Donald Trump decided a while back to try out the handle “war time president’ and ironically, it fits. Not only is America embroiled in a culture war, which keeps getting hotter every day, but the Republican party is in chaos internally, and there is a pitched battle for control of the Republican National Committee, in the event Trump loses — which, let’s face it, is the likely scenario, and they know it. Words like “bloodbath” are being used and, are you ready for this? There’s talk that Trump intends to give chairmanship of the RNC to Kimberly Guilfoyle if he wins. Business Insider:
There’s a good chance Trump’s own family members would extend their control over the party if he wins — their influence was already on prominent display throughout this week’s Republican convention. But Trump’s populist faction of the party, the dwindling establishment, and Tea Party conservatives could find themselves locked in a leadership dogfight if the election goes the other way.
“We’re going to be in store for a battle,” former RNC Chairman Michael Steele, now a member of the anti-Trump group of Republicans, The Lincoln Project, told Insider this week. “For those who support Trump, the question will be: ‘How do we complete what we already started?'” […]
An RNC member who spoke with Insider said the Republican Party’s many factions — Tea Partyers, the Christian Right, Trump-style populists and the old establishment — could break apart again and battle for control of the party should Trump lose the 2020 election.
“That is where the fight will be, it could be a bloodbath,” the RNC member said. “It would not be unusual for that vacuum of power — if we don’t hold the White House — to create the fight in and among factions for control of the Republican base.”
RNC members were already talking up possible leaders for 2021 before they met in Charlotte, North Carolina, last weekend ahead of the GOP convention. And that talk picked up when they convened to formally re-nominate Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, RNC members said.
Trump advisers had suggested conservative television personality Kimberly Guilfoyle, the girlfriend of Trump Jr., even before she took the stage at the Republican convention. Her energetic speech on the first night of the Republican National Convention immediately drew buzz among Republicans who thought she sounded like a candidate running for office.
If Guilfoyle sounds like a candidate running for office, the GOP is in even worse straits than we knew. Not only did that performance lend itself to considerable memes such as the “#GuilfoyleChallenge” where people imitated her histrionics, she became a joke world wide. Guilfoyle’s relatives in Ireland were referring to her as “that lunatic on the telly.”
But then again, come to think of it lunatics on the telly do quite well in the GOP, now don’t they? The Republicans didn’t bother to post a platform before the convention and maybe this is it: the party will cull through all available media personalities, pick the loudest and the strangest, and put them on the ticket. The National Enquirer will become the new paper of record — and it isn’t that far off now. In many ways, it’s a shame Mad Magazine went out of business, because they had the right handle on Donald Trump back in the 90’s. We are not only in a post truth world, we are beyond parody.
Once they turned into a personal cult, this became inevitable. (Guilfoyle would be a terrible “leader”. She isn’t qualified for anything but being a political showpiece.)
Ummm…..did that stop them from putting Trump at the top of their ticket? That’s why I don’t even laugh anymore. Not after what we’ve all been through.
WE are still alive and able to resist. By the end of the weekend or next week, 180,000 of our fellow citizens will be unable to say the same. I stopped laughing Election Night 2016. I’ve been angry as hell ever since and where I can, I’ve been doing something about it. Look no further than the example of the tragically deceased Chadwick Boseman, who used the last four years of his life to leave an impact. It’s an example worth following.
We do what we can do. This is a time to call congresspeople and let our views be known and it’s certainly a time to get out the vote. I also went through a change on election night 2016. I became a different person. The America I grew up in and believed in was no longer the America I was living in. Something had gone horribly wrong for Trump to be elected. I’ve been working against that ever since.
O-kaaay. Did we really need any more incentive to make him lose?
My point was that the GOP is in tatters — which we knew. But they have been falling apart for quite some time. The Business Insider article made me realize just how bad off the GOP is.
Have I not been saying just that about their leadership for quite some time? W went away, so did the restraining hand that held back the lulus. The only thing that’s held them up is the big money and the latter is firmly this one out (funny how such folk object to being robbed in plain sight). The collapse will be spectacular when it comes.
This should be a wakeup call to a lot of people that Trump sees the U.S. as his own kingdom to be ruled by the whims of him & his worthless family — never mind the law, the constitution, ethics or other branches of government. If he were to win, even if Democrats took over both house of Congress, he would continue to be defiant and boldly challenge them constantly — and if they tried to do appropriate things like arrest members of his administration who refuse to respond to subpoenas, the media would suddenly find its outrage — at the Democrats. He’s got to go.
His reaction to COVID 19 alone ahould have been proof enough of all that, Anastasia. To me, Trump’s spouting happy talk blather with this, the kind of thing you tell yourself right before the hammer falls. He’s losing and he knows it, hence that dumb-as-hell statement and his cult getting violent.
In Irish we have a word for the offspring of Irish parents born in the USofA – it’s ‘poncanach’ which got sort of shortened (along with the difficulties anglophones have with a guttural) to ‘punk’
I do believe Guilfoyle fits the description to a ‘t’
My parents were both poncanach. HA!
‘Beyond parody.’
Amen.
Washington D.C. is a freaking cartoon right now. We are the laughing stock of the world. I just want to see dignity and sanity restored to the office of president. After that’s done, we can worry about everything else.