John Podhoretz

John Podhoretz

Politics

If Trump’s foes don’t unite soon, it’s a Don deal

Donald Trump’s victory in South Carolina proves that in 2016, the GOP has split into two. There is the Trump party. And there is the not-Trump party.

In raw terms, the Trump party isn’t especially strong. Voting has concluded in three states. The results there and all kinds of polling on favorability among Republicans suggests he’s got a natural ceiling between 35 and 40 percent. An AP poll conducted this week says 60 percent of GOP voters—60 percent!—have a negative view of Trump.

This is the not-Trump party.

And yet, in that same AP poll, 86 percent of Republican voters say they think Trump can win in November. In light of their dislike, Republicans appear to be making a depressing concession to the dark reality of the present moment—the same dark reality with which everyone who is not in Trump’s thrall is grappling.

With apologies to Shakespeare, Trump is the Colossus of 2016, bestriding the narrow election while other candidates walk under his huge legs and peep about, seeking a little media attention.

The not-Trump party doesn’t want him but to its members and to everyone else he is beginning to seem inescapable.

So what does the not-Trump party do now?

Everybody knows what needs to happen. The GOP field needs to consolidate so that the not-Trump party can speak with one voice, back one candidate, and knock him over.

But that’s not going to happen.

Yes, Jeb Bush dropped out last night in an astoundingly graceful and deeply moving display of civility and decency. So that’s one down—and a big one, because the outside money spent on Bush’s behalf has mostly been dedicated to bringing Marco Rubio down.

Rubio will benefit from Bush’s departure in that sense, though there’s no certainty his 4-to-8 percent of the vote will simply line up en masse behind his fellow Floridian.

But Ben Carson, who delivered a bitter non-concession speech an hour after polls closed in South Carolina, made it clear he’s staying in for the time being. So too with John Kasich who seems determined to hold on even though he has no organization to speak of but is the governor of Ohio—where the primary is on March 15, more than three weeks from now.

Last night, Carson and Kasich together received about 15 percent of the vote. If they eat up 15 percent of the vote in the so-called SEC primary day on March 1—that’s 12 states—they will make it all but impossible for the only two alternatives to Trump to catch up to his 35 percent.

Neither of those alternatives is going to drop either. Ted Cruz won the Iowa caucus and ought to be able to win Texas, the state he represents as a senator, on March 1. The problem for Cruz going forward is that there was no state better constituted for Cruz—who is running as the hard-right religious-conservative candidate—to win again than South Carolina. It was a bad night for him.

Marco Rubio hasn’t won anywhere yet. But he roared back from a disaster in New Hampshire, is the most fluent and most likable candidate in the field, and as in Iowa, outperformed the polls.

Rubio is the overwhelming second choice. He’s not going anywhere.

The not-Trump party is big and weak. The Trump party is small but strong. And as those three cheerleading pre-teens at a Trump rally in January sang to a cheering throng, “Deal from strength or get crushed every time.”