After Iowa, Could There Ever Be a Trumpless GOP?

As New Yorkers like to say, “Arright arready!”

 

Pollsters and pundits have been predicting a Trump victory in Iowa for months now, and the fanatic Trump supporters felt vindicated after Iowa’s caucus results: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/16/us/politics/trump-iowa-win-voters.html.

 

We here at AP have never understood how a man with Trump’s characteristics could be considered charismatic, but then, life, especially political life these days, is full of paradoxes.

 

Florida Gov Ron DeSantis, who seemingly made all the right political moves during his Iowa campaign, effectively skipped the New Hampshire contest, where he’s been polling in the double digits, and flew straight to South Carolina so he can go head to head with Nikki Haley in her home state, but with no help at all from powerful Palmetto State Rep. Jim Clyburn, an entrenched Democrat. We’re not sure about his plans for the other early contest state of Nevada, although it seems as though whatever DeSantis does is a gamble. But then, associate solitary reporter Susanna Sherman reminded us that the American political experiment that began in 1776 was a gamble of sorts, with the Atlantic Ocean playing a major role, long before aircraft.

 

Trump has masterfully played the martyr card and it looks as though he will have secured the nomination by Super Tuesday. So —— is there any point in imagining a Republican Party without him? What do you think, AP fans?