The GOP Has No Standards Now

John Dickerson: “There is no formal application for the presidency. If there were, it might contain a few prescreening questions to bounce the obviously unqualified. Is the applicant 35 years of age or older? Were they born in the United States? Have they ever tried to overthrow a lawful presidential election? If a candidate said no to the first two questions or yes to the third, their application would not proceed to the bin for further review. HR would send a note thanking them for their interest.”

“The first two questions are constitutional requirements. The third is not a constitutional requirement but an implicit one: Shredding the Constitution should disqualify anyone applying for a job protecting the Constitution. School-bus operators are not picked from a pool of drivers with a history of high-speed, child-imperiling joyrides. Museum guards are not selected from the ranks of art thieves.”

“This is obvious. But not to the Republican Party. The 2024 GOP presidential nominee will either be Donald Trump, who tried to overthrow the results of the 2020 presidential election, or it will be someone who passes the current purity test: agreeing to overlook the fact that Trump tried to overthrow an election.”