Trump can still win, but only if the GOP grows a pair

Republicans can take back the White House and Senate and keep the House, but not if they continue to play the cordial "problem-solver" with a party that's a lethal threat to safety, sanity and justice

Trigger Warning: This is a free and frank strategy piece––written by a registered independent in response to recent events––to help Republicans get off the dime and take the game to Democrats. If you are hyperreactive to criticism of the Biden crime family or faint praise of Donald J. Trump, this piece is not for you. If you decide to read further, we recommend doubling your dose of Losartan to avoid a dangerous spike in blood pressure.

Andy McCarthy's opportunistic op-ed for the National Review is a sensible, balanced, country-club Republican take on why—all things remaining the same—Trump can't win in 2024. The logic is compelling. The crafty Democrats know this, which is why they keep working to help Trump win the GOP primary with a series of petty, hypocritical, and mostly ill-founded indictments they know will drive voter sympathy toward the former President.

The only way this equation changes is if the Republicans grow a pair, stop trying to "work across the aisle" with their clear enemies, impeach Biden for Huntergate, and prosecute all those involved in the Russia collusion hoax and Summer of Insurrection. They need to tie up the Dems the way the Dems tied up Trump. Revenge is best served sweet. It needs to start now.

As anyone who has ever engaged in competitive sports knows, when you are outgunned––as Republicans are in media, search, social media, fundraising, grassroots organizing, lawyering, propaganda, disinformation, vote-buying––you need to get creative and scrappy. The Democrats are like the deeply crooked Noah Cross in the classic film Chinatown: they own the major organs of mass communication, the Administrative State, intel services, DOJ, you name it. The tired old Republican strategy has been to mostly do nothing when faced with Democratic crimes and corruption: stay calm, remain upbeat, and pray that the Silent Majority eventually comes to its senses. That worked for saccharine, empty-headed tools like Reagan and the Bushes in a different era. That does not work now with the country on the edge of civil war, horror upon horror being inflicted in our cities, WWIII growing more likely in Ukraine, China, Russia, and North Korea feeling emboldened due to Biden's feckless incompetence, a broken border, a Fitch downgrade due in large part to Biden's profligacy, and the President's son pimping out his dad to the highest bidder.

We are in deep trouble. Yet, strangely, impossibly, the deeply flawed Donald J. Trump remains the GOP’s best hope. If Trump is not at the top of the ticket, Republicans have no chance of winning in 2024, as 30% of Republican voters, the MAGA core, will mostly sit the election out. No other Republican candidate can inspire enthusiasm in the Republican base quite like showman Trump. The party needs to stick with him, hell or high water.

Here's the problem, as McCarthy notes in his op-ed: due to effective Democratic bamboozlement and Trump's own missteps, Trump will never reach the 46% popularity threshold he reached in the 2016 general election, which he barely won. He currently hovers around 40%. His best chance is to magically hit 42%, which is a stretch.

But there's still hope if the Republicans get their hands dirty and play like Democrats.

1. The Republicans need to keep Joe Biden's popularity below 40% for as long as possible, as early mail-in ballots for Trump pour in. The Democrats will ultimately rally around their standard-bearer, however flawed, so Joe will likely end up with 42% or even 43% of the popular vote due to the overwhelming number of registered Democrats who blindly pull the lever for anyone with a "D" next to their name. That's fine since Democrats can win the popular vote and still lose the electoral vote. The way to keep Biden's popularity suppressed is to do what Democrats did to Trump over four years: tie the President up in one investigation after another, including impeachments, probes, and subpoena upon subpoena of him, his family, and his criminal associates, so Joe never gets close to 45% popularity. Republicans need to build the Never Biden voter, who will either vote for a third party or sit out election season.

2. Institute a massive ballot harvesting and mail-in vote campaign. Republicans rightly railed against Democrats' use of these strategies in the past, but those complaints fell on deaf judicial ears. So, if this is how the game is now played, Republicans need to stop whining and win it.

3. Pass extensive voter I.D. and election security laws, so Democrats can't cheat their way to victory through unsigned ballots, same-day registration chicanery, and other dirty gambits the Dems openly bragged about after their 2020 triumph.

4. Mandate that all states return to their pre-COVID voting procedures while blocking the infusion of corrupt election-interfering cash from the likes of billionaire Mark Zuckerberg and other Big Tech tools.

5. Support third-party candidates. Trump has permanently lost 4-5% of his former base. The goal is to keep them from voting for Biden by either not voting at all or choosing a third-party option. Republicans need to dump tens of millions of dollars into the campaigns of Libertarian, No Labels, and Green Party candidates, such as the campaign of Socialist/Communist Cornell West, so they can collectively peel away at least 5-6% of the Biden vote in key swing states.

The Republicans can take back the White House and Senate, and keep the House. But not if they play the nice, cordial, "problem-solver" with a Democratic Party that has become a lethal threat to the safety, prosperity, and territorial integrity of the United States of America.