'Stop quivering': Conservative demands GOP calls the bluff of Trump loyalists

The Republican Party needs to move on from Donald Trump and ignore the loyalists who tell the party they won’t support any presidential candidate but him, conservative writer Charles C. W. Cooke argued today in a stinging National Review column.

Under the headline, “It’s Time to Call the Always-Trump Faction’s Bluff,” the article did not mince words.

“If the Republican Party wishes to have a shot at winning the 2024 presidential election, the sizeable portion of its members who remain immune to Donald Trump’s medieval-era demands of absolute fealty are going to need to stop quivering, come out from under their beds, and tell their tormenters in no uncertain terms that they should feel free to go ahead and shoot the phantasmic hostages they insist they’re keeping in the attic,” Cooke wrote.

Cooke called out Trump as a “loser” and argued that “the number of Republican voters who are actually prepared to boycott non-Trump candidates in a fit of pique is vanishingly small, and, as we saw in 2022, those who do stay at home in protest are considerably outnumbered by the Republicans and independents who delightedly return to the fold.”

The commentary rejected GOP concerns that Trump supporters would sit out the election – guaranteeing victory for President Joe Biden – should the party nominate someone other than Trump.

“This is untrue. It is a lie, a falsehood, a ploy. It is an empty promise, based upon an assumption of potency, numerical strength, and broad-based monomania that is simply not in evidence. Certainly, the Always Trump contingent makes a lot of noise, but practically speaking, they do not matter.”

Cooke criticized Trump’s “disqualifying behavior” in Georgia and other states, and added: “Donald Trump ought not to be the Republican nominee on the simple grounds that he is incapable of putting together a coalition that can gain power. He is a loser. He loses. He’ll lose in Georgia and Arizona and Nevada and New Hampshire and Michigan and in every other contested area where he and his followers elect to compete. Ultimately, there is nothing to fear from the Always Trump brigade, because it represents the vanguard of an army that cannot march.”