The one obvious reason Trump can't lose the 2024 GOP primary
Republican cowardice, of course.
Barring a serious heart attack, a catastrophic stroke, or some other world historical event, Donald Trump will win the GOP primary, even if he loses it.
He will win the 2024 Republican presidential primary for the same reason he won the 2016 presidential primary. His opponents won't touch the issue that disqualifies him because they're afraid it it will end their career not his.
In 2016, they couldn't call him out for being a birther.
In 2024, they won't call him a loser.
Birtherism was a barely concealed dog whistle that no mainstream Republican really wanted to touch, though it was wildly popular with the GOP base. Mainstream Republicans certainly didn’t mind that accusation that the first Black president of the United States couldn’t possibly be a real American, but they knew the obviously racist stench it produced made their party unelectable. So much so that Kellyanne Conway made Trump disavow the whole nonsense days before the 2016 general election.
Still not one Trump’s dozens of opponents called him out on it over the course of nearly a million primary debates. Why? Because Republicans don’t call out each other’s dog whistles and risk shattering the strategically racist scam the party’s billionaire sponsors use to soak the working class.
Calling Trump a loser would be an even more serious offense.
Calling out the Big Lie means you accept democracy that allows Democrats to win. That's unacceptable to the GOP base because it suggests you believe our elections are generally fair and Black people's votes should count. Accepting either premise means you won't pursue voter suppression the way the base demands and the party needs to compete in the electoral college, which itself is a fundament of voter suppression.
What *may* happen is one candidate will call Trump a loser and Trump and his fans will torch him. And that will be the end of it. The candidates are all cowards and too terrified for their own careers to all join together to say the one word that would end Trump: LOSER.
There is some honesty to this cowardice. It’s perfectly genuine cowardice!
They all know Trump lost. But they also don't believe Trump is a loser, even though they know he lost.
That’s because they don't think it's fair that Democrats—read: Black Americans, brown Americans, LGBTQ Americans and white people who dare to *side* with any of these groups—get the same right to vote as *normal* Americans do.
So there's no hypocrisy here. Just the boundaries of a party that aspires to one-party semi-fascist rule.
Of course, if Ron DeSantis really wants to end Trump, he’d need to define the ex-president as a *loser*—something that a leader cannot be in the GOP’s strict father worldview, as explained by George Lakoff. If Ron had the sauce, he’d do it himself or have one of his billionaire donors hire a blimp that says “LOSER” follow Trump around.
But with that Ronnie risks losing everything and really becoming Jeb DeSantis. He’d be violating the natural order of the Republican Party and potentially severing it in half, which is what Trump will do if for some freak reason he seems to be on the verge of not gaining the GOP nomination.
DeSantis won’t call Trump a loser for the same reason Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio never called Trump a birther (and managed to save a semblance of their careers). They recognize the lies their supporters need to hear and the truth Republicans won’t accept.
That’s why I expect that DeSantis will eventually bow out and spend a few years trying to grow into his graduation suit. If he’s as smart as he thinks he is, he’ll do this when Trump gets indicted and the entire right wing circles around Trump tighter than a lapbelt in a Ford Fiesta.
Because that’s another thing Republicans not allowed to do. You cannot insist or even believe that rich white Republicans should have to follow the law.