Scott Pinsker writes for PJMedia.com about a seemingly inevitable battle between two top American Republicabns.
They’re the two hardest hitting heavyweights on the Republican bench. You can almost sense them eyeing each other from afar, apprising one another “just in case.” Because, in full-contact politics, “just in case” will be here sooner than you think.
In one corner, at the tender age of 40, is JD Vance. He’s a military veteran who was deployed in Iraq, graduated from Yale, has three children, and had a meteoric rise to the top of the ranks of the GOP.
In the other corner, at the tender age of 46, is Ron DeSantis. He’s a military veteran who was deployed in Iraq, graduated from Yale, has three children, and had a meteoric rise to the top of the ranks of the GOP.
But despite their surface-level similarities, the two are starkly different people.
Right now, President-elect Trump is the undisputed master of MAGAtropolis. He runs the kingdom; the throne is his. But four years from now?
Well, it won’t be the meek who inherits the earth.
Instead, it’ll almost certainly be a military veteran who was deployed in Iraq, graduated from Yale, has three children, and had a meteoric rise to the top of the ranks of the GOP.
But which?
It’s a story that’ll be lurking in the murky background throughout 2025 (and beyond). But “palace intrigue” is a manic media magnet; with Trump term-limited and unable to run again, it’s only natural that every speech, photo-op, and trip to New Hampshire and/or Iowa by Vance and DeSantis will be exhaustively scrutinized.
Vance and DeSantis aren’t the only two contenders, of course. There are still the pre-Trump stalwarts who sought the brass ring in 2016 — Sen. Cruz (R-Tex.) and Sen. Rubio (R-Fla.) — plus new breed, post-Trump politicians like Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-Va.). And there’ll surely be a handful of political outsiders, a la Vivek Ramaswamy, who are emboldened by Trump’s personal example.
