Another Hole In The Dike?

This is starting to get interesting. I have previously noted that while nobody is actually willing to come right out in pubic and tell Trump to shove it up his ass, there is a small but growing cadre, mostly moderate Republicans, mostly up for reelection in 2022 who are gently starting to separate themselves from Trump on a key issue.

Their bone of contention is His Lowness’ stern insistence on relitigating the 2020 election in 2022. Mitt Romney has called out for the party to start looking and talking forward instead of backward in order to exploit the Democrats weaknesses. Mitch McConnell has done the same, and yesterday, while Roy Blount couldn’t actually say that Biden won the election, he still called for the party to start looking and talking forward going into 2022.

These goofs have figured it out. Trump didn’t lose in 2020 because his base didn’t show up, he lost because nobody else did. A combination of Trump fatigue and weak voters unhappy with Trump’s performance either sat out or switched sides. And if they didn’t turn out in 2020, they sure as hell won’t come back in 2022 if all the GOP is doing is bitching about how Trump got boned in 2020.

And now we have another GOP unhappy camper, but for a different reason, and The identity is a doozy. It’s none other than Inglorious MTG. And there’s nobody who wubs them some Trump like Taylor Greene. But even she was forced to speak out, although quietly, disagree with Glorious Bleater about advising the base to stay home in 2022.

It turns out that MTG did an informal poll of her constituents about 2022 and 2024, and she asked some rather odd and pointed questions. She asked if they felt that the 2020 election was fair and secure. She asked if they felt that t heir votes had been properly counted. She asked if they were confident that their votes would be properly tallied in 2022 and 2024. And she asked if they planned to vote in 2022 and 2024.

And the results were not music to her ears. When you combined together the definitely, highly unlikely, and somewhat unlikely to vote in 2022 or 2024, it totaled more than 20% of the respondents. And if that’s in a blood red district, what does it say about less secure districts elsewhere in the state.

At first, I was surprised that Greene even bothered with the informal poll. After all, she is in a safe red district. But the more I thought about it, the more sense it made, for a couple of reasons.

First of all, Marjorie Taylor Greene is a joke. In extremely bad taste, and a lot of her constituents think so after her antics. She only got in because the Trump base loved her in the primaries, and she became the candidate. But if moderate constituents are sick of her shit, and the fact that she can’t serve the district with no committee assignments, and are motivated to go to the polls in the primary, and if 20% of Trump’s base in her own district decide to sit the thing out, she could get turfed out in a primary.

The second option is a derivative of the first. From day one it was clear that MTG had no interest of actually performing the job of being a US House member, she was only in it to be the Howard Stern of the House. Especially once her committee assignments were stripped, Greene spent months jetting all over the country, setting up power connections, and raising far more money than she would need to run a House reelection campaign. She has indicated that she is thinking of running in the primaries to try to oust Democrat Rafael Warnock. But MTG isn’t just a district problem anymore, she has state wide recognition as a fuck up. If Trump’s base stays home, she’s sunk in a primary.

As Rachel Maddow would say, Stick a pin in this. MTG is a microcosm of her own, the only one I know of so far who has done this kind of a poll. But now that the word is out that this particular canary has fallen off of the perch, you can bet your ass that other vulnerable incumbents in both chambers will be taking similar polls of their own. And there will be a lot of them.

For instance. In 2020 the GOP severely clawed into the Democrats House advantage, and most of those were highly risky, white woman voter rich suburban districts. The women came back down ballot, but spanked Trump at the top. If those women become pissed off at the GOP’s direction in 2022, they could flee again, and if Trump’s base is a no show, these races are going to be slaughters.

And the Senate is no better. The GOP has highly competitive open seats in North Carolina, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, Rubio is shaky in Florida, and Johnson is a weak link in Wisconsin. Statewide Senate candidates don’t enjoy the gerrymandering benefits of House members, a drop in turnout in rural GOP strongholds can leave them high and dry. Don’t touch that dial.

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