'Unhinged 'Trump needs to be primaried in 2020 for the 'good of the country': conservative analyst

President Donald Trump needs to be challenged by a Republican for the 2020 Republican National Convention nomination, the former editor-in-chief of the Weekly Standard argued.

Stephen Hayes, writing in The Washington Post, said it is "vital" for Trump to be primaried.

"Serious intraparty challenges at the presidential level are relatively rare and never successful," Stephens wrote. "But the Republican president is Donald Trump. If ever there were a time for a serious intraparty challenge, it’s now."

Stephens even offered some names.

"The ideal challenger would be a committed, articulate conservative — maybe a governor, such as Maryland’s Larry Hogan, or a senator, such as Nebraska’s Ben Sasse — who would make a case for limited government that will otherwise go unmade, and who would show voters that conservatism and Trumpism are not one and the same," he argued.

Stephens worried voters would increasingly reject Republicans if they did not stand up to Trump.

"The 2018 midterm elections were a clear and unmistakable rebuke of the chaos of his first two years as president," he noted. "And it’s getting worse."

"Trump’s steady stream of lies has picked up over the past six months," he noted. "His Twitter feed is more unhinged."

"There’s reason to believe this will all get worse over the next year," Stephens predicted. "The Mueller investigation is testing whatever sanity Trump still possesses. Democrats controlling the House will use their newfound power to investigate every corner of the Trump administration — an administration already marked by malfeasance and corruption."