Republicans Revolting - Is Trump Going Down?
Backbone & a Shred of Decency Are in Short Supply
The word is that former President Trump is going to announce his candidacy for the top job on Tuesday. Some Republican leaders asked him to hold off until after the Georgia senate runoff. That ain’t gonna happen.
Sorry, gang, the invites have gone out for the announcement party at Mar a Lago, and the grifting is already in motion. Send a contribution to a Trump email supporting Hershel Walker and 10% will actually end up in the Peach State race; the 90% goes to…well, you guessed it. And besides, Dear Leader needs to assert his dominance prior to the party’s leadership conference on Wednesday.
Today was the day he was supposed to give in person testimony to the January 6 House Committee. A lawsuit filed in Florida on Friday –the subpoena was issued from Washington DC– gives him an out on any contempt charges and likely means his lawyers will drag this out until it’s irrelevant.
There’s a sense of rebellion in the ranks as a growing chorus of former supporters say Trump’s toxicity cost the GOP any advantage they might have had in the midterm elections.
Here’s Outgoing Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan on the “State of the Union” punditry-fest:
“Well, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. And Donald Trump kept saying we’re going to be winning so much, we will get tired of winning. I’m tired of losing. I mean, that's all he's done.”
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie told the Associated Press:
“We lost in ’18. We lost in ’20. We lost in ’21 in Georgia. And now in ’22 we’re going to net-lose governorships, we’re not going to pick up the number of seats in the House that we thought and we may not win the Senate despite a president who has a 40% job approval,” Christie said. “There’s only one person to blame for that, and that’s Donald Trump.”
Senator (and NRSC Chair) Rick Scott was all set to announce a Trump approved run against minority leader Mitch McConnell. He’d even made a video announcing his intention to take on the Kentucky Senator and plans were made to release it once the midterm results were in.
Now that video and his candidacy have disappeared up in smoke. As National Republican Senate Committee chair, Scott was planning on capitalizing on the GOP’s momentum in retaking the upper house.
Even some of the deplorables are jumping ship.
Now, nobody’s sure what’s coming. The big GOP planning meeting for the upcoming session of Congress may be postponed in light of the fact that the party’s chances at a majority evaporated. And even a House majority is going to be close.
A long list of big name Republicans has dropped a letter calling for delay not only of the Senate leadership elections but the House as well. Nine GOP Senators have signed on, plus prominent Trumpworld figures like former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and former Office of Management and Budget head Russ Vought, along with Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts, CPAC Chair Matt Schlapp, and Supreme Court spouse Ginni Thomas
What’s for sure is that making these leadership decisions sooner than later favors the current leadership in booth chambers; any delay will give the would-be rebels a chance to coalesce behind Trump-approved candidates.
A couple of media bombshell dropped going into the weekend. It’s obvious to me they’re aimed at undermining the former President: a scandal involving IRS super audits of former FBI officials James Comey and Andrew McCabe along with a dribble of bitterness from former Vice President Pence over January 6.
The flagship papers of the Murdock empire have turned on the former President, with a Wall Street Journal editorial entitled “Trump Is the Republican Party’s Biggest Loser.” The New York Post ran a cover page depicting “Trumpty Dumpty,” and inside the day’s paper columnist John Podhoretz wrote that “Toxic Trump is the political equivalent of a can of Raid” because he is “perhaps the most profound vote repellent in modern American history.”
At Fox News, the problem isn’t Trump’s behavior, it’s that those darned liberals get all worked up over him.
From Liz Goodwin at the Washington Post:
The debate is playing out on Fox News, which was a stronghold of Trump support during his years in office. Their commentators talked up DeSantis’s big win in Florida and pointedly questioned the former president’s influence.
“I love Trump. I want him to run. I think he’s a great candidate. I loved him as president,” Fox News host Jesse Watters said Wednesday evening. But he added: “He brings out such insanity on the left. They will walk over hot coals to vote against Donald Trump.”
Jamelle Bouie at the New York Times says dumping Trump won’t be easy:
The idea that Republican elites could simply swap Trump for another candidate without incurring any serious damage rests on two assumptions: First, that Trump’s supporters are more committed to the Republican Party than they are to him, and second, that Trump himself will give up the fight if he isn’t able to win the party’s nomination.
I think these assumptions show a fundamental misunderstanding of the world Republican elites brought into being when they finally bent the knee to Trump in the summer and fall of 2016. Trump isn’t simply a popular (with Republicans) politician with an unusually enthusiastic group of supporters. No, he leads a cult of personality, in which he is an almost messianic figure, practically sent by God himself to purge the United States of liberals (and other assorted enemies) and restore the nation to greatness. He is practically worshiped by a large and politically influential group of Americans, who describe him as “anointed.”
Trump himself simply can’t “hear” criticism. He lives in a world of “us versus them” and believes his beliefs and thoughts are automatically adopted by a large part of society. It’s no joke when he says documents were declassified simply because he thought it.
His method of dealing with adversity is to go into full on attack mode, a tactic taught to him by Roy Cohn, Sen Joe McCarthy’s lawyer.
Either the Republican party will back down in the coming weeks or they won’t. In either case the former President has a suitcase full of grievances waiting to be addressed and flinging poo at would-be critics and successors has got to be emotionally satisfying for him.
The fact that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has emerged as the Trump alternative says the GOP will continue to derive its energy via messaging about how good is evil and evil is good. Everyday sadism is going to be condoned in the name of defending a natural / divinely ordained order and the right to rule and dominate “real America.”
Those hoping that the end of Trump will return the country to a less polarized time are going to be disappointed. There will be no kumbaya, and the work of moving the country ahead will need to find workarounds of the people who’ve committed to a different reality.
As historian Thomas Zimmer said (I’m excerpting a from a Twitter thread here):
There’s no appeasing or persuading these people, no bargain or truce to be had. Their entire worldview is built on the idea that they deserve to dominate in all spheres of public and private life, that they are entitled to constant affirmation and reverence.
These people walk through life always demanding the type of respect they refuse to show anyone who doesn’t reflect their own image back at them and shares their reactionary sensibilities. It’s pathetic. And it’s fueling the counter-mobilization against democracy.
At the heart of the reactionary project these resentful dudes support is the refusal to compromise with the vision of egalitarian multiracial pluralism, with anyone who deviates from their idea of the natural/divinely ordained white patriarchal order. They must be stopped.
As tempting as it might be to pick fights with our crazy uncles in this situation, we can not lose sight of the existential crises facing the planet.
The destruction of Earth’s human-friendly environment continues unabated, as virtually nobody dares challenge expansionism as the ultimate virtue in commerce. It’s high time to acknowledge that late stage capitalism IS a problem, that billionaires need to play by the same rules as the rest of us, and saying so doesn’t make you an acolyte of Lenin or Mao.
A theocracy-based attack on schools, libraries, and even corporations needs to be repelled by bringing to light the reality that these people don’t represent much of anybody other than themselves. Ask Disney how sales at their Orlando theme parks are doing in light of Gov. DeSantis attacks. (Hint: Records set)
An ongoing series of events aimed at undermining democracy, freedom and economic equality aimed at “others” continues. The idea is to grind people down until they become cynical and don’t care.
Democracy is work, and over the past few years we’ve learned that authoritarians of various stripes are trying to remake the world to their advantage. The sore losers from 2022 are now muttering about sabotaging mail-in voting and raising the voting age to 21.
Simply horrible “solutions” are coming out of the mouths of right wing pundits about restraining women’s political power.
The upcoming runoff in Georgia is important, and so is the need to keep on our toes.
Food for thought…
Email me at WritetoDougPorter@Gmail.com