The 2024 Republican Party is far angrier, more unhinged, more unmoored from reality and more openly racist than its 2016 version. Still, that does not mean Trump’s now-probable nomination was inevitable. A very different kind of candidate running a different sort of campaign likely would have had a better chance.
For starters, typical Republican politicians mouthing Trump-lite platitudes were always going to struggle to capture the fancy of Republican primary voters. These voters do not care about experience, policies or (to be sure) character. They want a winner, someone to trounce the Democrats; they look for someone to hold them up as the “real” Americans. They want a ruthless bully on their side. In that case, instead of a Trump-lite, a Trump-plus might have done the trick.
A richer, more successful, younger and more entertaining (not the obnoxious and bizarro Vivek Ramaswamy) — maybe a Silicon Valley executive (e.g., former Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer, fund manager and major GOP donor Kenneth Griffin), a sports owner or a former general-turned-mogul — could have presented himself as the real “winner.” A true outsider could have sold himself as the guy who would clean up the mess both parties made. (He could go after Trump for nickel-and-diming the taxpayers and making money while in office.) As Trump did initially in 2016, a rich challenger could essentially self-fund, presenting himself as beholden to no one. In other words, getting someone to assume the outsider role, as Trump did in 2016, might have resulted in a more competitive race.
Attacking Trump as feeble, old, unsuccessful, self-obsessed (as Haley did in the final days before the New Hampshire race) and, most of all, boring would have been one way to gain attention in a party now consumed with performative politics. Moreover, if that challenger had been willing to go on mainstream news 24/7 to throw around invectives directed at all Beltway politicians, including Trump, he could have gained a boatload of free media. Someone of that ilk could have taken attention from Trump.
I say “he” because — let’s face it — part of Trump’s appeal to the MAGA cult is his toxic masculinity. The entire GOP obsession with “manhood” and its apparent determination to return women to the domestic sphere are typical of right-wing movements. “The strongman is an authoritarian leader who not only damages or destroys democracy but uses this kind of toxic, arrogant masculinity as a tool of rule,” said Ruth Ben-Ghiat, author of “Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present.” Wielding threats and vowing to use violence, such leaders deploy “a kind of masculinity that’s about domination, possession of others,” as she explained. Someone who fits the image — a tougher, fitter and more athletic version of Trump — could have demeaned Trump in a way his 2024 opponents could not.
Moreover, such a figure could have avoided jumping on the sympathy bandwagon when Trump got indicted (over and over and over again). Why no serious contenders in the 2024 primary made clear that Trump’s desperate effort to save himself from prosecution has nothing to do with empowering voters remains a mystery. (Going one step further, a real pugilist might have mocked Trump for refusing to take the stand against E. Jean Carroll in her first defamation trial or taunted him about exaggerating his wealth.)
You might think all of this sounds superficial, juvenile or even tawdry. It is — and so is today’s GOP. You need a candidate to match that GOP, not the GOP as it existed in 2012 when Mitt Romney, now a GOP outcast, won the nomination. Such a figure could have taken away the anti-Trump voters’ anxiety entailed in nominating someone indicted on 91 counts. At least some of the Trump voters might have seen this kind of figure as Trump 2.o.
A traditional, boring politician trying to bob and weave around Trump was never going to take him down. Roughly two dozen Republican competitors over two election cycles (2016 and 2024) tried that but failed. Granted, even with an atypical opponent, Trump still might have won, given his grip on what has become a fascist cult that makes up the base of the party. But the race might have been somewhat more competitive. More important, an opponent like that could have revealed Trump’s vulnerabilities in ways that are particularly enraging to someone with his narcissistic tendencies.
Looking ahead to the general election, the primary that never was might suggest some lines of attack for President Biden (who has called Trump a “loser” and noted his mental “decline”). Biden could always challenge him to a bike race or a 24-hour visit to a war zone. Better yet, ask him to explain why someone who ducked military service has the gall to insult the troops.
In short, Republicans never figured out that the way to beat a bully is to keep pummeling him. Biden shouldn’t make the same error.
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