Over a George Will column, this headline: “Neither Trump nor DeSantis Will Get the GOP Nomination.” You read that sort of thing and you feel like they’ll both get it. My own betting, at present, is that Trump’s the nominee, Tim Scott and Chris Christie are the runner-ups. Scott might get the VP nod; if so, Trump’s ensuing behavior will cause grievous racial embarrassment. For his part, Christie will piss on the ticket and tell people to write in Reagan or something.
I don’t know if Will’s column makes a pick. Maybe it sticks with the headlined declaration, which would be enough. The thesis was that the public is a contrary beast. Pundits want to saddle voters with this assumption that only Trump and/or DeSantis can win them over; voters will shake off that saddle and support somebody else. I didn’t finish. I remember Will quoted G.K. Chesterton, a sign that the heavy data’s being deployed.
For me it matters which slice of the public we’re talking about. The one here, Republican presidential primary voters, features a great many nutcases. An unruly beast is one thing, a haywire beast is another. I predict that this pixilated collective will continue to malfunction, and by malfunctioning I mean they’ll nominate Donald Trump. The guy stays alive, he gets nominated. Because they’re all about the craziness and that’s him.
Chesterton must have a quote about this, meaning the need to knock things over, not the need to avoid being saddled. Crazy Republican voters want to manifest their craziness and see it there on the TV, beating up the system, hazing it, pantsing it. Often enough, when it comes to choosing a hero-champion, they must settle. Not every obnoxious candidate can be a rampaging marauder who calls the shots and makes the world kneel to his whims. Or, as we might say, a big baby perpetually wetting itself through the mouth. But eight years ago, on the presidential level, there stepped forth such a man. He’s still there and the crazy slobs are going to vote for him.
Politically Trump’s a loser at everything but getting his fans into bed. But they don’t look at some scoreboard with bills passed and candidates elected. They look at their TVs, and there they want to see convulsions, outcries, the breakdown of dumb orderly proceedings. Nikki Haley, her eyes shifting over a smile? No, and not Gov Waddlepants DeSantis, that walking hemorrhoid with his assistant vice-principal screech. Maybe Christie, as a super-long shot if his voice holds. But really, no. Disruption and the man who strides chaos, that’s what they want. They want the big baby.
Media Watch. I finally finished the column and can report that Will moves on smartly from his unruly electorate theory. He adds no further predictions and praises no candidate, but does say that Trump’s a slob, DeSantis is an Edsel, and that “Putin’s fifth column” lies in something called “the Trump-DeSantis faction of the Republican Party.” One hell of a faction, sir. Philip Roth wrote a story where the hero’s dumb buddy used Catholic “in its broadest sense—to include the Protestants.” We have a similar stunt here, this time for easier verbal disposal of a hard fact. Going by opinion polls, the two candidates’ support adds up to a majority of the party. But Will finds a word that’ll make them sound incidental, and to him that’s a neat trick.
Regarding Russia-Ukraine, of course, I would’ve thought Trump was the fifth columnist and DeSantis a mere wobbly tooth. But chiefly I object to the dodge. I suppose Will can’t bear to see Republican voters in plain focus for the appeasers they are, and in addition he has a particular rooting interest. At the end of the column: “Disclosure: The columnist’s wife, Mari Will, is an adviser to Republican presidential candidate Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.).” To which one says: Please, not VP. Tell him not to take VP.