It’s clear that the Republican establishment will do anything to stop Donald Trump from being the GOP’s Presidential nominee in 2024.
It’s also clear that Trump will always do what he thinks is best for his brand.
So all hell broke loose after Donald Trump made one threat no one saw coming.
It hasn’t even been two months yet since former President Donald Trump announced his third White House run, and the first 2024 Presidential Primary is still over a year away.
Nevertheless, a lot has transpired over the past eight weeks or so for the former President himself, putting him in a position where he’s coming up on a crossroads that’s going to force him to make a choice about what’s really most important.
Obviously, the Republican establishment wants nothing more than for Trump to go away, and would gladly hand President Joe Biden a second term if it meant that he wouldn’t step foot back into the White House.
As such, establishment politicians – mostly those with deep ties to the Military Industrial Complex, like Trump’s former Vice President Mike Pence, his former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, his former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, and many others – are clearly preparing to mount a challenge to the former President in the 2024 Republican Presidential Primary.
Furthermore, with some of Trump’s antics over the past few weeks – from inviting a self-admitted white nationalist and Holocaust denier to dinner at Mar-a-Lago to calling for “the termination” of the Constitution – many of his conservative supporters are having second thoughts.
Those second thoughts certainly weren’t helped by the fact that the former President’s endorsed candidates in battleground Senate, Governor, and Attorney General races went a pathetic 2-for-16 in November’s Midterms.
Or the fact that while those Republican candidates were fighting the radical Left, Trump sat on more than $100 million he raised specifically under the guise of “winning the Midterms.”
Now, multiple polls have indicated that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis – who led an unprecedented Republican takeover of the state in dominating fashion – is leading Trump for the GOP nomination.
And the prospect of having those two forces of nature duking it out in a Republican Primary has many in the Party nervous about what the fallout from such a matchup would be.
But Trump himself may have given an indication as to how things could play out, as he hinted on Truth Social that if things don’t go his way, he may mount a third-party run.
The former President shared an article from American Greatness which argued that the GOP could be staring down the barrel at a similar episode as that it faced with Teddy Roosevelt in 1912.
Back in the election of 1912, the Republican establishment sought to support President William Howard Taft’s re-election campaign, while former President Theodore Roosevelt had the support of the party’s base.
The Republican Party of 1912 decided it would be better off renominating William Howard Taft, even though its voters would have preferred another Roosevelt term,” American Greatness’ Dan Gerlertner wrote. “The resulting split ushered in Woodrow Wilson and the first academic globalists, whose bright ideas laid the groundwork for a second world war on the eve of the conclusion of the first.”
“But, despite the obvious differences, we’re heading for a 1912-repeat, in which the Republican Party ignores its own voters,” Gerlertner continued. “The Republican machine has no intention of letting us choose Trump again: He is not a uniparty team player. They’d rather lose an election to the Democrats, their brothers in crime, than win with Trump.”
The 1912 election does certainly mirror some aspects of the present situation, but ultimately, Trump, and his most unwavering supporters like Gerlertner, seem to miss the fact that a 1912 scenario only arises if Trump decides to run as a third party candidate.
If the choices Republican voters had before them were Trump and the aforementioned establishment hacks, and no one else, then it would be game on.
That would be the time to batten down the hatches, and go scorched Earth against the establishment, ensuring – by any means necessary, including a third party run – that they got the message.
But there are only two Republicans who have any shot whatsoever at the Presidency in 2024, and that’s Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis. Period.
And quite frankly, if Trump is suggesting that he will still mount a third party run if DeSantis – who is viewed as checking virtually every box Trump does for conservatives, and then some – emerges from the Primary victorious, then in reality, it would be him, not the establishment, who would rather lose to Joe Biden (again) than see him defeated by DeSantis.
As the situation stands with DeSantis and Trump as the frontrunners by a wide margin, any effort by Trump to go the third party route would simply seal the deal for Democrats winning in 2024, no matter who they put up.
Should that be the route the former President wants to go, that’ll say everything it needs to about what really matters most to Donald Trump.
And it won’t be the United States or the American people who come out on top.
Political Animal News will keep you up-to-date on any new developments in this ongoing story.
