Former President Donald Trump took to his social media account to rip into his globalist enemies on Saturday night, sounding off on the globalists for taking the side of Red China over the United States of America, putting their business interests first instead of America First.
In his words:
Certain International businessmen will never endorse me because I’m for AMERICA FIRST, they are for CHINA FIRST. Likewise, believe it or not, certain politicians, or RINO losers like Karl Rove, a money grabbing machine who does nothing for the good of the Republican Party. If their not for AMERICA FIRST, I’m not for them, and never will be. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!
The likely reason that Trump focused on Karl Rove, a George W. Bush-era lackey of the RINOs and globalists,is that Florida Governor and potential 2024 contender Ron DeSantis has taken to working with Karl Rove and those like him, such as Paul Ryan, to build Establishment GOP support behind Trump’s back
Rove has also been on the attack against Trump recently, saying, in a recent Wall Street Journal article:
The red wave never came. What happened in Tuesday’s midterms was closer to a trickle.
[…]How did we end up here?
[…]The answer is candidate quality. The GOP fielded too many novices who struggled with crafting a message, raising funds and waging effective campaigns. Some were also knuckleheads with strange beliefs and closets full of problems. Many of these remarkably weak candidates came courtesy of Donald Trump, who didn’t vet his endorsements. Even fairly good candidates spent too much time describing problems they wanted to tackle and not enough time on what they proposed to do about them.
This left too many candidates with little to commend them except loyalty to Mr. Trump, which few voters cared about. The losers Tuesday were often the candidates who closely followed the former president’s rally-speech scripts—campaigning on the lie that the 2020 election was stolen from Mr. Trump by fraud on a massive scale. Of the Republican candidates for secretary of state or attorney general who based their campaign on this falsehood, only one has pulled through, and he was in deep red territory.
In the same op-ed Rove also boosted DeSantis, saying:
There were important GOP wins Tuesday too. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s nearly 20-point re-election—and Sen. Marco Rubio breezing to a third term by about 17 points—showed how leadership and competence can turn a swing state into a Republican bastion.
And by allying with Rove against Trump, DeSantis might be authoring his own demise as a MAGA candidate. The Hill, discussing why Trump is down but not out, noted that Trump can likely win the primary, at least, if he manages to successfully paint DeSantis as the “Establishment” guy, saying:
For all the talk of “this time is different,” Trump won’t go down without a fight. If he can paint DeSantis as the preferred candidate of “the establishment” – among donors, pundits and insiders – that will only re-energize (and radicalize) his base. Even Trump’s ongoing legal battles may be a boon, as he can smear them as witch hunts. Those tactics might not win a general election — or they might. Either way, don’t count Trump out.
Rove is undoubtedly an Establishment figure and one who DeSantis seems to be drifting closer to as the rift between him and Trump opens. Trump, in making Rove the target of one of his better attacks, one that frames him as the defender of America First and his enemies as allies of the globalists, seems to grasp that and understand that by painting his enemies as globalists he can win, particularly in the GOP primary. We’ll see if DeSantis breaks with Rove to avoid the globalist/Bush lackey attacks and resume his role as the MAGA 2028 candidate, or if he moves closer to the Ryans and Roves and presents himself as a more tame, Establishment figure than Trump to win over those tired of Trump’s antics.