Jon Chait lays out the case that Ron DeSantis could oust Trump as the head of the Trumpist movement (aka the GOP). It's a fairly compelling case, but one based on a fundamentally unprovable assumption: Trumpists are loyal to the GOP as an institution.
Beginning Tuesday night, various Rightist media outlets, led by Fox, began to note the same things they noted in 2016 and January 2021: Trump is a problem. In favor of Chait's argument is the fact that in 2016, the GOP was hopelessly splintered among a host of candidates, which allowed Trump to skate by with 35%-40% of the vote in each primary. A binary choice between Trump and DeSantis would deprive him of that ability.
He argues less persuasively that after the insurrection, the GOP briefly abandoned him, only to return because to turn on Trump was to acknowledge Biden won. That doesn't really work for me, because GOP elites KNEW Biden had won. The issue - as always - is that the GOP establishment is afraid of losing those WWC voters who respond to Trump in ways that are both mystifying and strong. Cult 45 is a real thing. There is an argument that they have a figure to turn to in 2024 that they lacked in 2021, but that same dynamic of not wanting to alienate Trump's cultists isn't going away.
Max Weber wrote about what he called "charismatic legitimacy." This referred to a leader who represented an idea of some sort that gave him or her special standing. Famously, Hitler and Mandela both enjoyed charismatic legitimacy - it's neither good nor bad. Trump is the manifestation of White Grievance. People can't understand why Trumpists are drawn to him in really perversely devout ways, but if he's understood in terms of the avatar of White Grievance, then it makes more sense. Trump's actual words and deeds are less important than his symbolic stature.
Weber also said that charismatic legitimacy is inherently ephemeral. Charismatic figures die or fade away. What had to happen was what he termed "the routinization of charisma." This is why Lenin could die, they could display his embalmed body and create the "Marxist-Leninist" state. Same deal with Mao or Khomeini. You create a cult of personality that endures beyond the charismatic figure. Chait argues that this process is already under way:
To be sure, that does not mean (DeSantis) can convince Republicans voters he can out-strongman Trump. He definitely lacks the former president’s skills as a showman and performer. But the idea Trump’s personality cult can’t be replicated misses the fact Republicans build personality cults as a matter of course. Ronald Reagan was a cult figure. Two decades ago, George W. Bush created an intense following — conservative organs were selling coin and bronze busts of his likeness. (This was all wiped from memory when the conservative movement decided Bush was a liability and retroactively decided he was a fake conservative all along.) The emotional bond between Trump and the party base may be stronger than these previous versions, but the base is filled with authoritarian personalities who are habituated to finding new leaders to follow.
The flaw in this is, of course, that Bush's personality cult did not come at the expense of Reagan's. As Chait notes, Trump's cultish following is more cultish than those two who were fundamentally normal politicians in ways that Trump isn't. That's precisely WHY Trump has a hold on a constituency that wasn't a strong participant in politics prior to his arrival.
The single best outcome of this possible fight between DeSantis and Trump is that the GOP establishment manages to oust him in a bruising, nasty primary fight that leaves the perpetually aggrieved Trump furious. Trump then launches his own Trump/MAGA Party that includes candidates for the House and Senate. The 2024 Senate map is unkind to Democrats, including defending seats in West Virginia, Montana and Ohio. If - say - Joe Manchin or Jon Tester only tops out at 45% of the vote, while the Republican gets 35% and the MAGA candidate gets 30%, you get six more years of that Senate seat.
Trump has always been a match throwing arsonist in a room full of open gasoline cans. A decisive break with the institutional GOP that leads to a nihilistic MAGA party bid would lead to consolidated Democratic gains in 2024 and the long term alienation of those WWC/MAGA voters from the institutional GOP.
One can hope...
UPDATE: That didn't take long.
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