As DeSantis fights for second place in debate, who will pose a challenge to Trump? | Opinion
Will Gov. Ron DeSantis and the other Republican presidential candidates on stage Wednesday night for the second GOP debate finally take on Donald Trump for real? It should be an absolute gimme: He’s an ex-president with four criminal cases and 91 counts who has said he would suspend the Constitution and put an end to an independent Department of Justice if he gets re-elected.
Will they finally find the backbone? Don’t bet on it.
Many of those running are simply slightly different versions of Trump — especially Florida’s governor, whose only way of differentiating himself from his old mentor has been hewing so far right that he’s lost significant ground in polls. Wednesday night will be a fight for second place, as DeSantis struggles to halt his downward slide.
None of these Trump-lite candidates want to risk alienating Trump’s followers. Meanwhile, the Republican Party, rather than doing the hard work to try to bring the party back to regular Americans, has rolled over for Trump. He’s paid no penalty for refusing to debate the other candidates, leaving them scrapping over tidbits in another humiliating shell of a debate. Nor has he felt any real push-back for his continued embrace of lawlessness and violence, like recently suggesting on social media that retiring Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley might deserve to be killed for his actions during Trump’s presidency.
None of this is normal, or good for democracy. Voters should see a vigorous debate. They should have true alternatives. Instead, they’ll mostly see warmed-over copies of Trump, to one degree or another, trying to find a path to a nomination that seems increasingly out of reach.
Trump tried to destroy democracy and wants another shot at it in 2024. Republicans who don’t back Trump — and there still are some — may be faced with the question of whether they will vote for a man who tried to betray the country once and is saying in pretty clear terms that he’ll do it again if he gets the chance.
Of those remaining in the fight for the nomination, DeSantis still has a few moves left. He’s trying to focus on the early primary states, like Iowa, perhaps hoping a good showing will breathe life into his moribund campaign. And, we learned this week, he will debate California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Nov. 30, an event that Fox News — which will air it on Sean Hannity’s program — dubbed a “red vs. blue state debate.”
But this won’t be a clash of titans, no matter how Fox promotes it. It’s just another attempt by DeSantis to look as though he remains viable as the guy who can carry the GOP torch into 2024, as unlikely as that looks right now.
Wednesday night’s debate, in Simi Valley, California, may be a chance to change the narrative — and it won’t be without drama. As DeSantis has weakened, the fight for second place has intensified. Debates are about narrowing the field. In this case, with a Republican Party that remains in thrall to Trump, it’s more important than ever: It’s about who might pose the only remaining challenge to Trump in a GOP that has lost its way.
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