Paul goes on and on tonight, about how mean some in the GOP are being to DeSantis.
Of course, underneath his unseemly bleating, lies a rather solid point: if the GOP regulars keep tearing DeSantis down, they will make it at least marginally easier for Tangerine to win the GOP nomination. And the regulars hate that thought, more than death.
So… there is nothing about Paul’s blog installment tonight… that I do not love.
Where he goes astray, though — is in assuming that if DeSantis wins the nomination, he might win in the general. [We all agree — Trump will never win this time, in a fair general election. No way.]
But as EmptyWheel cogently points out, there is no scenario where (if Trump doesn’t win the nomination at the GOP convention) Trump goes away quietly. He (being a sociopathic narcissist!) will 100% certainly then launch third party, solely to scorch the DeSantis’ Earth. To salt… ALL GOP fields.
And again, I will cheer.
But there is a small danger, per EmptyWheel now — that Trump is jailed by mid-2024, or at least, convicted of multiple felonies.
That would (unfortunately, for Democrats!) end his bid, as a matter of law, if not a matter of fact. You see, in many states he won’t even be eligible to be on the ballot (with a pending felony, or if incarcerated). And that might just hold enough of the GOP together, to eek out a DeSantis win, in the general.
But the probability of all THAT aligning, by late summer of 2024… is well under 1%.
So — I am grinning ear to ear, as Paul reconfirms that Frum said “the only difference between DeSantis and Trump is that DeSantis arrives at work on time, not watching TV until 11 AM every weekday.”
Gotta’ love that!
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