If one indisputable truth has emerged from the midterm elections, it's that Donald Trump is the political equivalent of herpes. Sure, the MAGA base loves him, but mainly as a blight they can inflict upon liberals, since infecting all Democrats with literal herpes is a logistical impossibility. Everyone else despises Trump, so much so that Republican candidates, by aligning themselves too closely with Trump, surrendered a significant chunk of voters and lost a bunch of otherwise winnable elections.
So for the past week, Republican talking heads have been lining up to declare that it's finally time to abandon the tiny-fingered parasite who sucks voters out of the R column. As Salon's Areeba Shah has documented, even some of the most shameless Trump sycophants, like Candace Owens of the Daily Wire and former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, have been out there imploring their onetime godhead to take a step back from another presidential campaign. The GOP chattering class has turned its lonely eyes to Florida Gov. Ron "Don't Say Gay" DeSantis as the next-level Trump challenger, in the hope that he can be evil enough to satisfy the MAGA base, while tricking normie voters into thinking he's not quite as bad as the Bad Orange Man.
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