Amid the legal and political drama of Donald Trump’s latest indictment, this time on four counts of attempting to overturn the 2020 election and disrupt the transfer of power, is a contest for the Republican presidential nomination. While Democrats will most likely unite around Joe Biden’s reelection bid in 2024, some Republicans seem unsure of what it is they now represent.
Trump, who denies all charges, invests his energies fighting the previous election, while another leading contender Florida governor Ron DeSantis has seen his stumbling campaign focus on legal fights with Disney and how the history of slavery should be taught in his state’s schools.
As a recent Financial Times leader column put it, the Republican party has “atrophied from the ‘party of no’ into the party of nihilism, defined not by what it stands for but what it stands against”.
