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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 28, 2022

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It would be ridiculous for Republicans to not expect primary shenanigans: in 2024, I expect vast swath of Democrats to coordinate in reregistering as Republicans and voting with Never-Trumpers for a particular non-Trump candidate in every state, or at least states which are key electoral states for the primary vote. Obviously, then, Democrats would gladly switch back to their own candidate for the general election. (Rush Limbaugh coordinated Republicans doing this in 2008, Operation Chaos, to force the Democrat superdelegates to pick between the first Black President and the first woman President).

What are ways that the Trump contingent could bring such a conspiracy to light without sounding like schizophrenic conspiracy theorists? And then how to combat such a scenario at the polls effectively?

in 2024, I expect vast swath of Democrats to coordinate in reregistering as Republicans and voting with Never-Trumpers for a particular non-Trump candidate in every state

It almost feels like you're laying the groundwork to cope with a Trump loss in the 2024 GOP primary. The Democrats would much rather run against Trump in 2024 than against DeSantis. Trump largely failed to advance his agenda in four years, he antagonized the Democrats into increased turnout, he offended everyone in the middle by trying to steal the 2020 election, and (crucially) he already demonstrated that Biden can beat him. DeSantis turned a swing state blood red, won it by twenty points in a cycle where Trump's nominees were failing left and right, demonstrated competent governance against COVID and hurricane disasters, and successfully prosecuted the culture war using the levers of executive power.

If you want further evidence that the Dems would rather run against Trump, look to their shenanigans in the 2020 cycle. They were supporting Trump's own nominees and fellow election denialists over more traditional GOP politicians. And it worked; Trump's guys generally lost.

If Trump losing the primary in 2024 causes the party to split, that would lead to an extremely easy victory for the Democrats. DeSantis, whatever his qualities, is not going to displace Trump without splitting the party.

It might. Trump could run as an independent, and has threatened to do so. He does really like attention and he'd get a lot of attention if he did this. The media would certainly do its utmost to keep him in the spotlight if he did.

On the other hand, he really doesn't like losing, and I'm not sure that all of the attention would be worth living a year-long slow-motion loss.

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I'm more interested in a theoretical matchup with Trump AND DeSantis as VP.

Raises the question- would a Trump/Lake or Pompeo v Biden/Harris v West/Fuentes v Desantis/Hawley election inevitably go to the house?

It’s not out of the question that a GOP which moves to disown more trumpian elements could pick up enough blue electoral votes to make it a difficult run for democrats, and that’s before Kanye makes an appearance.

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Yup, that's all plausible. Best I can say is that it isn't inevitable.