Republished with permission from Steve Schmidt

The DeSantis juggernaut that wasn’t has reset itself amidst the $1,000 per night vistas afforded by the Stein Eriksen Lodge of Park City, Utah. The reset is a familiar tradition on failing and flailing campaigns.

Here is how it works:

After a long period of furiously denying the obvious truth staring them in the face, the campaign suddenly reverses course and acknowledges their miseries and mistakes. The hope is for a type of palate cleanser that borders on absolution. It almost never works, and certainly won’t for Team Ron and Casey, who seem like hard cases when it comes to their commitment to fantasy.

No one should expect this man to go gently into that good night.

Photo credit: DeSoto County Sheriff’s Office via Facebook

Generra Peck, the profligate campaign manager who bankrupted Ron and Casey while they were in polling free fall, has declared the dream reborn with a declaration of insurgency. In a note to donors last week, she said that the campaign was making some difficult, but necessary changes, and that the campaign strategy would be that of an “underdog.” She also said that:

All DeSantis needs to drive news and win this primary is a mic and a crowd.

The greatest thing about national politics is the degree to which it is built around delusions and narcissistic fever dreams. Take, for example, the ambitions of Mike Pence. He has no chance whatsoever of becoming president, and yet his dream will never die so long as there is a cable news channel where delusions are the news.

Nikki Haley is another example of a politician who can’t win and won’t stop running no matter what. She is like a soccer team that shows up in the NFL parking lot believing it is game day when the truth is that no one knows or cares that there is a soccer team in the lot. She’s lost in plain sight, but rudeness in national politics is defined as telling the truth to the pragmatically disabled and fantastic fabulists of the presidential debate stage. Apparently they run, so therefore they are.

Ron DeSantis didn’t make it to the end of July before he was swallowed up by a brutal competition that saw him coming from miles away. “Let Ron be Ron” is the perfect epitaph to a fascist cause that melted in the summer sun under the searing weirdness of its standard bearer and his humorless self-seriousness. It looks like the “war on the woke mind virus” is headed for the county fair—not the White House. While most people could have seen this coming, the people who previously anointed Scott Walker a GOP front-runner, were not among them.

Who can potentially beat Trump? And, where are the only two questions that really matter in the looming GOP primary?

The answers are obvious and have been for some time.

Senator Tim Scott can beat Trump in Iowa.

If that happens, it has the potential to propel Christie forward in New Hampshire against a weakened and beaten Trump. Should Trump lose to Scott in South Carolina the MAGA era will be over in an instant—though the recovery will take many years.

Donald Trump is about to be indicted in the state of Georgia and federally for his role inciting the January 6 attacks. His shtick is stale, and he will never be able to stay away from the debates, during which he will be savaged by Chris Christie. Presently, he is behind President Biden in potential rematch polling, and his mental spiral will likely worsen with more legal difficulties.

Anything can happen in the months ahead, and those include the emergence of Tim Scott as the GOP front-runner. No matter who is the candidate, they will be a person who made tremendous compromises during the Trump era on foundational issues. Each person running was weak when they should have been strong. They were dishonest when they should have been truthful. They were transactional, and collaborated with extremists because it was good for their political careers. Each person was tested. Each failed the test. Such is the rancid state of America’s Republican Party. Each candidate is tainted and weak. Despite this, all are better than Trump.

America needs two healthy political parties in a two-party system. The Trump era broke American politics, and it will take a long time to fumigate the system. Every person of good faith and goodwill should hope for this.

There are stormy days ahead, and the reality is that more Americans have to become involved in order to move past this era of imbecility and division. Apathy is a virus in a free society. It produces tyranny. “Freedom” is a nonsense word without the concepts of obligation and responsibility attached to it. Americans have become experts about declaring rights. It is time we start talking about responsibility again.

Politics isn’t something for other people to do for us. It is our birthright and our children’s legacy. It means we all have to be involved and get involved. What will you do? Your country is counting on you.