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They'd have to find such an "acceptable" Republican, which they cannot do, because by definition, an "acceptable Republican" is one who wields no power. Whence, Cheney became acceptable when she was stripped of leadership positions for undermining Republicans. Romney became acceptable after his landslide presidential election loss. McCain became unacceptable when he won the Republican nomination for President, and regained acceptability after his humiliating loss.
I eagerly expect the time where Trump retires from the political scene and it turns out he's a moderate centrist and a very acceptable person unlike that new Republican presidential candidate who is literally Hitler.
I mean, it's already happening:
https://web.archive.org/web/20230102131625/https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/12/ron-desantis-just-as-bad-as-donald-trump-2024
That's a start. The end of the road would be "We're not against all Republicans, only extremists. For example, look at Trump - he's perfectly fine, respected ex-president, philanthropist, statesman and gentleman, about whom we'd never say a bad word. But if you compare to that insane extremist that they nominated now, what a difference! How far the GOP has fallen! We just can't avoid comparing him to Hitler (which we never done with a Republican ever before)!".
I don't think this will happen, I think Trump will be looked back on a similar-ish level to Nixon where people can't seriously say a new Republican is morally worse. Although they'll probably get around this by frequently saying "While this new Republican candidate isn't as morally bad as Trump, they're still really bad, and will actually be worse on net because they're halfway intelligent and will accomplish goals Trump never could".
Yes it could happen.
"Donald Trump had his faults, but he was great leader and statesman, always dignified, honorable and presidential. He would never ever imagine someone like Nick Fuentes raising Nazi flag over White House and holding catboy sex orgies in the Oval Office!"
I thought the assumption was that there wouldn't actually be anyone worse than Trump and it was just being predicted that the media will inevitably hyperbolize the next Republican as worse than Trump anyways. But in a scenario where someone like Nick Fuentes, who I think is farther right than Trump, is elected; then yeah of course the media will call him uniquely far right, because he would be.
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I don't think this will actually happen. I think they invested too much into the Trump narrative to ever drop it. They went way, way past Bush or any previous Republican. The valence of Trump is now fixed, and will only be further embellished from here; future Republicans will be tarred as "Trumpists", as the second coming of Trump himself.
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To be Fair: this has been happening for 4+ years in lib spaces; once everyone who takes this shit seriously realized trump was a retard.
Lotta "Oh shit we just dodged a bullet; imagine if it was pence/desantis/whoever in charge with all three branches instead of this manchild".
The problem is they would have to explain why Desantis would be such a terror compared to Trump when his reputation amongst people who live in his state and thus are actually governed by him is to give him an overwhelming electoral victory and a general record of approval.
You can't go "Trump was bad because he was incompetent and alienated possible allies (both immediate political allies and foreign policy allies) and was unable to govern effectively" and say "But Desantis worse because' he's competent, is good at forming and keeping alliances and governs supremely effectively."
Because now you're saying that you preferred Trump be incompetent and ineffective.
With Desantis it's "Well he supports policies I don't like and he's GOOD at getting them passed!" Which yes, would make him scarier to his opponents but is arguably a pitch that makes him more appealing to everyone who might consider voting for him.
Yup.
This is libs talking to libs.
They are firmly of the opinion that republicans in general and the right fringe in specific are ant-humanist authoritarians; and are more worried about a competent authoritarian than in incompetent authoritarian. They assume that there are no republicans left with any shot of getting a leadership roll in the party that are NOT anti-humanist authoritarian.
And as mentioned, it really does not help that this trick has been pulled on every GOP candidate since Bush Jr., and that's just the ones I have in living memory.
Bush Jr fucked the party pretty god damn hard with Iraq and afghanitan.
I was actually kinda on the boat for Mccain; but the pandering to the room temperature IQ wing of the conservatives after he lost has permanently locked me out of voting R, even for reasonable R's, because I know they will caucus with Bible McThumpin to do silly shit, while also not even lowering the deficit or being good for the economy.
They are all culture war no substance these days.
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Lib spaces, or left spaces? I feel like a fair few notable leftists (Moore, Zizek) didn't seem all that concerned about Trump--or at least, were not surprised.
Libs, specifically.
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