Look, all I know is that Ursula faw had better not be messing with my head for her own sick amusement. First, she puts up a teaser article about how Sidney Powell and Mike Lindell want to set up a Super PAC. Then she lobs up a softball piece about the My Pillow moron wanting to run for Governor in Minnesota. Ursula knows nothing get my engine running like easy access to stupid, especially GOP stupid. This shit better be on the level.
Look, if we consider He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named as the birth of Stupid in the modern Republican party, then cabbage stuffed craniums like Lindell and Powell are the inevitable afterbirth. Freak attracts freak. But it may well end up having serious, real world consequences, especially as I start looking at 2022.
As I briefly pointes out last night, many pundits, including reputable Democratic strategists, are already sounding warning signs for 2022. Traditionally, a new party in power, especially unified power, tends to lose seats in their first midterm. No matter how well they do, independents always seem to want to toss the salad. Not only that, but Biden is dealing with not one, but three national crises, and if he can’t show sufficient progress, then it’s the down ballot Democrats who will pay the price.
That being said, at least at this early stage, I am actually rather bullish on 2022 for the Democrats. I think that Biden’s aggressive approach is going to work. The coming of warmer weather, and a dearth of travel should start the virus on what we can hope is a permanent downward slide, and the increase in vaccinations will add to the air of confidence.
And while Biden and the Democrats have their problems, they’re not the only ones. I see four major obstacles for the GOP going into 2022, and if they’re mishandled, the Democrats could easily end up picking up seats in both chambers. I’ll list them, and then go into a bit more detail;
- The quality of GOP candidates in 2022
- The toxic atmosphere of Traitor Tot over the GOP
- The insane carnage of The Lincoln Project
- The GOP brain drain
Let’s start with the quality of the GOP slate of candidates for 2022. Not only His Lowness’ loss, but the way that he handled the aftermath, including the Capitol takeover, has split the GOP in half. And I already know which side is losing. Several GOP House members publicly reported death threats from their own constituents, or Trumpaholic supporters, following votes. I can already foresee a mass exodus of non Trombie House incumbents in 2022, fleeing for their safety. And those that don’t will be challenged by Trumpkins in the primaries. The slates will be more radical.
The investigations, hearings, and trials into the failed coup attempt at the Capitol will stretch on for well over a year. As such, it will remain in peoples minds. And the GOP slates will be filled with Trumpkins, even in districts that won’t support them, because the sane incumbents took off for the hills. And white suburban women, who thought that they had closed the book on the Trumpster Fire in 2020, will rise again to stomp out his lingering influence.
I love this one. For the last few decades, if every Democratic candidate had a nocturnal emission, the dream was of stealing away a GOP strategist to do their television ads for them. GOP strategists are blessed with a kind of casual, stunningly effective viciousness that the Democratic Chess Club can’t even fathom, much less duplicate. And now The Lincoln Project is doing it for free! And it’s a double barrel shotgun blast, because not only are the ads being run against Republicans, none of those withering ads are being run against Democrats. And the cherry on top? The Lincoln Project has made it clear to large, socially conscious national corporations that they are watching, and that they will tie any donations to the RNC, or Trump aligned candidates directly into television ads, linking the companies to sedition. More than a dozen companies have already announced their suspension of any donations to the party. That’s going to hurt.
And then there’s the GOP Brain Drain. Think about it. George Conway, Jennifer Horn, Steve Schmidt, Rick Wilson, Susan Del Percio, Nicolle Wallace. Decades of campaign and strategy experience, either sitting on the sidelines, or actively working against the party. Who’s left? The GOP bench isn’t just thin, it’s transparent. And it isn’t just campaigns that are going to suffer either.
In the first paragraph, I mentioned the fact that Powell and Lindell want to set up a Super PAC. What a fucking joke! Election laws prohibit campaigns from coordinating with Super PAC’s in any way. So it takes years of experience, as well as a certain finesse to intuit how to market ads that help the candidate. By his own admission, it took the My Pillow Gut more than 10 years to figure out how to stuff a pillow. Sweet Jesus! My ancestors were using straw back in the middle ages! It ain’t rocket science, Mike!
So yes, the Democrats have to put their money where their mouths are if they want to stave of disaster in 2022. But it’s starting to look like there might just be enough shame in some more moderate GOP Senators for Biden to be able to ram through things that make them look good too, especially with McConnell weakened. Buckle up, the train is just leaving the station.
If you enjoyed this article, you might also like to check out President Evil, and the sequel, President Evil II, A Clodwork Orange . They comprise a pretty much daily report from the front of the 2016 GOP primaries, as well as the general election
Follow me on Twitter at @RealMurfster35
I think the stupid in the GOP started with Gingrich and has gotten worse – but Trmp really encouraged it.
(My favorite pillows are stuffed with cotton.)
No shortage of candidates on where the stupid began, P J. The famous cartoon of the devolution of GOP presidents sums it up for me.
Right now, the GOP is in a position it took a dozen years to reach a hundred years ago. For all my Jimmy Carter comparisons to Trumpy-mandias, you can see something of the same arc with the presidencies of Warren G Harding (second-most corrupt admin after Trumpy-mandias), Calvin Coolidge (the economic cluelessness of Old Man Bush with less restraints and economic safety nets) and Herbert Hoover (the end of a Republican era due to crisis mismanagement).
Also add in the flight of voters leaving the repug party. There are more stories coming from various states on how after the January 6 attack on the Capitol, horrified voters were changing their registration or cancelling altogether. Sane people were repulsed by what happened that day when tRump called extremists to go attack and undermine the legislative branch of government. It’s only the ignorant and nutjob contingent that found it exciting/amusing/gratifying or whatever. However, that said, it didn’t take long for the likes of Little Marco (a very small ‘man’, indeed), Cottonmouth, Grahamcracker, and the rest of the RWNJ’s to begin their BS and bloviating, their criticism and hypocrisy. They plan to continue obstructing and lying as a way of life. Some ‘things’ never change.
I look forward to their shock on the things that have.
I too am leery of the “conventional wisdom” that the party that took the White House is going to lose seats in the next election. Of course the media worships that narrative because it’s more of their adored “doom for Democrats” story. But I honestly think Trump has changed a lot of things that aren’t going to go away so easily and present a unified and not-crazy GOP in 2022. For instance, the Arizona GOP re-electing Kelli Ward is a giant gift to Mark Kelly who will be running again in 2022 — and winning. I can’t imagine who a Ward-led GOP would ut up against him (herself?). She already tossed Ducey under the bus.
It’s the same fairy tales the beaten Confederates told themselves about “the South rising again.” It should work out just as well here.