There is a seismic rift going on in South Dakota right now. The governor is as sycophantic a Trumpite as we’ve ever seen or God help us, hope to see, but Senator Mike Rounds has made his choice which side of history he’s coming down on. If you missed it, Rounds had the audacity to mention that the 2020 election was “fair” on one of the Sunday shows, which caused Mango Mussolini to throw one of his conniption fits this morning. Here’s what that looked like.

The initial offense:

The return punch (taken from Liz Harrington’s Twitter feed.)

Is that histrionic enough for you? Man, I can see the orange beads of sweat dripping off the eyebrows right now, Whew! I can see the tiny fists shaking in the air!!

Rounds had the good judgement to wait a few hours before his response. We don’t know if the senator is any fan of Hemingway but this is a piece of writing which is the equivalent of waving a red flag in front of a bull. This is how to tell Trump to bring it on without telling him to bring it on.

The next round of the slugfest, from Dave Catanese’s Twitter feed. (McClatchy writer)

Now in any kind of a normal world, which this one stopped being in 2016, the statement, “the former president lost the 2020 election” would be a pedestrian statement of fact, not a call to war. But in 2022, with Trump being “the former president” Rounds could do no worse if he got in a Japanese Zero fighter plane, along with a squadron of his buddies similarly equipped and strafed Mar-a-Lago at dawn.

This is an act of defiance, no question, and look for Trumpty Dumpty to triple down on this one. I daresay that as we speak, he is sputtering and throwing calculators, wishing that one of them was a phone and if he could only access Twitter.

This is an interesting development. Rounds is obviously ready for the GOP to move on. Trump, of course, needs to keep excitement high about himself and his 2024 campaign because that’s the only way he can grift. Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump waited until the last possible second to announce his candidacy before either doing so or pulling out of the race altogether, because this is about getting a paycheck, this is not about actually running for the office out of a desire to do the job. Which makes it just like last time, and the time before, nothing has changed.

This will get ugly. I’m sure Mike Rounds is ready to hear himself demonized and excoriated on right-wing media, because that’s the next step. The good news about this is that by going out on the ice and being the first, well maybe the second if we count Romney, Rounds is paving the way for other Republicans to follow.

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7 COMMENTS

  1. “We are a laughing stock throughout the world” – so says the guy who had the whole UN laugh in his face when he tried to address the General Assembly.

  2. Senator Rounds,
    Take heart. Trump is trying to disparage Murkowski in Alaska but Alaskans have a great deal of respect for integrity. Governor Dunleavy just sealed his fate by going against Lisa. I am surrounded by the right wing up here and they all support Lisa for going against Trump.
    Please stand tall and thank you.

  3. I’d be happier if Rounds also had the courage to say that he won’t support the former guy should he try running again. Rounds still can’t get there.

    • His statements are probably clear enough already, as whip-lashed Trump is already passing huge amounts of gas, so much that sparks and open flames are a real danger at Mar-o-Golf …

      Trump and his family are so close to disaster in New York, he knows it is a tunnel with no end in sight, his slip off the rails occurred some time ago, NOW time is very short for him and his actions will just take him completely out of the picture … so SAD /s

      Like a car engine with a broken fan belt, he will just heat up until total melt down, a beautiful sight AND sound …

  4. Trump’s not running in 2024 just for the money, it’s his only hope of staving off all those pending investigations and subpoenas into his finances and his conduct as president.

  5. So, Jarvis..,tRump is running for president in 2024 in order to escape/delay prosecution for horrible things he did as…president..? Does he not realize that, whether he ever wins the presidency again, he’s just gonna dig his grave even deeper?! ? Somebody ought to explain it to him again…

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