I’m lucky, all of my readers are intelligent adults, which never ceases to amaze me. And as such, I’m going to start with a scenario that I’m pretty sure that most, if not all of you, have experienced n the past. Because it’s relevant.
How many of you have ever gone over to someone else’s house for dinner? There are several other couples there, and as a result, there are also several children there. The adults and older children are at the dining room table, and the younger ones are at the kiddie table in the corner of the room.
Everyone is eating and chatting, and then a 5 year old at the kiddie table wants attention. So he lets rip with a loud, juicy raspberry fart sound. All of the adults at the table laugh, somewhat nervously, and say things like, “Aw, how cute!” His mother yells out Tommy! Don’t you dare do that again! A few minutes later, a 23 year old at the dinner table, wanting attention, replicates Tommie’s little trick, and gets boinked on the forehead by his mother with the mashed potato spoon.
That is Donald Trump. At age 75, Donald Trump has never been anything more or less than a socially retarded, self indulgent, insularly protected 5 year old child that never learned that when you’re an adult, there are consequences for your words. From the day that Trump clanked down that schlock rattletrap escalator at Trump Tower to announce his candidacy to a paid mob in the lobby, he spent the entire primaries, the 2016 general election, and four years as President sitting there making loud fart noises at the dining room table. And it worked.
The mainstream media was more than happy to play the part of the adults at the dining room table, laughing, commenting on how cute he was, and telling his mother to go easy on hum, he was just expressing himself. And because he was marginally more amusing than the conversation at the dining room table, the media gave him the license to steal all of the oxygen from the room.
But. now. Trump. is. gone. And the adults at the table aren’t amused anymore. Other than the crazy all-caps uncle from FUX News. They’re starting to complain to his mother about what a boorish child she’s raising. And yet, Trump is still the most popular kid at the kiddie table, and all of the other kiddies sold their souls to cash in on his popularity, and now they’re stuck with him.
This is the messaging problem going into 2022 for the GOP. They all slavishly sold their soul to look like Trump, act like Trump, and sound like Trump, but there’s just one problem. Donald Trump is a one-off, and that magic only works when it’s coming from him. And now, with Trump largely radio silent due to his getting the Denver boot from social media, they’re trying to make it work on their own. And it won’t. Because they’re not Trump.
Former Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin is a perfect example. Trying to ride Trump coattails, he constantly referred to himself as Trump before there was a Trump. But despite his best efforts to turn himself into a Mini-Me of Trump, including a last day rally by Traitor Tot in his state, Bevin lost. Not only that, but post election analysis showed that pro Trump turnout in the solid GOP strongholds of southeast and southwest coal country in Kentucky was down. Trumpers only show up to vote for Trump.
In 2020, leading up to the general election, while Trump was whipping his devoted base up to a whipped cream froth, there were disturbing signs. In poll after poll, disaffected Democrats, independents, and soft Republican voters, all of whom voted for Trump in 2016, were voting with their feet instead. They actually expected Trump to deliver change to Washington, and get the government moving again. They didn’t buy into his self pitying, racist, victimhood arguments, they wanted results. And they helped to slip the vaunted Democratic blue wall of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania back blue again, giving the election to Biden.
This is what is going to kill the GOP going into 2022. Trump has continued to establish his stranglehold over the party, even from exile in a quarantined Mar-A-Lago. But the party continues to be subservient to Trump, which means continuing to parrot his insane nonsense. And Trump no longer has a national bullhorn with which to back up their insane rantings. And history has repeatedly shown that Trombies will only show up to vote for Trump.
Look, Trump already scared away all of the soft Democratic, independent, and GOP support he had. And parroting Trump isn’t going to bring them back. And GOP white suburban women who flipped a ton of Democratic seats back to the GIOP in 2020 will surge back to the polls to resist Trombie acolytes running for House seats in 2022. It’s going to take a major spanking in 2022 for the GOP to realize that they’re drilling a dry hole. Trump’s magic only works for Trump. And he’s always known that. Stand up and take a bow, fools!
Follow me on Twitter at @RealMurfster35
That 5 year old at he kids table was NEVER cute (not sure what being bow-legged has to do with anything!…look it up). He who shall not be named was never “cute” or funny and neither were his antics. Both are nothing more than ill-mannered toddlers, wanting attention that they don’t deserve, and throwing tantrums when they don’t get what they want!
And they’re STILL throwing them…which, given how old a lot of them are, is embarrassing.
I remember family gatherings at my grandparents, where the kiddy table was a card table in the living room, and misbehaving would get you sent off without the rest of the dinner. (They’d raised seven kids. They knew what it took.)
I’d like to set Granny on the GQP.
The point of the story I think, is that Trump, and only Trump, got away with being Trump, for a while. Some voters liked it, maybe hoped he would shake things up in DC. He didn’t. He just grifted on and accomplished nothing. But other politicians can’t do this. They need to accomplish something, and the Rs are not doing so well at that. Not only is Trump done (I hope), but those who emulate him will mostly go nowhere.
Oh, he’s done. The rest of his life will consist of hustling sofa change to pay lawyers and creditors. The GQP are just as baked.
And all this is BEFORE indictments start landing, which I fully expect will be before year’s end.
silvio berlusconi kept getting elected in Italy. That is the closest thing to trump that comes to mind. Silvio was a pig, corrupt, probably a rapist, but because he was a media figure, bombastic he kept getting reelected.
Small problems with the analogy: Trump isn’t nearly as smart and this ain’t Italy.