Originally published at: MSNBC's Stephanie Ruhle describes in 2 words why the GOP tanked (it's real simple, folks) | Boing Boing
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This just seems like wishful thinking. It seems like they want to convince themselves that Trump wouldn’t win if he runs again in 2024.
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What alternate model would you suggest? The moniker of “political poison” is justly placed on the head of the tRump Co., evidence abounds.
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sure… trump is/was/remains a drag on any non-electoral-college jiggered national election, but in terms of short causes for the red wave becoming the pale pink undulation, one really must add: striking down Roe v Wade. Ethically and morally abhorrent of the GOP engineered supreme court of course, but also politically asinine.
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and cue the truth social post that rips ruhle as a no-talent hack with bad skin or some other personal feature not to his standards in 3…2…
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I agree that Trump is a loser, but he is more a symptom than a cause.
If Republicans wanted to win votes without gerrymandering, election disinformation, voter suppression, making a reality TV personality and failed businessman their presidential candidate, etc. then the answer is simple: change your positions to appeal to a majority of voters. The issue is that appealing to voters isn’t what influences the GQP’s policies, the financial contributions of the big donors are what sets their agenda.
The problem is that winning the votes of the big donors doesn’t win elections, you have to cobble together a big portion of the electorate to show up and vote GQP. Which is why Republicans have formed an unholy coalition of social conservatives, fiscal conservatives, religious nutjobs, conspiracy theorists, racists, misogynists, etc. If it turns out that 10% of Americans believe that the earth is flat and aren’t already GQP voters, we’d see the GQP actively courting them.
Remember back in 2016 when there was serious discussion within the Republican Party (back before they became the GQP) about choosing a different candidate even though Trump finished first in the primaries? The party searched its soul for 5 minutes about whether they could have such a person represent them, then pushed those feelings down and went full MAGA. They kept QAnon at arms length until they realized they could get votes, then full embraced it.
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Trump, Row, the youth vote, and decent humans were all instrumental in building the dam to stop the red tide.
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Looking at it from the other side of the Atlantic where things are temporarily less crazy than recently[1] - are we seeing MAGA move on from its originator in Trump, to a more polished and ‘professional’ form under the likes of DeSantis and co.? Trump might be finished, but the poison continues.
[1] this week, only a disgraced ex-Health Secretary dicking around in the Australian jungle for £400k being showered with maggots on primetime commercial television so he can ‘raise the profile of my dyslexia campaign to help every dyslexic child unleash their potential - even if it means taking an unusual route to get there’ [2]; and a government minister who once fronted a national anti-bullying campaign resigning because of multiple allegations of - ah, I see you are ahead of me…
[2] with a certain sense of inevitability, he has so far failed to mention it.
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I think of him as a catalyst or an accelerant.
He didn’t create the evil inside the GOP but he’s taken everything bad about the party and cranked it up to 11. He tilled the soil that allowed Qanon conspiracies to grow into full bloom. He provided the oxygen that let smoldering resentments turn into five-alarm blazes of racism and misogyny. He gave his fellow party members permission to ignore the rule of law entirely instead of merely twisting it to their own ends. He’s hardly just a pawn in all this.
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Saying this doesn’t show that lots of people, notably women and youth, are sick of him seems like the opposite of wishful thinking, which is helpless doomerism.
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I mean, if more Republicans reject him, then he won’t.
Exactly! People didn’t change things by shutting the hell up and not doing anything. They changed things by speaking truth to power and taking positive actions to make changes. The more the GOP loses with Trump and his model of power-grabbing, the more likely they are the push against him and hopefully the evils that he stands for.
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Given how even Republicans are sick of his antics and his legal woes, and how there are some really strong contenders like DeSantis, I think it is way more than wishful thinking that Trump won’t be President in 2024.
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I’d also argue that while there are others (like Desantis) who would like to have a similar path to power, and would like to take his place, aren’t in the same position as Trump was, with the same national name-recognition that Trump had because of his TV show. Trump was able to spin that as being a “successful business man” and a Washington outsider, both of which appeal to people on the right because of the years long anti-government rhetoric since the Reagan era. I do think at least some of the people who turned against Trump did so because of his failures, but Desantis is neither of those things in their eyes - he’s a career politician at this point. I don’t know that he can get the same headwinds, even with all his hateful rhetoric. It’s possible, sure, but not definite.
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+10 for accuracy.
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I agree with you, he’s an accelerant, or even the match that set fire to whole thing.
However, if he hadn’t come along, someone else would have filled that role. He just came along at the right time for he and the GQP to use each other.
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So what were the two words?
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Surely it’s more one word: Abortion. (Trump’s certainly not helping, though.) The GOP takes a lot of positions that are widely unpopular even with their own voters, but they usually get away with it by simultaneously pretending to hold opposing positions. Doesn’t work when the public stance is being very obviously against a fundamental right that has broad support.
DeSantis is definitely trying to position himself as Trump’s political heir, as MAGA still seems to be driving Republican voter turn-out. Problem is, Trump sees him as a rival, as a likely 2024 presidential candidate, so he’ll likely try his best to destroy DeSantis. Republican politicians and kleptocrats see DeSantis as the option who will give them political wins and their desired tax breaks, etc. without all the chaos and general unpopularity of Trump, but Republican voters may still be more loyal to Trump than the Republican party…
There’s this interesting situation now where Republican politicians and voters have different goals and interests. The politicians are wanting to reject Trump (as they see him as a liability in general elections), but Republican voters still seem to be supporting him, so he’ll likely win a primary vote (so politicians still suck up to him). I don’t know what options Republican leaders have for tipping the presidential primary to keep Trump out as their candidate, but if they did, Trump would do his best to ruin whoever the candidate was (he’s already gunning for DeSantis) and spoil the election, while Republican voters would lack incentive to vote if he wasn’t on the ballot (but especially if they perceive he was deliberately excluded). It’s quite entertaining.
Yeah, I hear a lot of talk about how DeSantis doesn’t have Trump’s “charisma.” (I mean, I don’t see Trump as having any either, but…) He thinks he can just step into Trump’s shoes, but there are a lot of issues with that (including that Trump is still wearing them). I read someone talking, I think accurately, about how DeSantis was “brittle” politically, that national politics aren’t the same as Florida’s, and he’d crumble under that kind of scrutiny. The Republican establishment seem to think DeSantis is “smart Trump,” but their problem is, that’s an oxymoron…
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Except for the ones who did not vote for his handpicked candidates. GA is a perfect example, where people voted for Kemp, but left the senate race blank (or voted for the libertarian or Warnock). So even the rank and file are not all in lockstep with Trump.
Despite what they try to portray, MAGA America is not the majority of the country, conservatives, the GOP or of anything.
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