From Paul Voegeli

Monroe

To the Editor: 

The recent defeat of Herschel Walker in the Georgia Senate election brings to five the number of consecutive Republican electoral defeats for which Donald Trump must take the blame. Those five are the 2018 mid-term election, the 2020 presidential election, the Jan. 5, 2021 special election for two Georgia Senate seats, the 2022 mid-term elections and finally the Walker defeat. That record should disqualify Trump from even being considered for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.

Paul Ryan from Janesville, the former Speaker of the U.S. House, recently said that any Republican of national stature could defeat Joe Biden in 2024 with one exception. That exception is Donald Trump. Speaker Ryan also pointed out that if the GOP ran the then 78 year-old Trump against the then 82 year-old Biden the GOP would have neutralized the age issue.

The real worry about a Trump-Biden contest is not a second term for Biden, which, based on his record to date, would be a disaster. Rather, the even worse outcome would be that the Biden victory might well result in Kamala Harris becoming president. I am not referring to the possibility of Biden dying in office, although that possibility cannot be overlooked with a president who is the oldest in American history. Rather, the worry has to be that half way through a second term, a weary and possibly ailing Biden would resign, so that Harris would become president.

For the last two years we have listened again and again to Biden proudly announcing that he was appointing “the first black woman” to this or that position. Since that is his approach to selecting nominees, he would probably believe that being responsible for a black woman becoming president would be his crowning achievement.

If she became president, Harris would be eligible to run for at least one term of her own. She would not likely to be elected, given her abysmal showing in 2020. She was never over 1.00% in the polls and withdrew before the Iowa caucuses. However, in view of the total lack of ability that she has demonstrated as Vice President, the damage that she could do in just two years as president is incalculable. 

I therefore say to my fellow Republicans that unless you want to see Kamala Harris in the Oval Office, do not remotely consider nominating Trump in 2024.