Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell riled up anti-Trump conservatives on Thursday by saying that he would “absolutely” support former President Donald Trump were he the 2024 Republican presidential nominee. McConnell’s statement came just weeks after he took to the Senate floor and declared that Trump was “practically and morally responsible” for the Capitol riots that left McConnell’s own staffers barricaded in his offices and fearing for their lives.
But in reality, there was no reason to expect that McConnell would offer any other answer than he did. Polls show that a majority of Republicans prefer Trump to be the 2024 nominee if he runs, and three-quarters have said they want him to play a “prominent” role in the party.
There are very few politicians who would be willing to go against their own voters. And from McConnell’s own short-term perspective, it does him no good to exacerbate the brewing GOP civil war when asked a question about a scenario that may not happen and won’t even play out for three years if it does.
Conservatives who were appalled by the events of Jan. 6 and who hoped that Trump would be ostracized by his party have been sorely disappointed. But elected Republicans are only taking their cues from voters. If they had the courage to declare Trump persona non grata, it would not rid the world of Trumpism. Had they decided to convict him and barred him from running from future office, it likely would have only further inflamed populist passions among voters. Trump likely would have maintained influence from the outside and could have anointed his successor.
The reality is that the only way that the Republican Party will move beyond Trump is if another candidate comes along who is able to win with a different coalition.
Back when Trump was running, few people thought his bombastic style and eclectic views that often challenged Republican orthodoxy were what the primary electorate wanted. In hindsight, we can understand what happened. But nobody in 2013 was saying that a Trump-style candidate was gonna take over the party in 2016 and then go on to win the general election.
Even though Trump is still the dominant force within Republican politics, it is possible that another candidate can cobble together a different coalition to win in the primary and then the general election. Yes, Trump got 74 million votes. But most people who voted for him would have voted for any Republican over President Biden and will vote for any Republican over whomever Democrats nominate in 2024. Trump’s 46.8% of the popular vote was less than Sen. Mitt Romney’s 47.2% in 2012. The “Trump or bust” vote would dwindle considerably if, in Nov. 2024, Republican voters have to choose between a non-Trump conservative and keeping Democrats in power.
In all likelihood, anti-Trump conservatives are never going to have the satisfaction of that theoretical post-Trump candidate being anti-Trump. President Ronald Reagan, for instance, did not run as an anti-Nixon Republican. But he did run as somebody different. Most likely, anti-Trump conservatives will be forced to decide if they can support somebody who doesn’t act like Trump, even if that candidate won’t explicitly denounce him.
The important point in all of this is that there are no shortcuts. There is no scenario in which somehow the head of the Republican National Committee and Republican congressional leaders come together and suddenly decide they’ve had enough and that Trump is out. Somebody else is going to have to come along and offer a compelling alternative to voters.
