insider. “They have been with him since he announced in 2015, they were with him in 2020. They won’t leave him.”
Will that be enough to defeat Joe Biden (should the current president choose to run again) or any other candidate (Democrat, Republican, or otherwise) who ultimately decides to throw their hat in the ring for 2024? Only time — and no sudden golf course emergencies — will tell.
(Via Politico)