The New Hampshire primary produced an internal dissonance that may be unique to the Republican Party of 2024.
Donald Trump’s buoyant GOP supporters, including a phalanx from New York, seemed to conduct themselves with coherent messaging and social propriety.
The candidate, however, acted like a sore winner. After the victory, he angrily denounced Nikki Haley, his last major GOP primary rival, as “delusional” and an “impostor” who was still “hanging around” despite falling short in Iowa and New Hampshire.
The first-ever indicted ex-president declared: “I can say to everybody, ‘Thank you for the victories, it’s wonderful,’ or I can go up and say, ‘Who the hell was the impostor that went up on the stage before and claimed a victory?’ She did very poorly, actually.” And then he said something characteristically strange, and deliberately vague, about how she'd be investigated while Ron DeSantis would not because he withdrew.
By contrast, there were healthier, more conventional messages from former Long Island Rep. Lee Zeldin, who’s all in for the 45th president and brought other New Yorkers with him to the Granite State. Buy it or not, his rhetoric was inbounds, asserting that Trump would make the economy better than ever, secure the border, help our military, etc. Standard stuff.
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Zeldin organized a coach bus full of volunteers in the early morning who started in Staten Island and stopped in Albany to pick up upstaters. They campaigned with Trump at a polling place in Londonderry, N.H. Five days earlier, Zeldin stood with Trump and Rep. Elise Stefanik on a stage and did some traditional pep-talk shouting.
“Is New Hampshire ready to put President Trump back in the White House? … We have a country to save,” Zeldin said.
Zeldin, 43, who performed surprisingly well in the 2022 gubernatorial race against Democrat Kathy Hochul, has had a career as an elected official that preceded Trump’s rise. He won and lost local elections. After the Hochul race, he expressed an ambition that activists in a minority party rarely dare utter — that the GOP should try to organize more in the cities. His own future plans remain unknown.
Unfortunately, a few of New York’s lesser Republican lights were also on the scene in New Hampshire. George Santos showed up at a victory party and drew celebrity attention. Earlier, Rudy Giuliani was photographed sitting in a car outside a Haley event, for some reason.
In the zoology of politics, career elected officials are entirely different creatures from Donald Trump, who had the privilege to come in from the top of society in 2016 and act less like a public servant than a party boss.
Trump in office practiced nepotism, bringing his adult children into the White House. He refused to create a distance from his business interests. He schemed to halt a legitimate investigation into his 2016 campaign, and pressured a foreign leader to dig up dirt on his opponent. He tried to retroactively fix the election he lost. He incited a Capitol demonstration that turned violent.
Once out of office, he pushed to obstruct the bipartisan infrastructure program. Republicans who backed a legitimate Jan. 6 investigation were shunned. Trump had influence in replacing the House speaker. His hand-picked chairperson is still running the Republican National Committee.
No wonder Trump is cleaning up in the primaries. Control the party, and you can create all the dissonance you want, showing no grace in defeat or victory.
Columnist Dan Janison's opinions are his own.
Dan Janison is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
New GOP boss same as old boss
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25.01.2024
The New Hampshire primary produced an internal dissonance that may be unique to the Republican Party of 2024.
Donald Trump’s buoyant GOP supporters, including a phalanx from New York, seemed to conduct themselves with coherent messaging and social propriety.
The candidate, however, acted like a sore winner. After the victory, he angrily denounced Nikki Haley, his last major GOP primary rival, as “delusional” and an “impostor” who was still “hanging around” despite falling short in Iowa and New Hampshire.
The first-ever indicted ex-president declared: “I can say to everybody, ‘Thank you for the victories, it’s wonderful,’ or I can go up and say, ‘Who the hell was the impostor that went up on the stage before and claimed a victory?’ She did very poorly, actually.” And then he said something characteristically strange, and deliberately vague, about how she'd be investigated while Ron DeSantis would not........
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