2024 Trump win not in the cards

OPINION:

Charles Hurt’s recent op-ed attacks Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel and the Republican establishment for losing the 2022 midterms and exalts former President Donald Trump (“Time for new leadership at the RNC after three straight failed elections,” Web, Dec. 8). When it comes to the GOP’s loss on a very favorable playing field, there’s a lot of blame to go around — but I disagree with Mr. Hurt’s defense of Mr. Trump on this score.

Mr. Hurt notes that Mr. Trump got more votes than any prior Republican presidential candidate and championed issues that drew voters to the Republican Party. That’s true, but the only election Mr. Trump won was the 2016 election, when he was a fresh face, not a candidate for reelection who lost support in the suburbs, suffered big losses in the 2018 midterms, ran behind many Republicans in the 2020 election, cost Republicans the Senate in 2021 with his conduct in Georgia and did the same this year by endorsing Senate losers in New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Arizona. This is a man who can’t put the past in the past and has more baggage than a railroad porter, including recent hobnobbing with antisemites and white supremacists.

Mr. Hurt says Mr. Trump can’t be blamed for his 2022 Senate losses since the party establishment should have produced candidates who would have defeated those losers in the primaries. So the establishment should have bested a former Republican president highly praised by Mr. Hurt?

It’s true that Mr. Trump’s policies were great, and I think far-in-the-future historians will treat him well in presidential rankings, but he likely cannot win another term. Other candidates, certainly including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, would promote similar policies. With the right candidate, the good Donald Trump did would not be interred with his political bones.

Mr. Trump has had his day, and for four years it was a good one. But the Trump clock has struck midnight. It’s time for him to go.

JIM DUEHOLM
Washington