Where Donald Trump is going is debatable. He’s absolutely going back on the road to drum up some cash, that much is certain. And the GOP is so caught in his choke hold, there’s little if any chance of them moving on, as was expected. I think that was the subtext of the statement that Joe Biden made the other day, “I think Republicans are further away from trying to figure out who they are and what they stand for than I thought they would be at this point.” It was expected by many, and reasonably so, that the GOP would put Trump in the rear view mirror by now. And maybe they have. You’ve all seen those signs on rear view mirrors, “Caution: Objects are actually closer than they appear.” That’s about as far away from Trump as the GOP is prepared to go.
But bear this in mind: a lot of top GOP donors have bailed and Trump doesn’t have Twitter or Facebook anymore. So his magical mystery tour may not work out the way he plans. Only one thing is certain: we will see how relevant Trump really is when the tour starts. Because it’s everything you expect, starting with revenge. Washington Post:
So far, much of Trump’s focus has been on “revenge endorsements,” one of these advisers said — with Trump specifically targeting Cheney and nine other House Republicans who voted to impeach him, as well as other elected officials he believes were insufficiently supportive of his baseless claim that the election was stolen. He has also endorsed a number of Republicans unrelated to the impeachment vote and subsequent Senate trial. […]
Trump is especially interested in endorsing candidates who will take on Republicans that voted to impeach or convict him, and his team has begun making calls in Wyoming to try to clear the Republican field so one candidate can challenge Cheney. He has already endorsed former White House aide Max Miller to oppose Rep. Anthony Gonzalez (R-Ohio) and has also begun interviewing potential challengers to Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) — both of whom voted to impeach him. He is also interviewing potential challengers to Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who voted to convict Trump in an impeachment trial, an adviser said.
He has taken a particular interest in Georgia and Arizona politics, two states that flipped for Biden in November. He is calling officials in Georgia to talk about who can beat Gov. Brian Kemp (R) and secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, the two officials in the state he most faults for his 2020 loss there for their refusal to overturn the state’s election results. He has also been paying close attention to the open governor’s seat in Arizona.
And count on the Big Lie to be front and center stage.
Recently, he has become consumed by a hand recount of 2.1 million ballots in Maricopa County, Ariz., part of a long-shot effort by Republicans in the state’s largest county to overturn the election results there. He talks about the recount constantly, asking for updates several times a day, and has become especially fixated on the UV lights being used to inspect the ballots.
UV lights, watermarks and bamboo. This is who we are now. It’s who Trump is in all events and it still staggers the mind how many people show up for this and co-sign on his insanity.
He has also privately revived his claims that he plans to run for president again in 2024, decrying what he views as the “low ratings” of the Biden administration, said one person who has spoken with Trump recently. He rails that President Biden is “a disaster” and argues that “Joe isn’t in charge, everybody knows it’s Kamala” — a preview of his likely message portraying Biden as an unwitting stooge of Vice President Harris, this person said. […]
He is pushing the party to the right, attacking transgender female athletes and criticizing the “spiraling tsunami at the border” under Biden; he is influencing Republican Party personnel, political, and fundraising decisions; and he is prompting a roiling, existential intraparty debate about what it means to be a Republican in the post-Trump-presidency era.
If this is their standard bearer, their standard isn’t worth bearing. But maybe this is it. The GOP just ran out of ideas and then a grifter from TV showed up and they gave him the reins. It sounds incredible, but that’s it in a nutshell.
In anyone else, that behaviour would be classed as ‘dementia’ (probablywith paranoia included)
Your comment about objects being closer than they appear made me flash to a moment in the movie Jurassic Park when the T-Rex was chasing the Jeep & the camera focused for an instant on those words on the driver’s side mirror! If I could make memes I think a picture of that with Trump’s ugly orange head on the dinosaur and the tiny hands (those dinosaurs had puny, weak arms and tiny hands) colored Trump orange chasing a red, white & blue elephant would be perfect.
I keep thinking that over the last four years we have seen the me too movement, racial justice movement, his callous disregard of the pandemic. If the majority of people are paying attention to his encouragement of hate and attempts to make the country a dictatorship, I don’t see how any of these people getting elected.
Remember too that there are areas where the villains and their enablers are concentrated. I should know…I live in one such area. But what prospects have they in terms of expansion?
Please, please may history not repeat itself. Hitler did not become chancellor immediately. He worked, and schemed, and big-lied persistently. Yikes.
An history prof on msnb C tonight noted the similarity to 1860 and 1919. The war to keep slavery and the purging of the political elite in Germany. This fascism and racism is like concrete. It keeps curing and hardening for years.
Said professor was saying such because they knew their audience. It glosses over how that “racism and fascism” has long been the objective of the Reagan Coalition crowd for the past forty years. Here’s the dirty secret of current events: the folks who could have pulled this off–your Liz Cheneys, your Mitt Romneys, your Mitch McConnells–they’ve either lost their touch or been sidelined. All that’s left are the dregs, the grifters and the cultists. The latter will be blamed for the American conservative movement’s failure to basically rule the world as they thought they would after the USSR’s fall.
If I had a nickel for every time somebody decided to invoke the Hitler specter over the last twenty years, I’d be out of debt by now. You basically ARE saying that history is going to repeat itself with that statement, K T. And I’m sorry but that is TERRIBLY shortsighted. It fails to acknowledge the contrast between Germany’s history prior to the just oft-invoked Weimar Republic (short version: a near 1000 years of a politically divided “empire”, a unification effort that had only been wrapped by turn of the 20th century, which resulted in a monarchy that didn’t survive the First World War) and ours. No one is served by such misunderstandings.
KT,
Everyone has a right to their own view of things and I, along with you, see too many chilling parallels with Hitler. History is important to watch and analyze.
“Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow.”
― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism
No one says it will be replicated exactly, but if we don’t take some clues from it, beware.
You were wrong about one thing, Ursula. THIS is actually the “fat Elvis” phase of Mango Mussolini.
Reason for hope!
Trump was the GOP presidential nominee twice.
He lost the popular vote in 2016 by 2.8 million votes.
He lost the popular vote in 2020 by 6.8 million votes.
During Trump’s tenure, Republicans lost control of the House and Senate.
He is the only president to be impeached twice.
He is the only president whose favorability ratings never rose above 50%.
His average approval rating was 4 points lower than any of his predecessors.
On Thursday, Senator Lindsey Graham sided with Trump over Liz Cheney, saying, “The Republican Party can’t grow without Trump.”
Between Trump’s inauguration and departure from office, the percentage of voters identifying as Republican dropped from 31% to 26%.
We have every reason to be hopeful, but no reason to be complacent!