David Frum writes:

The Republican plan for 2024 is already failing, and the party leadership can see it and knows it.

There was no secret to a more intelligent and intentional Republican plan for 2024. It would have gone like this:

(1) Replace Donald Trump at the head of the ticket with somebody less obnoxious and impulsive.

(2) Capitalize on inflation and other economic troubles.

(3) Offer plausible ideas on drugs, crime, and border enforcement.

(4) Reassure women worried about the post-Roe future.

(5) Don’t be too obvious about suppressing Democratic votes, because really blatant voter suppression will provoke and mobilize Democrats to vote, not discourage them.

Unfortunately for them, Republicans have turned every element of the plan upside down and inside out. Despite lavish anti-Trump donations by big-money Republicans, Trump is cruising to easy renomination. Rather than capitalize on existing economic troubles, Republicans have started a debt-ceiling fight that will cast them as the cause of America’s economic troubles. Worse for them, the troubles are fast receding. Inflation is vexing, but the recession that Republicans hoped for did not materialize: Instead, Joe Biden has presided over the fastest and steepest unemployment reduction in U.S. economic history.

The big new Republican idea to halt the flow of drugs is to bomb or invade Mexico. Instead of reassuring women, Republican state legislators and Republican judges are signaling that they will support a national abortion ban if their party wins in 2024—and are already building the apparatus of surveillance and control necessary to make such a ban effective. Republican state-level voter-suppression schemes have been noisy and alarming when the GOP plan called for them to be subtle and technical. [Continue reading…]