Why Trump’s all-but-inevitable South Carolina victory over Nikki Haley matters

Tonight, South Carolina will hold its Republican presidential primary, in which Donald Trump is all but certain to crush rival Nikki Haley in her home state. Ordinarily, this might feel like big news, as the Palmetto State tends to host one of the most important early contests. Joe Biden’s 2020 victory in the state, after dismal finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire, is one of the biggest reasons he’s president today.

But the coming vote feels irrelevant: The 2024 Republican primary isn’t and never has been a competitive primary. Trump simply wasn’t going to lose a contest for the hearts and minds of the Republican base. Ideologically, psychologically, even spiritually — it’s the Trump party through and through.

I and others have been arguing this for years now. Yet during those same years, many prominent people in politics and the media deluded themselves into thinking he might be dethroned. They have been wrong every time and continued to be wrong long after the strength of Trump’s grip on the GOP could not be denied.

There’s a lesson to be learned from this track record of failure, one deeper than just “Republicans really like Donald Trump.” Trump’s persistence tells us something critical about the nature of the current Republican party — and why it’s become such a danger to American democracy.

How Trump keeps wiggling his way out of jams

Ever since the early stages of the 2016 GOP primary, the same pattern has repeated itself over and over again: Some new development that looked politically dangerous for Trump ends up not mattering at all. This happened so many times in the 2016 election cycle alone that it became a running joke during the campaign.

The pattern continued through Trump’s presidency, and most strikingly after January 6 — when Trump managed to maintain majority support in the Republican…