Last Tuesday marked the completion of probably the most boring and inconsequential Super Tuesday since Americans began making the mistake of selecting presidential nominees that way.

As widely predicted, former President Donald Trump swept the primary field, with former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley winning only Vermont. Haley, who also previously served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations via a Trump appointment, suspended her campaign Wednesday morning. Though unfortunate, this is the only sensible thing left to do. As I’ve noted before, there was some value to Haley clinging on through the convention, if only for epistemological reasons, but the reality of the costs, financial and otherwise, of a presidential campaign rendered that eventuality all but impossible. It will go down as one of the nation’s largest polemical regrets that Haley never got the chance to debate Trump, something the former president avoided like poison ivy, and not merely for strategic reasons; it will go down as perhaps the GOP’s greatest political regret it chose to gamble on Trump rather than virtually ensuring a victory with Haley.

But it did, and now conservatives are left without a candidate in November. So what next?

The first question the punditry seems to be obsessed with is whether or not Haley will now endorse Trump. Each of the other non-Trump primary candidates, who tucked tail well before Haley, have summarily bowed the knee. Even Kentucky U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, no fan of Trump, plighted his troth to the former president once the field was clear. But for most of these folks, that is a political decision, not a moral one, and in the world of politics such things happen. Haley, however, has little to gain from a full-throated endorsement of Trump, especially if she wishes to take another stab at the nomination in four years.

Stay up to speed: Sign up for daily opinion in your inbox Monday-Friday

Then there is the question of Trump’s running mate. Conventional wisdom suggests Haley ought to be at the top of the list, for party unity if for no other reason, but conventional wisdom has long since been rendered void. In any case, Trump is not especially concerned about party unity, blind as he is to the fact he needs Haley voters if he is to be sure of a win. Of course, there is the question of who the hell would want that job. Four years of playing sidekick to the Trump show cannot be terribly appealing, especially after one looks at how former Vice President Mike Pence was treated. Haley has too much pride and skill for it to be wasted in that particular shadow, – again – we turn to the possibility of her running again in 2028, for which Haley ought to keep her powder dry.

The important takeaway is that GOP primary voters exchanged an almost-certain sweep of governing authority come January 2025 for a gamble. Haley consistently outperformed Trump in polls juxtaposing the two candidates’ chances against President Joe Biden. And with a decent figure at the top of the ticket, Republican congressional victories would be far more attainable. It’s a gamble that may pay off, sort of – Biden is so deeply unpopular at the moment Trump could yet pull it off – but even if he wins, Trump will in all likelihood be denied the Republican Congress he’ll need to do pretty much anything. Then of course there is the continuing damage that will be done to the Republican brand, not to mention the trade, debt and foreign policy messes that promise to be only marginally less severe under a second Trump presidency than a second Biden presidency.

Speaking of whom, Biden did himself no favors on Thursday night, performing a campaign rally thinly disguised as a State of the Union address. The speech had not a single note of bipartisan outreach or national cohesiveness. SOTU addresses have always had a tint of salesmanship to them, and over the years have become steadily more partisan, but this was something different. There was much to criticize in the speeches chapter-and-verse leftist content, including the morally bankrupt scolding of Israel, but it was not the policy so much as the tone that struck so disagreeable of a chord. It was vituperative, chiding, puerile stuff of whistle-stops, not the distinguished, higher-level statesmanship such a moment cries out for. He was trying to out-Trump Trump, and did so far too well.

Biden’s was not the only example of a lack of decorum and respect for the institution that night; Georgia U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Colorado U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert descended faithfully to the depths, ignoring Speaker Mike Johnson’s appropriate and honorable pleas for decorum. But decorum in Washington D.C. is becoming as passe as it is here in Colorado – in terms of behavior, speech, even dress. It ought to be no surprise as society’s standards devolve, so too will those of society’s governing leaders.

And so, America now faces another Hobson’s choice for president – two aging, ignominious charlatans trying to out-bully one another, and we get one of them for four years.

May God help us, and may Mrs. Haley get her 2028 campaign in order forthwith.

Kelly Sloan is a political and public affairs consultant and a recovering journalist based in Denver.