That title certainly isn’t just me talking, you know me better than that. That quote was provided to CBS News today on one of the Sunday morning blatherfests. They were talking to a veteran GOP strategist and operative, and he was just being honest.
And his honest opinion was that based on every poll, algorithm, focus group, and internal polling he has seen, it is inconceivable that the GOP won’t at least retake the House, and has better than even odds of retaking the Senate. If. If Traitor Tot doesn’t go charging in like a bull in a china shop and start relitigating 2020, engaging in grievance politics, and screaming to Stop The Steal! If that happens, then all bets are off.
My best guess? All fucking bets are off. That strategist was giving the rosy prediction of a man pissing into a fan and hoping not to get wet. Trump hasn’t even officially declared that he is running in 2024, and yet he keeps jetting all over the country, holding ego fulfilling rallies where the red meat is the 2020 election, stop the steal, and white grievance. And now Traitor Tot is launching a subscription social media app in an attempt to bypass Facebook and Twitter, and flee e the sheeple while he’s at it. Bad news hombre, it’s only going to get worse from here, not better.
But the funny thing is that it’s not just Trump. The Trumpism contagion has spread like The Andromeda Strain. As we speak, in the more-or-less great-state of Wisconsin, There is a legislator who is running in the GOP primary who is going balls-to-the-wall to have the legislature decertify the Wisconsin election results. His plot, apparently hatched by a 6 year old on a 7 Snickers bar sugar high is that, If Wisconsin leads the way, other GOP states will follow suit, and Biden will be kicked out of the White House. Oh, and he also just introduced legislation that would dissolve the Wisconsin Board of Elections.
This is the real problem for the GOP. They are eating themselves by the tail inward. Forget about Trump, Trumpism has spread its tentacles through the party all the way down to the county and local levels. You have Bannon led Loud Toys trying to get seats on school boards, library boards, local city councils, and county committees. And now that Democratic activist organizations have caught wind, and are countering them, they are as toxic. The GOP can’t control them, and Trump sure as shit can’t control them, and has no interest in doing so.
The only way I can think of right now to describe what is going on in the GOP is a movie analogy. For anyone who enjoyed the Harry Potter franchise, you’ll appreciate this in a minute. In one movie, Irish actor Kenneth Branaugh played a Hogwarts professor named Gilderoy Lockhart. He was a perfect parody of Trump. A loud mouthed, brash opportunist, with substandard skills, that wrote books proposing himself as the greatest wizard of all time. In one scene, in his class, he releases a cage full of Cornish Pixies into the classroom. Of course they run wild, and Branaugh runs to his office yelling over his shoulder for the students to deal with the pixies. That is today’s GOP. They’ve let the pixies loose, and they can’t get them back into the cage again.
Look, personally I agree with that GOP strategist. History, polling, public satisfaction opinion, inflation, all of that points to the kind of general public dissatisfaction that should at least let the GOP retake the House. But it doesn’t factor in Trump or Trumpism. And both are so toxic that their simple presence are self destructive. Don’t touch that dial.
Don’t forget they also can rely on racism, stupidity, laziness & greed. Good thing Trump is on our side.
Scott, you’ve just defined that elusive policy plank missing from all GOP messaging: racism, stupidity, laziness and greed all add up to White Privilege in the Repugnican “mind.”
There is a Republican mind? You certainly can’t convince me. I am convinced that their level of stupidity must be built in, a feature if you will.
The GOP is home to just about every defective person in America, they’re all Traitor Tots. My favorite theory is they all stopped maturing somewhere in middle school, the best recent evidence for this is their use of Let’s Go Brandon, which is about as childish as you can get.
That GOP strategist was neglecting to consider something that will likely have an impact on whether they take the Senate regardless of what former guy does. The s.c. will come out with a ruling on the MS abortion case before the election–this summer in fact. GOP legislatures are positively drooling at the prospect of making abortion, and possibly birth control, illegal within the borders of their states. I’m not sure if that will have an adverse effect on the H.O.R. but I cannot see it not having an adverse effect on them gaining seats in the senate AND there are GOP senate seats definitely in play and this will not go down well with them.
The majority, a very solid majority, of Americans think abortion should be legal. I would venture to say damn near 98% of Americans think birth control should be legal and I might be underestimating that figure. You have the s.c. and states messing with that and you have the potential for an absolute bloodbath for the GOP. Never forget there are GOP candidates stating that not only should abortion be illegal in ALL cases (even to save the life of the mother) but that birth control should also be illegal. That is not going to sit will with 99% of women in this country.
We’ll see how this all shakes out but that guy on the Sunday talking heads show missed something that has the potential to mess up the GOP calculus at lot more than former guy. You start denying birth control to women and you’ll have January 6th type events in all the GOP states outlawing not only abortion (and that is a given at this point) but birth control itself. And mind you this does not even get into the effect all the voter suppression bills will have on GOTV efforts.
Methinks Mr. GOP strategist painted WAY too rosy a picture.
His continuing employment likely depends on such. The last thing today’s GOP wants is the truth.
Youngkin got lucky in locking Trump away from the Virginia governor’s race. But that was just ONE race in an off-year and this year presents NUMEROUS possibilities for Trump to act the fool. Ditto his brain-dead followers and pretenders to the Orange Throne (looking at you, DeathSantis), none of whom have yet to figure out that being this open makes you easier to nail.
You cannot seriously expect these people at this time to extract their heads from their anuses, wash their necks and go about in the world as regular folks. Gosh, then they might have to admit that they did something wrong.
One thing is very clear, with the Trump clown car running the show, it’s easy to see many paths towards yet another GOP meltdown.