OPINION:
A new poll has former President Donald Trump beating President Biden in the 2024 election, apparently because of Mr. Trump’s legal difficulties.
There is certainly some sweet comeuppance in that: Live by the sword, die by the sword. Non-Trumpers can enjoy it; anti-Trumpers, not so much. Non-Trumpers think the country can survive, even prosper, if Mr. Trump is elected. But they know he can’t get elected. Anti-Trumpers think that if Mr. Trump wins, it’s curtains for the U.S.
The trick for the non-Trumpers is to devise a strategy that denies Mr. Trump the nomination while giving him his due: He ushered in a badly needed change of direction in U.S. politics. But if he is the nominee and loses, much of what he accomplished will be lost, and a lot more besides.
The other Republican candidates should perhaps get together, decide which of them should be the nominee, and announce it. The goal is to stop Mr. Trump from winning the nomination in a crowded field and then losing the election.
But who among them should be the nominee? The answer should be driven not just by who the others think the best candidate might be, but by whom the public prefers and who has the best shot at winning in November — either against Mr. Biden (assuming he runs) or whoever replaces him at the top of the Democratic ticket.
Who should that Republican nominee be? At this point, the answer clearly is Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. He may not be your first choice, but that’s not important. What is important is selecting someone and then working to knock Mr. Trump out of the race.
What is the point of saying you prefer former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie? Mr. Christie may be a great guy, but it’s a sure bet that he won’t win the Republican nomination. If you can’t see that, crocheting might be a better sport for you than politics.
And then there’s this: Only if Mr. Trump is not the Republican nominee can he go down in history as a positive force in American politics. History tends to be written by the winners, and he won’t win the election.
A victorious Republican Party, however, can accurately describe the successes of not just the Trump presidency but of the Trump phenomenon as well.
If the Democrats get to tell that story, it will rival “Invasion of the Bodysnatching, Blood-Sucking Alien.” (If there isn’t such a movie, the Democrats will make one as a biography of Mr. Trump.) Mr. Trump may not understand that, though his children may.
Also, if the Republicans win, there is less chance Mr. Trump will go to jail. That ought to concentrate someone’s mind wonderfully. The GOP team should pledge to pardon Mr. Trump, thus taking the wind from the MAGA folks’ sails and giving incentive to marginal undecideds driven by the unfairness/weaponization issue to look at the non-Trump alternative.
All the current Republican candidates know that only one of them can get nominated, and to achieve that, he or she will have to beat not just Mr. Trump but the other Republican hopefuls as well. The chance of that happening is slim. Any candidate who can’t see that is already disqualified.
Most of the candidates are young enough to run again — if the Democrats don’t cancel elections. Oh, they can’t do that, you say? Isn’t that what they’re doing now? Turning the justice system against Mr. Trump to prevent him from running? Why wouldn’t they do that in 2028 too?
At the moment, only six Republican candidates are on the scoreboard other than Mr. Trump: Mr. DeSantis at 16%, Vivek Ramaswamy at 6%, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley at 4%, former Vice President Mike Pence at 3%, and Mr. Christie and Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina at 2% each.
Is it possible that one of them could overtake Mr. DeSantis? Sure. Anything is possible. But it’s not likely, and the goal for those who view the upcoming election as a must-win contest and believe Mr. Trump is the one potential nominee who cannot win it is not to canonize Mr. DeSantis.
It’s simply to pick someone who can run as the alternative to Mr. Trump. And there has to be some rationale for picking that person. That someone should be Mr. DeSantis because his support exceeds the total support of the next four candidates.
Is Mr. DeSantis your favorite candidate? That’s not the right question. The question is, who at this point, is most acceptable to the Republican primary electorate?
Mr. Trump is clearly too pigheaded to understand any of this. But his freedom, and perhaps even survival as well as the future of America as we have known it — depend on Republicans coalescing around a candidate who can win in 2024. Time’s a-wasting.
• Daniel Oliver is chairman of the Education and Research Institute and a director of the Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy in San Francisco. In addition to serving as chairman of the Federal Trade Commission under President Ronald Reagan, he was executive editor and subsequently chairman of William F. Buckley Jr.’s National Review. Email him at Daniel.Oliver@TheCandidAmerican.com.
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