It takes a big man to stand up to his enemies, and a bigger one to stand up to his friends Albus Dumbledore
Well, that’s like, a total bummer, man. Here I was, all ready to settle in for some cheap post holiday entertainment in 2020, circa 2016, GOP eyeball gouging and groin kneeing between Donald Trump, Joe Walsh, Mark Sanford, and William Weld. But it appears now that this will be just one more in a long line of unfulfilled fantasies in my life. This injustice will not stand, man. The Dude will not abide!
According to new reporting in Politico, in meetings later this week, four states, South Carolina, Kansas, Nevada, and Arizona will finalize plans to entirely scrap any plans for presidential GOP primaries in those states, handing the state delegates to Trump by default, and making any serious primary challenge to his renomination even more remote. Trump advisers are quick to point out that the party of incumbent presidents regularly forego the primary process for renomination, but what they kind of sweep under the rug is that it normally occurs when the incumbent president isn’t facing any declared opposition.
If you look closely, you may notice a kind of a common thread there. In 2018, South Carolina elected a Democrat to congress when a Trumpista defeated incumbent Mark Sanford in the primary. Arizona, which Trump narrowly won, elected a Democrat to fill Jeff Flake’s vacant seat. Nevada gave the Denver boot to GOP incumbent Dean Heller in 2018 and Kansas elected a Democratic Governor as well as a Native American, lesbian, MMA fighter to congress, flipping a seat long held by the GOP. All of these are states in which Trump may have been expected to show possible weakness in a primary battle.
Now, to be sure, it is the individual states, and not the RNC that controls state primaries, so no outside interference by the White House can necessarily be inferred. You might remember that I recently wrote an article in which I reminded everybody that South Carolina had actually threatened to take this action just about 9 months ago, and now it appears that others are following suit.
Let’s be clear here, I have trouble in conceiving that any of Trump’s challengers could pull off taking a single state in a primary, with the possible exception of Weld in New Hampshire or Massachusetts. But one can only imagine that these individual states internal polling must have shown enough weakness for Trump that the states were loath to risk embarrassing him with a challenger logging an unacceptable percentage of a primary vote.
This has got to be the single most pathetic show of emotional insecurity I have ever witnessed. Sweet Jesus, Gerald Ford, who wasn’t even duly elected as President, but replaced President Sneaky when he took it on the lam, damn near ended up in a floor fight at the RNC convention in 1976 against Reagan, but he went through the process. It shows the stunning weakness of character that Donald Trump possesses, that he doesn’t even have to tell these states anything, they just instinctively know that he will be upset by any less than shining results from their state primaries, and take the necessary steps to appease his childish ego.
This is a PR nightmare for the GOP and RNC, and should be an abject humiliation for Trump. Whether he ordered it or not, the simple fact that Trump’s insecurity is rampant enough that state parties automatically knew to take steps to protect him should make him hang his head in shame. And for the GOP writ large, this is a prime example that the actual Republican party no longer exists as an independent organization, it is nothing more than three initials on letterhead.
This cannot end well for Trump or the GOP. “Soft” GOP voters, who may have been on the fence for Trump, will not take well to being dragooned into voting for Trump by having their choice taken away. And Democrats should ballyhoo this to the stars, reminding everybody within earshot that Donald Trump is not necessarily the popular choice of Republicans to be on the presidential ballot in 2020, he is there by imperial fiat. His imperial fiat.
It will be interesting as the week wears on to see if these states actually go through with their plans, and if they do, if and how many other states copycat them in their quest to assuage Glorious Bleater. But at least Mark Sanford, William Weld, and Joe Walsh can just take their ball and go on back home. Baby Donald isn’t gong to come out and play.
I doubt that tRump has the required level of self-awareness required to feel shame about anything. If the GOP/RNC wanna go into the general with Orange Crush at the top of the ticket, vaya con Dios.
Agreed, Numbus Nuttus has no capacity for shame, or any ther human emotion…But I heard recently that Trump hemorrhoids on the RNC are actually pushing states to bail on primaries…Basically there IS no Republican party anymore…
To their doom and destruction. Sounds great.
Just so long as they take Yertl McTurtle with them!!!
I’m not expecting Trump to make it through to the convention. Whether it’s due to impeachment, the 25th Amendment, or humiliation in the states that do hold Presidential primaries or caucuses, he will be gone and the party insiders who self-appointed themselves may be denied credentials at the convention in favor of alternative slates that are created in some process that had a modicum of competitiveness.
To start with, I don’t see Trump sailing through Iowa – not with the farm communities suffering from his idiotic trade policies. He may come out on top, but it will be embarrassingly close. The following week, William Weld will hand Trump his ass in New Hampshire, and all bets will be off. Its all over when the people start laughing at the naked emperor.
Oh, how I want that to be true, ‘Stache (as in Ironstache, correct?). At this point, I am quite confident that I speak for the majority of Americans of all political persuasions when I say this needs to END. It’s been a cross between a prison sentence and being on the edge of throwing up for the last two and three quarters years.
Not Ironstache. I’ve been ‘Stache for a little over a decade, performing burlesque. Here is a routine from before the 2016 election (NSFW): https://vimeo.com/290703746
Ahh, my mistake…sorry about that!
If I see so much as ONE Republican with a pair that will stand up to His Lowness, and then run for reelection, I might agree with you, but when the party itself starts cancelling primaries to protect Glorkous Bleater, then it’s already in the pocket of the dictator…
Don’t expect any politician – especially Republican office holders – to act on principle. But as Trump continues to deteriorate, both mentally and politically, the rats will race to jump ship. For most it is already too little, too late to salvage their careers. So many are huddled together in a suicide pact to try and hold back the damn that is bursting. For Trump, impeachment hearings are beginning and will shape pubic opinion. The economy will continue to deteriorate under his erratic mismanagement. Many of the cases wending their way through court will go against him. And there is no potential for an upside. There is no new voting bloc that he is trying to bring into his tent. There are no programs he is developing beyond an unpopular border wall (which Mexico did not pay for). His only hope is for Russian interference and outright vote manipulation to carry him through. But it will be much harder for Russia (or anyone else) to manipulate a primary because it is so hard to predict the turnout in advance. And caucuses can not be rigged from the outside. For now, Bill Weld and maybe Joe Walsh will be enough to start bursting the Trump inevitability bubble. At some point, a more established figure will realize the opportunity in front of him (or her in the case of Nikki Haley) and will jump in. What’s left of the Republican old guard (including big money) will rush in and Trump does not have any political skills or deftness to deal with the challenge. Or any allies other than the white nationalists who are not enough to win elections. There may be some individuals who are subject to blackmail (young Fallwell comes to mind) and will continue to publicly support Trump. But everybody else in the political world will be distancing themselves as much as possible.
He’s certainly getting worse. He claims he cancelled a meeting with the Taliban that was supposed to start tomorrow at Camp David – but no one else had heard of any meeting with them, and he already had a campaign rally scheduled for Fayetteville, NC, on Monday.
To be honest I do not remember the 2012 primary for Obama. There were no big local elections on the ballot, no state wide elections. I know I voted. So I guess the vote happened. but I guess times have changed.
There wasn’t one…But that was for the simple reason that there were NO Democrats who filed the papers to oppose him in a primary…Slightly different from having 3 candidates ready to roar out of the gate, and depriving them of the chance…