To regular followers of the 2024 Republican presidential primary race, it’s no big secret that one of the main arguments for those opposing another (third) nomination of Donald Trump to lead the GOP is the notion he’s always in trouble.
Be it last week’s deep state inspired arraignment for Espionage Act violations in federal court, his ongoing battles with the New York authorities over an alleged dalliance with porn star Stormy Daniels or his turbulent presidency chock full of nasty confrontations with the establishment media or the farce nature of the Russia, Russia, Russian collusion accusation, Trump simply has a knack for attracting controversy.
And don’t forget about his role (or lack thereof) in fanning the flames of the January 6th “tourism riot” at the Capitol building, where the only homicide was that of a diminutive female former military veteran who was shot while jumping through a window, purportedly to stop others from doing the same. The violent misbehavior of a token few individuals in the mob gave Democrats and Trump’s intra-party detractors all the ammunition they’d need to permanently assert that he is a cad and an instigator of insurrections.
Nearly all of the fury was false, but the ever-present videos, leaks and “testimony” from deep state actors has kept the smut on the proverbial front page for his enemies to exploit.
His NeverTrump opponents swear if Trump is elected for a second term next year, it will be déjà vu all over again in terms of the left’s reaction, and that’s the prime reason why conservatives and Republicans should elevate someone else. But there are also those who assert that it doesn’t matter who the GOP nominates, because he or she will encounter the same ferocious opposition as the 45th president did. Is this true?
In a piece titled “Do Any Republicans Really Think DeSantis Won’t Get Impeached Or Framed By The FBI?”, the wise Joy Pullmann wrote at The Federalist recently:
“Anyone who has been watching for seven years — and counting — has seen the nation’s top Republican politician framed, impeached, raided, prosecuted, and now indicted by corrupt spy agencies on behalf of the Democrat Party. Their goal is to send their top political opponent to prison on charges they said were fascist to bring against their own presidential candidates.
“After these last seven years, how can anyone not expect that any Republican who questions the unelected, Congress-defying security state won’t get the Trump treatment? If they can and will do it to Trump, they can and will do it to Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy, Robert Kennedy Jr., and anyone else who threatens their power. (Clueless candidates like Mike Pence and Nikki Haley don’t.) ...
“The first thing this unprosecuted history of institutionalized crime ought to teach is that the people willing to do things like this will do anything they can get away with. The second is that they must not get away with it. That’s not going to happen unless others in power stop these systemic abuses by applying their rightful authority. It will take a long time, and it will happen to a lot more Republicans on the way.”
Yes, it will, and it’s already happening to Ron DeSantis in particular. The establishment media started turning its evil eye towards the Florida governor late last year when numerous polls showed DeSantis could be competitive with Trump when the GOP race heated up. Such challenge has since faded, but that hasn’t stopped the noxious talkers from throwing together several other hit pieces on the mid-forties Republican leader – and his wife.
Needless to say, Trump has received the bulk of the left’s angst in the past few weeks, first with his rumored indictment and then with his actual arraignment, which has served to yank the names of his intra-party opponents right out of the news. One can only imagine DeSantis, Tim Scott, Vivek Ramaswamy and Chris Christie, among others, going from event to event and speaking to audiences distracted by breaking news stories on Trump.
What else can they do but carry on?
But Pullmann is correct. Any conservative who fills the shoes of next year’s nominee will eventually face the onslaught of sleaze from the jealous and contemptuous swamp defenders – Democrats, the establishment media, the deep state, federal bureaucrats, and, to a slightly lesser extent, the GOP establishment. The stakes – and paychecks – of the elites lie in the balance. Trump made for an easy target because of his celebrity, style of dress, hairstyle and luxurious lifestyle, but being more “ordinary” won’t insulate the others if Trump somehow loses the nomination.
