WSJ hands the GOP a roadmap for dumping a weakened Trump

Late Thursday the editorial board of the conservative Wall Street Journal urged the Republican Party to make a concerted effort to make sure that Donald Trump does not get the 2024 presidential nomination.

Noting that the former president is now slipping in the polls due to his myriad legal problems that seem to grow by the day, the editors stated the first step can be taken with the upcoming GOP debate where the candidates who stand no chance of winning the nomination need to be "culled" leading anti-Trump conservatives to coalesce behind one challenger who can take him out.

As they wrote, "It’s not too soon to think about how to narrow the GOP field to give former President Trump a challenge that the party and the country deserve."

Pointing out that the former president is proceeding as if he already has the nomination wrapped up, and his guard appears to be down, the editors pressed for candidates who haven't made any inroads with voters to drop out and not just stay in the race due to their vanity.

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"Any announced candidate who hasn’t qualified for the debate based on the Republican National Committee’s criteria isn’t likely to strike political lightning from the sidelines. Staying in longer is essentially a vanity project, or an audition to be a talk-show host," they wrote before adding, "This will be a matter of self-interest as well as the good of the party and conservative cause. GOP voters aren’t likely to look fondly on a candidate who stays in the race merely to get more face time on cable with no chance of winning."

Pointing out that Trump has "fallen somewhat recently in the polls, and about half of his current supporters say they’d consider someone else," they warned, "President Biden is eminently beatable if the election campaign is about his record and obvious decline. But not if the election is about Mr. Trump and his grievances and legal peril. Republicans deserve a real nominating contest, not a third Trump coronation, and that means narrowing the field early."

You can read the whole editorial here.