ROD DREHER: The Red Wave That Wasn’t.

To the MAGA diehards, I say: is this really what you want? A Republican Party that can’t decisively whip the Democrats even in an extremely favorable year? Because this is what you are going to get if you keep sticking with Trump. Like it or not, a lot of independents just hate the guy, and that’s never going to change. Conservatives like me would vote for him in 2024 just to keep the Democrats out of office, but in that case I would vote knowing I was checking the box for a big mouth who won’t get much done, because whereas Ron DeSantis would actually govern, Trump would do nothing but preen and talk about himself.

But as Stuckey and Walsh say, the normie Republican Party doesn’t give people much reason to vote for it, other than its not being Democratic. That’s enough for a lot of us, but not enough to win big, and certainly not enough to deserve victory.

The future of American political conservatism is Ron DeSantis, J.D. Vance, and National Conservative-style Republicans like them. Not MAGA. Not the Bulwark sad remnants of the pre-Trump GOP establishment.

I’ll update this as we get news about Georgia and Arizona. Hoping hard for Blake Masters and Kari Lake wins. Hey, at least we no longer have to hear from terminal losers Stacy Abrams and Beto O’Rourke again.

As Steve writes in his requiem for Trump’s political future in his column for PJ Media VIP readers: So Long, and Thanks for All the Judges.