BYRON YORK: Haley loss another reminder: GOP can’t go back.

Each Republican candidate running in 2024 had to reckon with Trump’s complicated legacy — and then with Trump himself. Some tried to be super Trumpy. Some tried to be anti-Trumps. Some tried to be old school. None succeeded.

All had to recognize one fact: For the GOP, there was no going back. In February 2022, I had a long discussion with Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), who at that time was clearly thinking about running for president but still had to enact his legislative agenda and win reelection. (He did both in a very impressive fashion.) I mentioned that there were some Republicans who were simply more comfortable with the old style of Republicanism and the old line of succession. I asked DeSantis if he thought there was any going back to that. He laughed. Absolutely not, he said. No way, no how. Despite his loss, he was right.

Indeed, there is not. But there are still those Republicans who are nostalgic for a more orderly GOP. And many of them looked to Haley as their final hope, at least for now, of making that happen. Haley spoke passionately about the “chaos” that surrounds Trump — and indeed, he is a man facing 91 felony counts and all the trouble that entails. She promised a return to a calmer and more disciplined Republican Party. Her problem was that there were not nearly enough Republicans who want that, too. Some love Trump, others don’t love him but like his results, and others think that for all his flaws he is what the GOP needs to fight a Democratic Party dominated by progressive activists. Some would even like to move on from Trump but don’t believe there is another Republican on the scene with the strength and talent to lead the party in a new direction. In any event, Haley has lost, and those supporters who want to change today’s Republican Party will have to wait for new circumstances to bring new leaders.

Meanwhile, at America’s Newspaper of Record: Raytheon Lowers Flags To Half-Staff After Nikki Haley Drops Out. “The aerospace technology corporation, which had been holding out hope that the world would enter a new era of highly profitable war, destruction, and death with the onset of World War III, was devastated by this morning’s news that Haley had suspended her campaign.”