Conservative roasts the 'blissful disconnect' between the GOP’s 'fantasy' primary and 'the real world'

Although former President Donald Trump has a dozen competitors in the 2024 GOP presidential primary, none of them are coming close to him in polls. The second-place candidate, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, trails Trump by 40 percent in a Harvard University/HarrisX poll conducted July 19-20.

Regardless, right-wing media outlets have been portraying the primary as a diverse and robust exchange of ideas. But former GOP strategist and Never Trumper Tim Miller tears that depiction apart in a biting yet humorous article published by the conservative website The Bulwark on July 24, arguing that the primary's range of ideas is painfully limited.

"There's another world out there — one that's better than ours," Miller sarcastically writes. "In this world, there are two healthy political parties waging vigorous primary campaigns with vibrant debates between factions, and these factions have genuine disagreements over what policies will best serve our fellow Americans. I don't begrudge anyone aspiring to build such a world. I don't even begrudge those who have chosen to live in a blissful state of disreality and disconnect from politics entirely, rather than face the Super Not Great world we do live in. But I would expect professional political commentators, and donors shelling out millions in campaign cash, and the political strategists receiving that cash, to live in the real world."

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Miller continues, "Alas, this is not the case. Instead, we have a heavily capitalized right-wing ecosystem that exists to prop up an imaginary Republican presidential primary so that the participants can feel better about their party identification. This way, they can do business with Republican politicians or chew the fat at the club without feeling icky at having to admit that their Grand Old Party has become something dark."

The Never Trump conservative, a frequent guest on MSNBC, argues that in the "imaginary primary," Sen. Tim Scott (R-South Carolina) "might surge to the top" — and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin will enter the race and crush the competition.

"In this fake primary," Miller says, "there are several candidates using creative strategies to figure out how to make it onto a debate stage. Yet should they succeed, they do not plan to use that stage to directly challenge the person beating them by 50 points in the polls."

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Tim Miller's full article for The Bulwark can be found at this link.