Trump Broke It. The GOP Bought It. And Now They Can’t Fix It. All Bets Are Off For The Midterms

Joy Reid just had a great segment on MSNBC, which started me thinking. Not always the best thing to do. But this time my thoughts took me to a very good place for November. I’ll explain.

For decades now there have been 3 basic forms of voting in this country. Early in person voting, election day voting, and absentee voting. Democrats and independent voters normally crush early in person voting. Older, more traditional GOP voters tend to crush election day voting. But older, often more infirm GOP voters tended to dominate absentee voting, which is why the GOP has for decades made absentee voting as simple and easy as possible.

But in 2020, Trump broke that like he overturned a shelf at The Pottery Barn. As Reid reported, and the J6 committee has graphically shown by timeline, after decades of success, absentee voting suddenly became anathema for Trump. And the reason was Trump’s piss pathetic response to the Covid crisis.

Normally the absentee vote was the GOP’s closer in tight races. Coming in later, and being counted last, those GOP absentee votes could provide a late margin of victory in close races. But the Covid crisis made absentee voting pretty much everybody’s go to form of voting, especially younger Democratic voters and African American voters. Trump’s Bottom of the 9th walkoff home run bailout had just disappeared.

As the J6 committee showed, all the way back in July Trump was already aware he was losing the election, and likely would lose. In fact Trump’s own campaign manager warned him against the Red Mirage, Trump leading late on election night, only to lose days later when the absentee votes were finally counted. Damn his big mouth. That single nugget of information was enough for Traitor tot to hatch yet another Trump scam.

Trump immediately hit the road, on far right media and the campaign trail, and started trashing absentee ballots. They were a scam, and a Democratic ruse to Rig the election! Only ballots cast on election day should count! As GOP strategist Stuart Stevens said today, Never in the history of sports has a team tried to change the rules when they were winning the game. Trump followed his game plan to a T. Late on election night, still ahead on the basis of same day voting, Trump declared victory, and told his drooling brood that he was Going to the Supreme Court to stop the ballot counting so that fraudulent absentee ballots couldn’t be counted.

It didn’t work. The Supreme Court flipped His Lowness double barrel birds, Biden was declared the winner, which led to the sanguinary tragedy of January 6th. But The Big Lie was born, And The Cheeto Prophet has continued to monolithically pound home the fallacy that absentee votes are ripe with fraud, and shouldn’t be counted.

Here’s why this is so significant, especially now. In most parties, when a candidate loses for President, he quietly disappears. Trump has no interest in giving up his cash cow grift on the GOP base, so he has continued to monopolize it with his Big Lie. And since the GOP would rather shove burning bamboo sticks under their fingernails than deny rump, he’s gotten what he wanted. Legislatures in GOP controlled states have passed ever more restrictive voter suppression laws, and  one of their prime targets has been to make obtaining and returning an absentee ballot almost impossibly difficult. But they’re closing the gate after the horses have run off.

Here’s the McGuffin. 2022 isn’t 2020. Covid is under control now, and as we can see, the earlier historical voting patterns are starting to return. Georgia set a 1st day in person early voting record for the midterms on Monday, some 134,000 voters, mostly African American, and only 6,000 shy of the 2020 record. 1st day early in person voting is reported uber heavy in North Carolina today as well. Democratic, African American, young, and independent voters are returning to form, and early voting in person. And one would expect that GOP voters will also refer to form, and vote like bastard maniacs on election day.

And so, Riddle me this, Riddler. Exactly whom did the GOP legislators screw over with their new, restrictive absentee voting laws? Apparently they boned their own older, often more infirm GOP voters! And for many of those older voters, like me, the hoops they have to jump through just to cast a goddamn ballot Just isn’t going to worth it.

Ah, the wonders of short term, shortsighted linear thinking. Trump broke it. The GOP bought it. Now they can’t fix it with all the crazy glue in the world. But you know what the punchline is? As long as Trump is running the GOP by remote control, they will never be able to fix it. Trump will never give up The Big Lie, and until he does, the GOP controlled legislatures can’t fix their fuck ups and make absentee voting more accessible for their older, less mobile base. What did Guns-n-Roses sing? Welcome to the jungle, we got fun and games!