'Preemptive surrender' has already made Trump the GOP's 2024 nominee: columnist

Donald Trump is on a ‘glide path” to securing the GOP’s presidential nomination because none of his opponents dare take him on, according to a column in The Atlantic Monday.

And that "preemptive surrender" is what handed him victory in 2016.

Most Republicans do not want Trump to lead their party into the next general election, Yair Rosenberg wrote. But no other candidate is willing to tackle him head-on, instead they're focusing their efforts on fighting each other and hoping somebody else will take down Trump.

And it’s exactly that tactic that led him to victory in 2016, Rosenberg writes.

“No candidate wants to be the first into the fray, because turning on Trump may doom their prospects, even if it opens up political space for others,” he said.

He added, “If this sounds familiar, it should. In 2016, Trump was repeatedly outpolled by the field of Republican candidates, and hovered around 35 percent on the eve of the Iowa caucuses in February, which he then lost to Senator Ted Cruz. But as the campaign wore on, Trump’s devoted following of a third of GOP primary voters was enough to propel him to victory over a divided group of opponents.

“He was greatly helped by their tactics — or lack thereof. Instead of attacking Trump as the front-runner, his rivals assailed one another, hoping that Trump would collapse of his own accord and they would inherit his supporters.”

The problem is that that didn’t happen and the GOP found itself “on the losing end of a hostile takeover.”

And Rosenberg says it won’t happen this election cycle either.

The strategy of Trump’s opponents is to, “Avoid confrontation with the better-known, better-funded front-runners, hope Mr. Trump’s attacks take out — or at least take down — Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor who is second in most Republican polls, and hope outside forces, namely indictments, take out Mr. Trump,” the New York Times has reported.

But Rosenberg said none of that is happening. “The arguments may be there, but no one of consequence is making them,” he said.

“Instead, history seems poised to repeat, with Trump primed to win renomination against a divided field of opponents who refuse to take him on until it’s too late.”

He added, “The hard truth that Republican challengers have yet to absorb is that if their strategy to beat Trump is to hope that someone else beats Trump for them, they are not serious alternatives to Trump.”