The obvious reaction to the bizarre idea that Chris Christie will soon enter the 2024 GOP primaries and then win the general election – “Fat chance! – is accurate on every level. The rotund Republican has zero support among the base, having missed his window a decade ago and having gone on to become one of those Republicans whose primary function is to trash other Republicans – a chubby chimp dancing for dimes as the MSNBC organ grinders play. Why is he running? Delusion? Narcissism? Greed? Who knows?
Who cares?
We’ve talked about Nikki Haley before. Remember her? She’s still running for vice president, er, president. I spoke to about 150 conservative women in Washington state the other night and mentioned her. Her support was zero. Nada. Nil. Yet now the aforementioned Pillsbury Doughcandidate and a few other no-hopers are joining her in spending tens of millions to top out at 3%.
Add Mike Pence to the Footnote Force, about 20 years after the last election where his brand of milquetoast Weekly Standard weakness had any resonance. Just this week he decried Republican candidates doing things their voters cared about, like taking on the communist corporations trying to turn us into a gender-ambiguous wine-woman dictatorship. Real Republicans apparently focus on the important things, like tax cuts for those same communist corporations and carefully, soberly managing our nation’s decline. Pence spices it up by throwing some Jesus into the mix – not the Jesus who grabbed a whip to drive the money changers out of the temple but the one that guitar-strumming Methodists from Santa Monica dig, the one who never actually challenges the status quo because Oh Well I Never and That’s Not Who We Are and We’re Better Than That. If we must have a preacher run things, I vote for John Lithgow in Footloose. He may have tried to keep those kids from dancing, but at least he wasn’t a sissy. He wouldn’t mutter something about “Well, we can’t interfere with the rights of parents' ' and show his belly when the pervert lobby cries about us banning mutilating little kids to conform to their Munchausen Mommies’ Chardonnay-fueled gender delusions. Which you know Pence would do in a second.
I will not dignify maple syrup sap Chris Sununu by pretending his nascent candidacy is a thing.
Then there’s Tim Scott, the favorite of everyone who thinks Mike Pence is too fiery and aggressive. I like Tim Scott. Heck, I like Mike Pence too. They would make terrific Sunday school teachers, but it’s Saturday night and all right for fighting. Gentle people like them have a role, and that role is not “leader.” Leaders have to lead, and sometimes that means leading the troops through the midst of the enemy behind sharpened, gleaming bayonets. Tim Scott is a nice guy with a nice story and a nice demeanor who does not take pleasure in crushing his enemies, which means that he will not aggressively seek to crush his enemies, and the crushing of our enemies is the key requirement of a Republican nominee in 2024.
The enemy hates us, and it is dead serious about converting its hatred into policy. From legalizing crime to weaponizing the government against us, from disenfranchising us at the ballot box to disarming us in our homes, to gagging us on social media and leveraging the regime media to hide the truth and amplify the lies, this is a cold war where we become serfs if we don’t win. It’s not the time for Team Use Your Inside Voice. The enemy holds every major institution; if you are worried about collateral damage to the institutions that seek to enslave us – or worse – then you don’t have the stones to flatten them and their current occupants. And that’s what we need to do.
Here's the test – if you think we should not dismantle the FBI because the problem is a few bad apples, you are impotent and unfit to lead. Get back in the rear with the camp followers and help with the cooking – we need a guy who will pick up his saber, yell “Follow me!” and charge.
The combative Chris Christie might do that but, even assuming he charges in the right direction – he’s spent the last few years charging at other Republicans – he would be out of breath after a few steps. Tim Scott and Mike Pence? They would be in mid-sentence about “We need to stop these icky and uncomfortable culture wars and build bridges to our friends across the aisle” when their blue buddies do to their figurative genitalia what these psycho mommies do to their boys’ real junk if the kid glances at a Barbie.
Why do Christie and Scott and Pence think they can win? Presidential politics is weird because otherwise sensible people become deluded into imagining that they have a chance. These guys have no chance. They are losers. They are Connor Roy in Succession, but at least Connor is amusing; these guys are just embarrassing.
Here’s the reality – this is a race between Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, who is widely-expected to make it official soon. There’s no one else in the Octagon. It’s these two, and here’s the thing – it’s not about policy. Despite Trump attacking every win DeSantis has in Florida, DeSantis’s agenda is the base’s agenda and if BJT vanquishes RDS then he will immediately adopt it again. Sure, this leaves all his minions who have been fulminating about the Florida governor being too mean to Disney and Bud Light tossed under the bus, but if you befriend Trump you gotta know that that’s where you’ll go eventually.
No, this race is not about policy because that’s been decided. Our policy is to destroy the left. We had the choice of a sissy Pence peace or war, and we chose war. Think back to the Kavanaugh thing – can you imagine any candidate except Trump or DeSantis not folding like a house of cards when the ruling caste wagged its finger? Maybe Vivek, though I’m not sure he was even able to drive when the Kavanaugh thing went down.
No, the GOP’s decision in 2024 is solely over the identity of the general who will take command. Will it be the cold, calculating, ruthlessly effective RDS, or the unstoppable juggernaut – well, except for ridiculous tangents to call Rosie O’Donnell “Horseface” –that is Donald Trump? Both will rain down destruction upon our enemies – Ron the precision Hellfire and Don the massive MOAB.
So, the real difference between the two is electability – that is, who is most likely to win in the general election? The polls are all over the place and useless 18 months out, but we do have some indicators. The 2020 election, and subsequent ones, show Trump has a sub-majority ceiling. That’s a problem and it’s not likely to change – he threaded the needle once and maybe he can do it again, but hoping to get lucky twice is not a plan. The fact is that some people, including Republicans who should know better, irrationally hate him and will never vote for him. Of course, some Republicans will never vote for anyone else. We know both guys hate wokeness, communism, crime and all the other aspects of the Democrat agenda. What we need to know is how they each propose to win in PA, GA, AZ, MI, and WI.
This race is about winning and only about winning. And that’s why Christie, Pence, and Scott won’t really be in the race even after they get into it. It’s Ron or Don, and I’m voting for whichever one wins the nomination. I just hope he can pull it off in November.
Follow Kurt on Twitter @KurtSchlichter. Get Inferno, the seventh book in the Kelly Turnbull People's Republic series of conservative action novels set in America after a notional national divorce, as well as his non-fiction book We’ll Be Back: The Fall and Rise of America.
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