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Christopher Renner's avatar

The thought's occurred to me that 2024 might present an opportunity to reintroduce the smoke-filled room.

There's a great chance that Trump can still win Republican primaries if the field of competitors is large enough. There's no chance whatsoever that he can win a series of state caucuses. And if a couple of large state Republican parties take the lead in announcing that they'll use a caucus to nominate in 2024 (with the unspoken but obvious motivation being denial of the nomination to Trump), there's a very good chance that many of the others get on board.

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Wency's avatar

It seems to me the first thing the smoke-filled room needs to figure out, in that case, is how to pay off Trump so he doesn't run on a third-party ticket and wreck the place. Can it be done?

I'm inclined to think he's going to do it no matter what, his ego won't let him stand aside and accept a defeat in the primaries and there's not really a carrot you can offer him at this point that will keep him out. But whatever chance there is of him accepting a primary loss is going to be wiped out if the rules of the game are changed in a less democratic direction.

So this sort of reorganization probably can't help the GOP become competitive in Presidential politics until Trump is dead or disabled. It's more of a plan for trying to take back and hold the Senate.

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