To some Republicans, Donald Trump still trumps the Democrats

My liberal friends, if I even need to tell you, despise Donald Trump. Not exactly breaking news.  But a growing number of my conservative friends also wish he’d just go away. They like his policies, they tell me, but they’re experiencing something akin to a change of heart. In plain English, they no longer like him. 

Yet, more than a few Republicans have said that if he’s the GOP nominee for president in 2024, they’ll vote for him again. That tells you all you need to know about how much they loathe what the Democratic Party has become — which, to them, is a collection of hyper-sensitive woke progressives who care more about pronouns than the surge in violent crime, and who tell themselves that the mess along our southern border is a story invented by Fox News. They see Democrats as caring all right, but caring about all the wrong things.  

In other words, they view the Democratic Party — to use the phrase pollsters use — as not caring about people like me. And so, when you think like that, Donald Trump isn’t such a bogeyman after all.

Except, he is. And not only because the one thing he seems to be good at is losing. He cost Republicans the House in 2018, the presidency in 2020, the Senate in January 2021, and the Senate runoff in December 2022. As for that “red wave” Republicans were predicting for November’s midterms, it never happened — largely because Trump endorsed more than a few really bad candidates simply because they said nice things about him, and almost all of them lost unless they ran in deep-red states.

The bigger reason that a growing number of Republicans are questioning their ties to Trump is that he clearly lacks the character it takes to be president of the United States — and he has proven that over and over again.

So, what does Trump have to do for people like my conservative friends to finally say, “I’ve had enough”? Is dining with Nazi sympathizers enough? How about calling for “the termination of all rules … even those found in the Constitution”? Does that cross a line for Republicans?

Here’s what he recently wrote on Truth Social: “So, with the revelation of MASSIVE & WIDESPREAD FRAUD & DECEPTION in working closely with Big Tech Companies, the DNC & the Democrat Party, do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION? A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution. Our great ‘Founders’ did not want, and would not condone, False & Fraudulent Elections!” He also wrote: “UNPRECEDENTED FRAUD REQUIRES UNPRECEDENTED CURE!”

Alcoholics have their enablers, their supposed friends who don’t have the courage to say “Stop!” Trump also has enablers; unfortunately, they still comprise a sizable chunk of the Republican Party. Some supporters like his combative nature, his take-no-prisoners approach to politics. Some buy into his delusions about stolen elections. And some, like my friends, just see him as better than what the other team has to offer.   

Yes, there are plenty of reasons Republicans should run as fast as they can from what the Democratic Party has become, but running toward Donald Trump isn’t the answer.  

There likely will be plenty of thoughtful Republicans who will challenge Trump in the 2024 primaries, and who will give my friends a real choice: a candidate with conservative values who won’t drive the crazy train all the way to Loserville, one who won’t alienate moderate voters and give the Democrats another victory.

It’s not 2018 or 2020 anymore. After all the reporting of his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol, it’s no longer enough for Republicans to fall back on what they said before about how they “like his policies.”  It’s not about Trump’s policies — not now, anyway. It’s about Donald Trump. 

Before 2024, he may do something even wilder than everything he has done so far, something that will bring him down for good. Maybe he’ll invite Kanye West and Nick Fuentes to Mar-a-Lago for a Fourth of July picnic. You never know. But I’m not betting on Trump doing himself in. That’s up to my conservative friends and millions of other conservatives who think the way they do. They’re the only ones who can make sure Trump never sees the inside of the Oval Office again. 

I sense that things are changing, that old friends are drifting away from him. And a new poll seems to back up my suspicions. The USA Today/Suffolk University poll finds that 61 percent of Republicans and independents who lean Republican want someone other than Trump — but a candidate who embraces Trump’s policies — to win the GOP nomination. But 31 percent still want Trump to be the GOP nominee in 2024. 

So, there’s hope. Still, 31 percent is a lot — and in a crowded field, that’s probably enough to win Trump the GOP nomination. As long as so many Republicans stick by him, we all may be stuck with him.

Bernard Goldberg is an Emmy and an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University award-winning writer and journalist. He was a correspondent with HBO’s “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel” for 22 years and previously worked as a reporter for CBS News and as an analyst for Fox News. He is the author of five books and publishes exclusive weekly columns, audio commentaries and Q&As on his Substack page. Follow him on Twitter @BernardGoldberg.