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Does anybody consider that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis or former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley actually stands an opportunity of turning into the Republican Occasion’s 2024 presidential nominee? It’s a state of affairs that’s more and more onerous to think about.
That’s as a result of the Iowa caucuses went nearly precisely as predicted: Former President Trump wiped the ground together with his rivals, whereas the 2 of them battled for second place. DeSantis, regardless of pulling forward in that battle, is staring down the top of his presidential ambitions.
As has turn out to be the case with at this time’s GOP, actuality took a again seat to fantasy. Everybody declared themselves a winner.
Opinion Columnist
Robin Abcarian
“Despite all that they threw at us, everybody in opposition to us,” stated DeSantis, “we acquired our ticket punched out of Iowa.” (There’s a brick wall ready for him in New Hampshire.)
“Tonight,” Haley instructed her supporters, “Iowa made this main a two-person race.”
Did it, although?
Haley is anticipated to fare higher subsequent week in New Hampshire, the place the conservative citizens is much less rigidly ideological than in Iowa, and naturally in South Carolina, the place she is a local daughter. Even when Haley miraculously beats or comes near Trump in New Hampshire, his iron grip on the social gathering will likely be onerous to shake. Each indictment, each court docket listening to appears to strengthen his perceived standing as a persecuted sufferer of the Democratic Occasion normally and President Biden specifically.
Whereas Haley and DeSantis a minimum of acknowledged they had been nonetheless competing for a presidential nomination, Trump, in his sometimes grandiose model, behaved as if he’d already received the overall.
Monday in his victory speech, he referred to as for nationwide unity in the identical method he referred to as for Jan. 6 protesters to stay peaceable — that’s to say, fully disingenuously.
“That is time now for everyone, our nation, to come back collectively, we need to come collectively,” he stated as he launched into rambling, off-the-cuff remarks. “Whether or not it’s Republican or Democrat, or liberal or conservative, it could be so good if we may come collectively and straighten out the world.”
However Trump’s gotta Trump. He merely couldn’t maintain the unity theme: “I don’t need to be overly tough on the president,” he stated, “however I’ve to say that he’s the worst president that we’ve had within the historical past of our nation. He’s destroying our nation.”
The Trump blowout in Iowa just about answered the query that Haley posed to her supporters late Monday night: “Would you like extra of the identical? Or would you like a brand new technology of conservative leaders?”
Sorry, Governor, but it surely seems they need extra of the identical.
They need extra of Trump’s lies in regards to the 2020 election, extra of his immigrant-bashing, extra of his fantasies about how, on his watch, Russia wouldn’t have dared invade Ukraine and Hamas wouldn’t have dared invade Israel. They need extra of his apocalyptic rhetoric in regards to the border, about how “psychological establishments and insane asylums” are “being emptied out into our nation.” They need to hear extra about Jan. 6 “hostages” and about how, on Biden’s watch, america is being invaded by terrorists, “a few of them actually dangerous.”
Trump’s maintain on the imaginations, to not point out the ethical compasses, of his supporters exhibits little signal of weakening. Entrance polls performed for the key tv networks discovered that just about two-thirds of Iowa’s Republican caucus-goers don’t consider that Biden received the 2020 election. About the identical proportion stated they might vote for Trump even when he had been a convicted legal.
On Tuesday, as Haley appeared in New Hampshire and DeSantis touched down briefly in South Carolina earlier than heading north, Trump confirmed up in a New York federal courtroom.
There, he as soon as once more confronted the author E. Jean Carroll, who accused him of raping her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room years in the past. She already received a civil case in opposition to him, and $5 million in damages for lies he instructed about her earlier than he was president. This trial will decide how a lot he ought to pay for defaming her whereas he was president. (She is asking for $10 million.)
“The truth that Mr. Trump sexually abused — certainly, raped — Ms. Carroll has been conclusively established and is binding on this case,” stated U.S. District Choose Lewis Kaplan.
The trial has an ouroboros high quality about it. On Monday whereas Trump was in court docket, his Fact Social account blasted out claims that he’d by no means met Carroll. So long as Trump continues to disclaim raping Carroll, and even figuring out her, she will be able to theoretically simply maintain suing him for damages, advert infinitum.
Not that the bottom cares. As polls have proven, his authorized woes are a giant a part of his political enchantment. If Haley or DeSantis may simply get themselves arrested for one thing, something, they may stand an opportunity in opposition to him.
