The defeated, deflated, indicted and traitorous Donald Trump may be the most damaged frontrunner for the presidential nomination of a major political party in living memory – if not in all of American history. 

But one candidate is even more ill-suited for this moment.

Of course, we speak of the “Trumpism without Trump” choice for president in 2024, but the only Republican besides Trump polling higher than “other” in primary polls is the great white cope.

After the events of last Tuesday, any possibility the Florida governor had of winning in 2024 has been obliterated. If Ronnie were as smart as he thinks he is, especially when he’s busy harassing Mickey Mouse, he’d end his campaign now before America learns to mock him or despise him or both. 

After the events of last Tuesday, any possibility the Florida governor had of winning in 2024 has been obliterated. If Ronnie were as smart as he thinks he is, he’d end his campaign now before America learns to mock him or despise him or both. 

By the “events of last Tuesday,” you might assume I’m referring to the first indictment of the 45th president of the United States, who was charged with a bunch of crimes all related to his coverup of payments he made to a woman he did sex on, hoping to save his 2016 presidential campaign. 

This indictment has comically cemented Trump’s grip on the party of far-white evangelical Protestants, who spent every day for decades before they nominated Donnie pretending to care about “the sanctity of marriage.”

But no.

The “events of last Tuesday” that would send an intergalactic shiver down the spine of a functioning political party was the epic slaughter of rightwing candidate for Wisconsin’s Supreme Court on April 4.

Janet Protasiewicz, the candidate backed by the Democratic party, won by a margin of 11 percent – a margin of victory much larger than the margin of victory of the winner of the last three presidential elections combined. 

This is a massively consequential victory for democracy in the swingiest of swing states. It’s so big Republicans had to admit that without Wisconsin (and the rightwing majority of the state’s highest court, which could have handed the GOP nominee the election), they can’t win the White House.

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Loser Dan Kelley is a Big Liar who assisted in the plot to steal the 2020 election using fake electors. But he backed away during the high court race like a contestant in one of the teen pageants that the ex-president once owned, trying to cover himself up as Trump bursts into the changing room.

Despite the relapse of cable news networks’ addiction to Trump, it wasn’t the GOP’s undeniable leader who defined the Supreme Court election. The court could “restore abortion rights if it hears a challenge to the state’s 1849 near-total abortion ban — a fact that nearly half the ads supporting Protasiewicz emphasized,” Wisconsin Watch reported. “Mentions of abortion surpassed the second-most popular topic by about 4-to-1.”

You know who’s about to sign a “near-total abortion ban”?

Mickey Mouse’s harasser.

The governor has said he’ll sign the bill, because it prevents abortions six weeks into a pregnancy. Given the irregularities of many menstrual cycles, and the difficulties an average Floridian has finding an appointment at a clinic now, the law would effectively make a safe, accessible abortion impossible, not only in the Sunshine State but throughout the south.

Even worse, the current “exceptions” for rape and incest, which allow abortions up to the 15th week for victims of these crimes, are essentially “meaningless,” according Florida Council Against Sexual Violence.

And we know these bans are deadly because the 15-week one DeSantis signed in the wake of the 5-4 decision overturning Roe is already threatening the lives of his constituents. The steady stream of horrors following Dobbs rarely make the frontpages of newspapers, but they are everywhere. And the are the kind of news stories that transcend politics, seeping deep into the marrow of most anyone who has ever been pregnant, who could get pregnant or who loves someone who could get pregnant.

And no matter how hard Republicans try to tell voters to ignore this attack on the freedom of half of America, extremists in their party won’t let us.

Take the federal court ruling last Friday that attempts to ban medication behind the most common form of abortion in all 50 states. This ruling, which reads like the third comment down on a Breitbart post, claims that random doctors can sue to ban mifepristone, claiming it’s unusually dangerous, even though the drug is ten times safer than Viagra.

DeSantis may think he can use the “threat” of LGBTQ people’s freedom to distract from taking bodily autonomy as a basic right, as he has in Florida. Or he may try to frame the bill that he’s signing, which is about as extreme as any in this country, as some sort of middle ground, after spending the Republican Party’s primary trying to “out abortion ban” his opponents.

But coming from Michigan, where we ensured our own abortion rights by more than 13 percent, I’m telling you it’s not going to work here. It didn’t work in Wisconsin. Dr. Oz’s view, on letting “local political leaders” decide abortion rights, may have cost him the Senate race in Pennsylvania.

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“Republicans don’t seem to understand how angry women voters are,” wrote Jessica Valenti, whose Abortion, Every Day newsletter documents stories that illuminate the unnecessary misery that unnecessary abortion restrictions bring, along with Republican efforts to multiply that misery. 

“This isn’t about them not offering up some sort of bullshit ‘compromise’ on abortion,” she wrote. “It’s about absolute fury.”

Even though Donald Trump is the man most responsible for overturning Roe, he has a better chance of sidestepping the abortion issue, because of the frantic deluge of bullshit he throws at everything, inviting help from Satan and Putin himself. And everyone knows, deep down, that the man’s only real objection to abortion is having to pay for them.

Rightwingers like to pretend that DeSantis is the GOP’s chance to start anew without the Trump nonsense. So they can’t admit that the closest thing they have to a generic Republican is even more damaged.

If they do, they’ll recognize their greatest weakness isn’t a blathering fool.

It’s the nightmare of finally achieving their half-century-old dream.

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