Enough of your kvetching about Donald Trump's "obsession" — your buzzword, not his — with 2020.  If Mr. Trump is nominated to run for a second term as president, will you vote for him?  That really is the issue for us conservative populists, I think.

Indications, thus far, with an eye toward 2024, are that the NeverTrump cabal will join forces to thwart a third Trump presidential bid: the Democrats shrieking in hysterics that democracy will come to an end with a second Trump presidential term, and the NeverTrump crowd chiming in, as you ended your Wall Street Journal column, December 23: "If the GOP can't learn to shake the Trump obsession with alleged election fraud, the former president could even hand Democrats the White House — again."

That "again" is bewildering.  It suggests you are asserting that Donald Trump previously handed the presidency to the Democrat.

When was the first time that Mr. Trump handed Democrats the White House as a result of his "obsession" with a presidential election?

Rove should be thankful Mr. Trump has not — and he would have good cause, I believe, to make the allegation — blamed the NeverTrump conspiracy for a) undermining his first term and b) working with the media and, of course, their Deep State Democrat allies, to badmouth the Trump campaign 24/7 with baseless intimations, innuendo, and direct statements.  The NeverTrump "fifth column" in the Republican Party arguably gave the presidency to Benighted Biden with nary a thought how their betrayal would damage national security, foreign policy, economic stability, civil liberties, and immigration issues — not to mention undoing the good efforts of the Trump administration in starting from scratch to corral the harmful effects of the pandemic, exacerbated by political scoundrels like the former governor of the State of New York.

It seems to me that voters, certainly Republican voters and independents, should be told, now, where pundits like Karl Rove stand with respect to 2024.  And it further seems logical to inquire of Karl Rove, so close, as he is, to the Bush faction in the Republican Party: will you vote for Donald Trump (or any other conservative populist) in 2024, or will you work — by omission or commission — for the election of another Democrat who will vitiate national security with wokeness, align our foreign policy with totalitarian governments, put an end to the idea of a prosperous economy, equate dissent and free expression with sedition, weaponize the Intelligence Community, and break the backs of taxpayers on funding an open borders policy?

The test for Rove is simple enough.  Let his next column in The Wall Street Journal declare, without fear or reservation:  "The Democrats Be Damned; If Trump Is the Candidate, He Gets My Vote."

Photo credit: Jay Godwin, LBJ Library, public domain.

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