The debate underscored that the GOP is only a shadow of its pre-Trump self, Burns writes.
“Americans would be hard pressed to find a single serious policy mind in the bunch, save perhaps former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, who seemed completely out of place amid her colleagues’ incoherence.”
Burns thinks only three candidates made any impression at all: Haley, former Vice President Mike Pence and billionaire investor Vivek Ramaswamy.
“Unfortunately,” he writes, “none of those three have a meaningful chance at dethroning Trump unless the field narrows quickly and sharply.”
Burns believes that “a functional Republican Party would be rallying around Nikki Haley as a dream challenger to President Joe Biden.”
“Fortunately for Democrats, the modern GOP is anything but a functional party. In the current MAGA-fied GOP, Ramaswamy’s bombastic infomercial style has a better chance of perking Trump’s ears than any of Haley’s boring policy talk.”
“That’s just fine with Team Biden.”
Read the op-ed at TheHill.com.
