Little Things Mean A Lot

It only takes a handful of snowflakes to start an avalanche

There was some recent news that didn’t make much of a splash in the media, but I’m betting it had senior GOP leadership running in to change their Depends.

In a poll taken on inauguration day, 80% of Republican voters said that President Biden’s victory was illegitimate, that it had been stolen. But in an identical poll taken late last week, that number had dropped to 67%. Now, that doesn’t seem like all that big of a deal, but it is.

Four months ago, 8 out of every 100 GOP voters felt that Trump got jobbed in November. Today that number is 67 out of 100 feel the same way. That’s a drop of 13 voters out of every 100! And going into a midterm election that figures to be quite a bit more pastoral than the last couple of elections, that can be devastating.

There are several things that are coming together at once. At the time, I wrote that a lengthy banishment from social media would be fatal to Trump. For more than 5 years, Trump maintained his almost Rasputin like control over his unruly mob by one thing. An unrelenting stream of 24 hour bullshit. Trump’s presence and personality were their drug and security blanket. And people who have one security blanket taken away will simply find a replacement.

Which is one of the reasons that Kevin McCarthy finds himself in such deep shit. McCarthy desperately wants to stop talking about the election, and the Capitol riot, but those are the only two things that the Mar-A-Lago Loser wants to talk about. And since Trump’s microphone is off, it’s up to McCarthy and the GOP to be the conduits to get the word out to the faithful. With mixed success at best.

Then there’s the fact that nothing  succeeds like success. The entire GOP, from Trump down to Matt Gaetz, have given up on even trying to attack Joe Biden. He’s just too damn friendly and likeable.  Worse yet, he’s getting shit done that even state and local GOP incumbents like, as well as GOP voters, while they vote against it, and try to glom the credit for the benefits. And worst of all? Polling shows that even GOP voters are willing to admit that they kind of like having a President who doesn’t make them reach for the tequila bottle every time he opens his mouth.

I think that all of this is going to come into play in the 2022 midterms. Yeah, I know, midterms are normally a course correction against the party in power. But this time, I think there are several factors that may go against that grain.

The 2018 midterms was a referendum on Trump, and it was a debacle for the GOP. The turnout was as high as the 2016 Presidential election, and broke heavily for the Democrats. The 2020 election was a binary choice on whether or not Trump got another 4 years. We had a record turnout, which broke even more heavily Democratic, turning the entire government over to the Democrats.

Now granted, things are always subject to change, but barring a tectonic shift or national emergency, I just don’t see the 2022 midterms as turning out record voting levels. For starters, after 5 years of almost hysterical political pandemonium, we are once again blessed with a steady, functional government that is moving forward the peoples business. Traditional politics holds that midterms are normally lower turnout affairs, with many voters taking a pass until there’s a President on the top of the ticket. With the restoration of a much needed normalcy, I expect that to return next year.

Second, the GOP is so far lacking a cause celebrate to turn out their base. They already have a packed Supreme Court, and with Biden in the White House, they can’t even promise more judges if they retake the Senate. They’re going to be tarred with the January 6th insurrection brush. Their current operating strategy is to return to culture wars once more. The problem with that is that it has always been Trump who was always been the driving force for culture wars and white grievance, and he’s nowhere to be found. How do they motivate the base?

But here’s the real reason that I think 2022 will be different, and where those 13 voters per 100 come into play. Going into November last year, I wrote that polling showed that quite a few non Trombie GOP supporters were suffering from Trump fatigue. At this point, they’re going through Trump decompression. Trump is gone, and good riddance to him. They still want to be involved, but they’re sick and tired of the bullshit. They can be motivated to stay involved, but in order to do that, the GOP is going to have to give them issues that are important to them to motivate them. And this GOP is simply incapable of doing that.

Here’s the bottom line. Watch that poll number about Biden being illegitimate. The Democrats have accomplishments they can run on, with the promise of more with an expanded majority. The GOP is now literally a rump party of Trump. In order to survive, they have to motivate every single Trump base voter from 2020. If 13% of Trump voters no longer believe that Trump’s loss was illegitimate, then they are much less likely to be swayed by GOP Trump bullshit in 2022. If that number continues to drop, that assays out to more likely voters they have lost. And the driving problem for the GOP is, in what figures to be a much lower turnout election, where can they turn to replace them? If Democrats are motivated, voter suppression just doesn’t seem likely to turn the trick. Don’t touch that dial.

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