DeSantis has drawn conservative praise for his recently announced plan to completely dismantle the deep state if he is elected president. Phillip Wegmann put together an excellent summation of DeSantis’s plan last week at Real Clear Politics. To synopsize, DeSantis would decentralize the law enforcement agencies and also go to work on the federal bureaucracy, just the medicine the horribly ailing executive branch agencies require to cure the disease.
DeSantis has meticulously put together a stellar team to help draw up the procedures for how such a dismantling could take place, and by the sound of it, the plan could be primed by the time the president-elect raises his right hand and recites the oath of office in January, 2025. Talk about being ready on Day One – the world would change in the first hours of a DeSantis administration.
Which makes it all the more urgent that DeSantis be included in the upcoming Republican administration (assuming we win, of course). The Floridian’s deep state destruction intentions likely won’t sway the bulk of the former president’s GOP primary supporters to his campaign, so this could be all for naught unless Trump would do the smart thing by swallowing a smidgen of his pride and ask his chief opponent to take a major role in Trump administration 2.0 – preferably as vice president, so DeSantis would be in foremost position to keep the momentum going into 2028 and beyond.
If Trump decides to be stubborn and seek retribution against the Florida governor for whatever reason, why not appoint Vivek Ramaswamy to do the so-called “dirty work”, not necessarily as vice president, but as director of … something, or to a cabinet position that would be powerful enough to delve into the process and bring a wrecking ball to the deep state. I would say Ramaswamy would make for a terrific Attorney General under Trump, but I don’t believe he’s even practiced law.
“Good” – I hear a lot of you saying, but Ramaswamy does have a juris doctorate degree from Yale, so he’s not completely devoid of legal swamp experience. But nevertheless, I believe that a young, articulate, aggressive go-getter like Vivek would be just the advocate conservatives – and all of America – needs to wage a wholesale butt kickin’ of the corrupted federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
Besides, bringing in a fresh face might take some of the heat off of Trump (or DeSantis) in terms of public relations value. Make no mistake, as Pullmann alluded to, whomever ends up in the GOP chair will still experience the full wrath of the left in the conservatives’ mission to make America Great Again.
One thing that hasn’t received much mention of late is the fact Republicans will desperately need a Senate majority in order to confirm the new president’s team of system disruptors, swamp drainers and thick-skinned human bureaucracy terminators. Democrats say it all the time – that confirming executive appointments shouldn’t be subject to partisanship, but since when do liberals ever believe that rules of decorum apply to them?
Should Democrats retain the upper chamber majority, anticipate a whole slew of objections, investigations, new scandals (see Kavanaugh, Brett, in 2018) and stall tactics that would make a Biden January 6 federal prosecutor blush. Democrats could care less what the person’s qualifications might be, their experience or demographics. Liberals feel an intrinsic urge to turn the nominee into the second (or third, or fourth, or hundredth or thousandth) coming of the combined progeny of Attila the Hun, Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.
As the events of the past several weeks have suggested, the need to elect a Republican president is all the more vital now than it was even a month ago. Simply put, conservatives cannot afford to lose in 2024, and to that end, the candidates must do whatever is feasible to ensure victory is placed prominently at the top of everyone’s priority list.
If this involves most or all of Trump’s GOP competitors bowing out of the race to present a united party front, then his opponents should consider it. An idiot like Chris Christie has already indicated he’s in the race to specifically target Trump – and to a slightly lesser extent, DeSantis – so it’s obvious the former New Jersey governor’s bloated ego matches his belt size.
But for those ’24 hopefuls with no realistic shot – or if they’re just laying the groundwork for something else – they need to take one for the team and exit. And, if Republicans are to ensure victory, they should all praise DeSantis’s plan to blow up the federal investigatory and intelligence agencies and return power to the people.
For those of us who’ve been preaching that the GOP’s only cause is victory in 2024, it’s time to think about the best way to accomplish the feat. Donald Trump clearly has the voters and Ron DeSantis just as evidently has formulated plans to help make America great again by bringing accountability to the Department of Justice. Together, they’d make an unbeatable combination.
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