As I wrote previously, the GOP civil war is already underway. Traditional establishment Republicans like Mitt Romney, Mitch McConnell, Pat Toomey, Evan McMullin and Rob Portman want their goddamn party back. But Trump isn’t like the mythical creature Medusa, you can’t beat him by lopping off his head. It’s too well protected. Trump is more like a Hydra, he has a faithful Trombie army of heads ready to protect him. The way to beat Trump is to get down in the mud and lop off the heads of his protection.
GOP Never Trumper Miles Taylor is already doing exactly that. His organization is solely devoted to educating and motivating traditional GOP voters, who would likely sit out the primaries, to go to the polls en masse to vote against Trump supported candidates, incumbents as well as challengers. Want to neuter Trump? Take away his power base. What is Trump without a loyal base raising a ruckus in congress?
Former CIA officer Evan McMullin is taking a slightly different, but just as plausible route. He is running as an independent in Utah against Trump flunky Mike Lee, mainly to avoid a messy primary fight that he might lose. His hope is that traditional Republicans will come home to him in the general election, and that Democrats will cross over to vote for McMullin in order to get rid of Lee. Before you scoff, remember this. In 2016 McMullin ran against Trump as an independent in Utah, not exactly a Trump friendly state, and garnered a surprising 21.54% of the vote. If McMullin had switched his allegiance at the last moment to Clinton, and his voters followed suit, Clinton would have beaten Trump by almost 3 points in Utah.
But don’t bother looking for national ads slamming Trump acolytes and urging people to vote anti Trump. That isn’t what this is about, and won’t work. This is the kind of shit that The Lincoln Project was built for, and lives for. They are well funded, and their advertising is devastating, exactly as it was for Democratic candidates and incumbents these GOP sharks unleashed on them in the past.
Here are the two different kinds of ads to look for, and again, don’t look on national media, look instead on your local network and local broadcasting affiliates. The first will be The Lincoln Project ads, targeting specific local US House incumbents or Trump backed challengers. They will be devastating.
The second tranche to look for will once again be local based ads by the Miles Taylor group. These will largely be more inspirational, reminding traditional Republicans of what the party actually stands for, and exhorting them to show up at the polls for the primaries and vote against Trump supported candidates. You can rely on seeing video of various stupid Trump candidates saying various stupid Trump things.
This GOP civil war won’t end until at least after election day in November, but we should have a basic idea of the lay of the land late May or June. As I have previously pointed out, respected HOP strategists Rina Shah and Shermichael Singleton both forecast an electoral debacle in 2022 for Trump anointed candidates, largely due to the GOP House’s slavish support for Vladimir Putin.
So, if you’re watching local results of primary night coverage, and you see that Trump backed candidates are dropping like flies? Then sanity is being restored to the GOP, and more moderate, intelligent candidates will be running in November. And if not? Then turn your eyes to November, and wait to see if white suburban soccer moms rise up once again to finally purge Trump from the party for good. They did it in 2018 in the Democratic tsunami, and they did it again in 2020 by stiffing Trump at the top of the ticket. They can do it one more time. Here endeth the lesson.
I’m loving this rethug civil war. I do hope the trumpistas win the primaries in races where the democrats have a chance of succeeding in the general. It makes it easier for the rational rethugs to vote Blue or stay home. But in super red areas like Utah, I’m all for democrats supporting Evan McMullin in the general. No democratic candidate is ever going to win there. It’s still so early and things can change, but if the DCCC and the DSCC allow our candidates to run their races, addressing their constituents’ concerns rather than decree from on high what their issues should be, we could be seeing a repeat of the 2018 Blue Wave that none of the pundits believed was happening
This makes sense–the primaries really are the ground wars this time around. It will be interesting to see what comes of it but I am hoping folks are getting tired of the rampant stupidity.
Yes they are, and Miles Taylor twigged to that right o0ff of the bst…Keep them out of congress by keep9ing them off of the ballot…
I think one of the most important things for Dems to be doing is getting out there and be visible! They must set the Dems on fire to defeat the Republicans at all cost. For far too long the Dems have been silent on all issues meanwhile the Republicans are visible on all sorts of platforms. I think one of the reasons we lost so many seats in 2020 was due the mute and invisible part of the Dems. In other words they were then and are now simply being lazy