Gone are the days when Donald Trump held the Republican Party with an iron fist. The latest example to date of its loss of influence: the election of Kevin McCarthy – on January 7 – as the new “speaker” of the House of Representatives, at the cost of four days of debate, three nights of negotiations and fifteen rounds of ballot. Neither the call of the former president to vote for the elected representative of California nor his phone calls during the sessions have made it possible to unblock the situation.
Donald Trump launches for 2024: “He is no longer the natural candidate of the Republican Party”
After the failure of the “midterms”, including part of the Grand Old Party, the nickname given to the American Republican Party, holds him responsible, the prospects are looking increasingly bleak for the presidential election of 2024 to which he announced to be candidate. If there is no question of burying the ex-president, it seems that his person no longer prints as much as his ideas.
Humiliated by the “anti-Kevin”
On January 3, Kevin McCarthy failed to be elected Speaker of the House of Representatives in the first round. A first for one hundred and sixty years! For “avoid an embarrassing defeat”Donald Trump clearly calls to vote for the 50-year-old. “Now is the time for our great elected Republicans in the House to vote for Kevin”writes the former president on his social network Truth.
Result ? The twenty elected “anti-Kevin” is unconvinced and continues to vote against McCarthy for twelve rounds. Height of humiliation, the elected Lauren Boebert – great faithful of Donald Trump – even allowed herself to answer him: ” President [Donald Trump] should tell Kevin McCarthy that he does not have the necessary votes and that he must withdraw his candidacy. » A slap in the face for those who still believed themselves to be kingmakers.
Donald Trump, big loser of the “midterms”
An image taken by a Bloomberg photographer also marked the end of Trump’s hold on Republican lawmakers. It shows Marjorie Taylor Greene – Georgia congressman known for her conspiracy – handing her phone with Donald Trump online to Matt Rosendale, Montana congressman against McCarthy, who refuses to answer. Quite a symbol.
The Republican Party is no longer as docile as it was in 2016, when Donald Trump won the presidential election. Tired of the billionaire’s excesses – exemplified by the storming of the Capitol by his supporters in January 2021, moderates have turned away from the party. The leader of the Republican senators Mitch McConnell notably preferred to appear with Joe Biden, rather than taking part in the hostilities of Congress.
Continue without Donald Trump?
On the other side, the most conservative fringe of the party – elected anti-establishment and “pence” (the “deniers” who did not recognize the defeat of Donald Trump in the presidential election in 2020) – are gaining more and more independence from their former leader.
The trigger is recent for these elected MAGA (for “Make America Great Again”, slogan popularized by Donald Trump) since it dates from the “defeat” in the mid-term elections last November. With a (small) majority in the House of Representatives and without having won back the Senate, these “midterms” sound like a new electoral defeat for Donald Trump who had dubbed many defeated candidates (Kari Lake in Arizona, Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, etc.) .
After the “midterms” of 2018 and the presidential election of 2020, successive electoral failures push MAGA elected officials to think without Donald Trump. In other words: to continue to impose the Trumpist ideology within the GOP, a new incarnation is needed. A winner (women are not popular) who will be able to lead a strong candidacy in 2024.
Ron DeSantis, the seductive alternative
To face octogenarian Joe Biden, who could run again, Republicans are not counting on the billionaire, himself 76 years old. After the failure of the “midterms”, Mitch McConnell has already warned that he “will actively seek quality candidates” to be promoted in the 2024 primaries.
Donald Trump launches for 2024: “He is no longer the natural candidate of the Republican Party”
And a candidate seems to be ahead in the race for the Republican ticket: Ron DeSantis, comfortably re-elected governor of Florida with a 19-point lead. In addition to representing a new alternative, the 44-year-old elected official has the advantage of being far from the Washington establishment, ultraconservative and independent of Donald Trump (whom he has never criticized). He is also very close to the members of the Freedom Caucusan ultra-conservative parliamentary group that… blocked the election of Kevin McCarthy.
If Donald Trump, let us repeat, is not to be buried, a body of evidence shows more and more the questioning of his person. However, the ideas that he has imposed since 2016 and in which the Republican Party is immersed, do not seem to be about to retreat. Like the supporters of Jair Bolsonaro, who stormed places of power in Brazil, were inspired by the invasion of the Capitol by the Trumpists, the new elected officials of the GOP are walking in the footsteps of their elder.
