The Republicans are having a meltdown. There’s in-fighting between the Trump mini-mes intent on disruption, the election deniers and the establishment Republicans.
Many are tired of looking over their shoulder at Trump’s base. No matter how much the base loves him, there aren’t enough to elect him in 2024. He’s hurt the party in every election since 2018 and many Republicans would like to see someone else run instead.
Not since the 1912 election has the country seen the Republicans in such a mess. That was the year former president Theodore Roosevelt challenged President William Howard Taft for the Republican nomination at the convention — and lost. The Republican establishment stuck with Taft, who had been TR’s vice-president and chosen successor when Roosevelt decided not to run again in 1908.
Enraged by the rejection and confident of his popularity, Roosevelt ran as the leader of his new party, the Bull Moose. In doing so, he handed the election to the Democrat, Woodrow Wilson, who got 6 million votes to Roosevelt’s 4 million and Taft’s three-and-a-half million.
We’re moving towards a crossroads for the Republican Party. If Trump is the chosen nominee in 2024, he is almost certain to lose. If he is not chosen, like Roosevelt, he may decide that a third-party run is his best hope for another term in the White House. He would be wrong.
I’m Deborah Booth and that’s my perspective.
