Does anyone think Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis or former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley really have a shot at becoming the GOP's 2024 presidential nominee? It is a scenario that is increasingly difficult to imagine.
That's because the Iowa caucuses went almost exactly as predicted: Former President Trump swept his rivals, while both battled for second place. DeSantis, despite having taken the lead in that battle, is looking toward the end of his presidential ambitions.
As has happened with today's Republican Party, reality took a backseat to fantasy. Everyone was declared winner.
opinion columnist
Robin Abcarian
“Despite everything they threw at us, all against us,” DeSantis said, “they took away the Iowa ticket.” (There's a brick wall waiting for you in New Hampshire.)
“Tonight,” Haley told her supporters, “Iowa made this primary a two-person race.”
But he did?
Haley is expected to do better next week in New Hampshire, where the conservative electorate is less rigidly ideological than in Iowa, and of course in South Carolina, where she is a native daughter. Even if Haley defeats or miraculously comes close to Trump in New Hampshire, it will be difficult to shake her iron grip on the party. Every accusation, every court hearing seems to reinforce the perception of her as a persecuted victim of the Democratic Party in general and President Biden in particular.
While Haley and DeSantis at least acknowledged that they were still vying for a presidential nomination, Trump, in his typically grandiose style, behaved as if he had already won the general election.
In his victory speech on Monday, he called for national unity in the same way he called for the January 6 protesters to remain peaceful, which is to say completely falsely.
“This is the time for all of us, our country, to come together, we want to come together,” he said while launching into rambling, off-the-cuff comments. “Whether you're Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative, it would be great if we could come together and right the world.”
But Trump has Trump. He just couldn't sustain the unity theme: “I don't want to be too hard on the president,” he said, “but I have to say that he is the worst president we have ever had in the history of our country.” . He is destroying our country.”
Trump’s outburst in Iowa largely answered the question Haley posed to her supporters Monday night: “Do you want more of the same?” Or do you want a new generation of conservative leaders?
Sorry, Governor, but it seems like they want more of the same.
They want more lies from Trump about the 2020 election, more attacks on immigrants, more fantasies about how, under his watch, Russia would not have dared to invade Ukraine and Hamas would not have dared to invade Israel. They want more of his apocalyptic rhetoric about the border, about how “mental institutions and asylums” are “being emptied in our country.” They want to know more about the January 6 “hostages” and how, under Biden, the United States is being overrun by terrorists, “some of them really bad.”
Trump's hold on the imagination, not to mention the moral compasses, of his supporters shows little sign of weakening. Entrance polls conducted for major television networks found that nearly two-thirds of Iowa Republican caucus attendees do not believe Biden won the 2020 election. About the same proportion said they would vote for Trump even if he were a convicted felon. .
On Tuesday, as Haley appeared in New Hampshire and DeSantis touched down briefly in South Carolina before heading north, Trump appeared in a federal courtroom in New York.
There he again confronted the writer E. Jean Carroll, who accused him of raping her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room years ago. She has already won a civil case against him and $5 million in damages for the lies he told about her before he was president. This trial will determine how much he must pay for defaming her while he was president. (She asks for 10 million dollars).
“The fact that Mr. Trump sexually abused (indeed, raped) Ms. Carroll has been conclusively established and is binding in this case,” said U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan.
The judgment has an ouroboros quality. On Monday, while Trump was in court, his Truth Social account debunked claims that he had never met Carroll. As long as Trump continues to deny raping Carroll, or even knowing her, she can, in theory, continue to sue him for damages, ad infinitum.
Not that the base cares. As polls have shown, his legal problems are a big part of his political appeal. If Haley or DeSantis could get them arrested for something, anything, they might have a chance against him.
