It Wasn’t always this way. If you cast your mind back to July of 2015, Trump was not the Savior of the GOP. In fact, he was far from it. He was a baggy pants ass clown, and everybody in the GOP knew it.
- The 2016 primaries was a prime example. Scott Walker called Trump a RINO and a Democratic Manchurian Candidate
- Marco Rubio called him a con man, and indicated that Trump’s little hands were the sign of a tiny Johnson
- Lindsey Graham called Trump a kook, and a con man, and accurately predicted that Trump would be the destruction of the GOP
- Chris Christie heaped scorn on Trump, and in one debate almost stormed across the stage to get physical before the two were separated
- Ted Cruz called Trump a serial liar, and a two bit New York con man
But Trump had something nobody else in the field had. He had a groundswell of previously uninterested lower income, lower education voter who saw in Traitor Tot the kind of arrogant, loud, know-it-all, lying, racist piece of sh*t they all were. He was the wind beneath their wings, and they were the wind beneath his. And so His Lowness had the secret weapon, a large enough voting bloc to snare enough primary votes to get the nomination before the field culled out.
And so, seeing the handwriting on the wall, every last man-jackin’ one of them sold their souls, their ethics, and their morals for a ride on the Trump train. And Trump paid the humiliation back in spades. And now they’re stuck.
Because in doing so, they actually turned off some of their more mainstream GOP voters for selling out to the Mango Messiah. But the calculation was that those moderates would keep holding their noses to vote for them, since they wouldn’t vote Democratic, and the Trumptards were a comfortable support cushion. See Ted Cruz in 2018 for verification.
It turned out to be a bad bet. Trump is toxic. Her was toxic in 2018, toxic in 2020, and personally holds responsibility for the fizzling of the Red Wave of 2022. And now, in 2024 Trump is raping the RNC and every donor in sight for his legal defense, and opening arguments in his Manhattan criminal trial will be on Monday. and 30% of GOP voters say that a Trump conviction would be a disqualifying factor.
Supporting Trump has already turned into a murder suicide pact for these allegedly mainstream GOP incumbents. Even GOP insiders already concede, six months before election day that the House is lost, and by a wide margin. That’s why 20 of the moderates have already announced their retirements. They can always run again in four or eight years, after the Trump stench is gone. And with abortion measures on the ballot in Ohio, Nevada, Arizona and Florida, and MAGA retreads running in AZ, MT and OH, I’m not at all sure the Democrats don’t beat the odds and hold the Senate. Which leaves these craven, turncoat cowards in the GOP Senate hanging from the yardarm. I wrote a while ago that the difference between the GOP and the Democrats was in the changing of the guard. In 2013 the GOP’s autopsy report on the 201q2 election called for revamping the party. Separate from the racists and Evangelical wingnuts, soften the party platform, Instead, the GOP decided to go with one more fat, racist, old white guy, and used that victory to forestall the inevitable.
When Hillary lost in 2016, Obama did his job. He stepped back from leadership, and said, Fix the problem, guys. And the solution was to clean house, start weeding out the oldest members, and incorporate the younger, more progressive wing of the party that Bernie Sanders had energized. The transition was almost flawless, and now the new guard, under House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries, is ready to take the mantle next year.
And that’s the McGuffin. The Democrats seized the opportunity to make themselves even more relevant with younger voters, and the GOP kept trying to energize an ever aging base. And if El Pendejo Presidente loses in November, especially in a legislative blowout, then the GOP moment of reckoning is here. It stops being a walk in the wilderness and becomes a camping trip in the Antarctic.
Trump will be toast. If he loses he’ll be modeling an orange jumpsuit, and his slobbering horde will crawl back under their rocks. Without Hair Twitler, they could give a sh*t less about MTG, Fratty Matty, Paul Gosar, or anybody else. But the moderate wing of the GOP has shrunk during Trump’s reign. If, like GOP stalwarts like George Conway, Michael Steele, Susan Del Percio, Mike Schmidt, Rick Wilson and Liz Cheney swoop in to reclaim their party, the bloodletting is going to be spectacular.
And turncoat traitors like Lee, Cruz, Rubio, Johnson and Cornyn are on an island. They whored themselves for the Trump votes for eight long years while masquerading as moderates, and true moderates have already seen their perfidy, and aren’t likely to forget it. They literally have no choice vote to go down with the ship, simply because there’s no life raft for them. They’re in the middle of the bridge, but they’ve already set fire to both ends.
In the 2013 autopsy report, the writers estimated that it would take two presidential cycles for the GOP to complete their renovation and be competitive in a national election again. The Democrats embraced the change, and are now a dominant force. If Biden wins in November, especially if the Democrats hold both chambers, I honestly believe that the GOP’s shortsightedness has cost them at least another cycle. After all, if they had followed the autopsy report, the GOP would be a stronger party going into November, not one on life support.
I thank you for the privilege of your time.
Murf, your eloquent description of his base was dead on the money. The startling fact is that America has allowed these morons to breed, flourish, and bring us all to the doorstep of fascism and climate disaster, all the while pissing on every ideal this country ever aspired to. If Biden and the Democrats sweep the power structure, then they need to make radical changes for the common good in every facet of everyday life. If they have the will to do that, then the greedy, lying, gun loving party will go the way of the dinosaurs. Germany learned its lesson to a large degree, so why not us?