It's "do-or-die" for Nikki Haley in South Carolina — but for MSNBC's Chris Hayes the GOP nomination race is Trump's to lose either by a legal loss or a hit to his health.
In an op-ed titled "How a key failing in Republican politics turned Trump into the de-facto nominee," Hayes says he believes South Carolina, despite being Haley's home state where she served as governor, will prove to be a "very uphill battle" for her.
" Trump has looked like the de facto nominee for so long that political junkies and neophytes alike might be forgiven for viewing the aspirations of replacing him as the leader of the Republican Party as delusional," he wrote.
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What's most stunning to Hayes, is the notion that the 45th president is so eager to return to become the 47th that he sells himself as an anti-establishment American patriot.
But Hayes points out that Trump's most significant legislative cowbells were failing to repeal the Affordable Care Act (aka "Obamacare") and delivering to the wealthiest substantial tax cuts.
"Both of those were right out of the Paul Ryan playbook," he writes.
The record also suggests how Trump couldn't end the “endless wars” in Iraq and Afghanistan while Biden did, and he also ordered the assassination of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani.
All to say that these add up to a more mainstream agenda than the maverick agenda he preaches.
"...Trumpism as a governing agenda was a whole lot closer to establishment orthodoxy than the campaign version of Trumpism that gave him such a competitive advantage in the primary," writes Hayes.
The incoming Trump took in both Iowa and New Hampshire contests failed to even dent Trump's GOP nomination bid.
"But fundamentally, the reason Trump won is that you can’t beat something with nothing, and the non-Trump wing of the Republican Party still hasn’t come up with something to offer," according to Hayes.
He points to the lead that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis held and soon evaporated because the indictments enabled a "kind of martyrdom," and in large part the governor's "utter lack of charisma and cringey, ham-fisted campaign."
Haley is still pulling punches with soft attacks on "trump for running up the deficits." She apparently stepped in it when she discussed raising the Social Security age, a sensitive keepsake that Trump was able to "absolutely bludgeon her" with in New Hampshire.
An anti-Haley ad declared: "Americans were promised a secure retirement. Nikki Haley’s plan ends that."
