Former President Donald Trump has announced his candidacy for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. Republican primary voters should say, “Thanks, but no thanks. We need to win, and we can do better.” I would argue, much better.

As with every election, the 2024 presidential election will be about the future. People will be voting based on their family's future best interests. Thus, Trump's obsession with the 2020 election should inspire doubt about what he will do in the future.

Given President Joe Biden's age, his ho-hum approval ratings, and his modest legislative agenda success, his presidency can only be viewed as that of a caretaker. He will frame himself as a respite from the chaos of the Trump presidency — an American future with an emphasis on competency, common sense, and coalition-building.

Republican Govs. Ron DeSantis of Florida, Mike DeWine of Ohio, and Kim Reynolds of Iowa have cultivated similar images. They were each rewarded with a smashing reelection mandate. That means no more trillion-dollar stimulus packages that subsidize those with six-figure incomes who do not need financial help. It would mean no more blatant lying about voting security measures, as Biden lied about the Georgia law, which has helped to produce record voter turnout in multiple elections. It would also mercifully banish Trump's incessant name-calling and one-way view of loyalty, as well as his demonstrated egomaniacal behavior.

I have spent decades working with Republican candidates, state political parties, and national committees. A political party must be bigger than one person in order to prosper. Politicians come and go. Basic principles go through revisions but survive. Ronald Reagan's shining city on a hill, trumpeting smaller government, personal freedoms, and, importantly, individual responsibility, still rings true.

Trump had some very important policy accomplishments as president. He reduced taxes, deregulated businesses, improved border enforcement, appointed conservative judges, and rightly removed some funding from that debating society we call the United Nations. Just as all that is good, it is also all in the past — as is the 2020 election.

Trump wants people to vote on basis of what he frames as a stolen 2020 election. Therein lies the problem. People vote for the future. Trump lives in the past. "I am your retribution,” as Trump recently proclaimed, is not a message that will win over swing voters.

Trump is the potential 2024 Republican nominee most likely to lose and kick away a golden opportunity. That would be true even if he did not have indictments and legal proceedings weighing him down. He has not said or done anything since election night in November 2020 that encourages people who voted against him in 2020 to vote for him in 2024. This is from a candidate who lost the popular vote by seven million. That alone is proof of his electoral weakness. Given the likelihood of a Republican-controlled House and a very favorable Senate map, a presidential victory in 2024 can usher in a golden age of conservative policy implementation.

Republicans, do not blow this opportunity. Thank Trump for his service, and move on. Politicians who live in the past will never govern in the future.

Kevin Igoe is the former Deputy Chief of Staff of the Republican National Committee and was a member of the Bush-Cheney 2000 Florida Recount Team and a Reagan White House appointee.