Well, at least this will provide something else for Donald Trump to issue one of his apoplectic press releases over, instead of just raving about the bogus audits of the election he lost to Joe Biden. The Family Leadership Summit met in Des Moines this week and many of the 1,200 evangelical Christians in attendance expressed feelings that it would not be in the GOP’s best interest for Trump to run again and they wanted the party to move on. This should be good for at least a couple of coffee pots thrown at the Bedminster walls. Boston Globe:
“I agree with pretty much everything Trump did on policy as president, but I don’t think it would be good for him or good for the country if he ran again,” said Ken Hayes, a retired nonprofit worker from rural Fort Dodge, who said he prayed for Trump every day the man was in office. […]
But in interviews with 15 people at the conference, all of whom voted for Trump, none said they hoped the former president would run again.
“I am interested in who comes next,” said 58-year-old Cheryl Prall.
Meanwhile, Mike Pence is still doing this bizarre high wire act he’s cobbled together, pretending that Trump didn’t send an angry mob to lynch him and all is fine. He’s ready to pick up the baton and be the next incarnation of Trumpism. Mike, Mike, Mike.
Pence talked repeatedly about “our administration” with Trump and said being his vice president was “the greatest honor of my life.” Yet he also bashed the Biden administration, setting up a possible 2024 battle cry.
“After 177 days of open borders, higher taxes, runaway spending, defunding the police, abortion on demand, censoring free speech, canceling our most cherished liberties, I’ve had enough,” said Pence to applause.
Pompeo brought up how Trump called him in January after a major news outlet said he was Trump’s most loyal Cabinet member. But he mainly focused on his own story and time as secretary of state. Noem didn’t mention Trump at all, and instead focused on her time as governor and her refusal to lock down her state during the pandemic.
I love Krisi Noem’s logic. “Vote for me for higher office because I resisted common sense and stuck it to the libs, even when people were dying on my watch. That’s what you want in Washington, right?”
Whether Pompeo, Noem, or Pence can offer the party anything going forward, at least some people are looking to go forward and that’s a sea change.
“A lot of the people I’m talking to sort of realize that 2020 happened and we need to focus on 2024 if we’re going to get anything done, because worrying about the past isn’t going to help,” said Ronald Forsell, the Republican Party chair in Dallas County, a fast-growing suburban county. […]
But for Mary Bloom, a 55-year-old homeschooling parent who attended Friday’s event and believes some of Trump’s claims about the 2020 election, “It is what it is and we all need to move on to the next election.”
It looks like this is the “get over it” moment for the GOP. Whether it will be for Trump is a whole different question. I wouldn’t count on it. If he stays true to form, he will only go more ballistics as the Arizona audit continues to unravel. After all, his only platform for 2024 is grievance and the chief grievance is that he was robbed of what was rightfully his, a second term in office. If Trump abandons the Big Lie he’s got nothing else, and the man is not exactly known for adaptability or imagination.
But the good news is that at least some of the GOP is thinking straight and realizing that living in the past and denying reality only erodes and present and makes the future untenable.
Sounds like reality is finally sinking in with this crowd. At least as far as Trump goes. I seriously question if they understand what kind of smoking ruins their one-time idol left them with.
I dunno, “moving on” from Formerly would’ve made sense, oh, about FIVE YEARS AGO. It’s kinda hard to see Trump voters as possessing the sense to avoid being set on fire, let alone the political intelligence to set about re-animating the corrupt, decaying dinosaur corpse of the Republican Party without the end result being anything but, well, the corpse of a corrupt, decaying dinosaur.
But hey, this is America, where with bootstrap-perseverance, sweaty imagination, and a shitload of oligarch-cash, anybody can be president, so who am I to judge?
There is so much wrong with the “art” at the top of this post, starting with Jesus looking anglo-saxon instead of what a Jew of that period would look like. Resting his hand’s on the scourge’s shoulders as if in blessing or trust? The scumbag exemplifies everything, EVERYTHING Jesus preached against. Evangilicals are anxiously awaiting the Rapture and I guess they think he’ll bring it on. That’s the only thing that makes sense.
And we all know the only reasons Trump wants a second term is to rake in more cash at his hotels and golf courses, and to run out the statute of limitations on his crimes. He doesn’t give a shit about the country, the citizens or the Constitution.
This Jesus looks like Charlie Manson. That’s the comedy there. I was wondering if anybody would catch it.
If I’m wrong and there is a heaven and Hell ole Satan and Charlie surely had themselves a moment. If Charlie had been behaving Satan would have let him watch some of the riot when things were at their worst. If Charlie had been acting up, Satan would have let him (forced in fact – eyes taped open A Clockwork Orange style) see through to the end and the aftermath.
Trump did his best to unleash Helter-Skelter but ultimately it failed. Not that the GOP has given up on giving it another go…
Oh, I caught it, Ursula. Jim Jones would have been a better choice IMO.
I thought that was Charles Manson in the picture with the former guy.
Good for you, you win the door prize. You caught it. It’s Charlie Manson Jesus, the only Jesus that would hang out with Trump.
Truth is that once the electorate of the GOP does decide to move on from the big lie, Pense, Pompao and company will finally be seen for the colossal hypocrites the truly are!
Do you really think so? They, evangs/x-tian extremists/cons, have been walking and talking hypocrites for decades. It would not surprise me if they would not recognize hypocrisy if it leapt up and bit them on the a*s. Judging by their actions I believe they do not even know the word exists let alone what it means.
“Vote for me for higher office because I resisted common sense and stuck it to the libs, even when people were dying on my watch. That’s what you want in Washington, right?”
That actually IS what the evangs want. If fulfills their idea of prophecy. Sometimes you can’t fix stupid.
*** became god, which fits into their “religulous” mindset of following any narcissistic pied piper over the cliff. I don’t know which is more nihilistically comic: *** as gawd or jesus.