To continue this metaphor—the presence of combustible material doesn’t mean a fire is inevitable. It just means that someone needs to do the hard work of sweeping up the kindling and sealing up the powder kegs before the next guy with a match comes along.
GOP leadership was unwilling to do that hard work.
I think he is both, but yes. The fundamental reason is that they are unpopular and their ideas (such as they are) are unpopular. 2004 in the aftermath of 9/11 and the relatively early days of the Afghanastan and Iraq wars when they were still popular and many people still believed the WMD lie was the most recent time more people voted for a republican presidential than a democratic candidate, and before than it was 1988. That’s 34 years ago!. Very often more people vote for democratic members of congress than republicans, and the democratic senators represent far more people than the republican senators whoever is in power.
When democrats win it is because gerymandering and voter suppression wasn’t enough that time.
When the electoral college and senate come up, people try to wave it away as “people campagin and vote strategically. If the rules were different they would campaign differently, you can’t take the popular vote totals literally”. That is true, but that is exactly the point: if we didn’t have these undemocratic institutions, republicans would be forced to act more in accordance with what the actual poeple want.
One of the more important observations about the election was buried in a CNN Business piece analyzing “why the news media got the ‘red wave’ narrative so wrong.” It’s amazing that it came from a high mucky-muck in the American Enterprise Institute, a cornerstone of the Evil Empire. Emphasis mine, of course.
Norman Ornstein, emeritus scholar at the center-right American Enterprise Institute, suggested that a few factors were at play. Chief among them, a reliance on bad polls (i.e. InsiderAdvantage and Rasmussen), a herd mentality that swept the press, and the tendency to treat this election like midterms of the past when other significant issues (like democracy and abortion) were at play.
But Ornstein also warned of a “more troubling” factor that he believed impacted coverage. “There is so many in the mainstream press that are just fearful to a remarkable degree of being branded as having a liberal bias. And what we see is that the reaction to that is to bend over quadruply backwards to show there is no bias.”
In other words, Ornstein argued, mainstream journalists went along with a red wave narrative because it showed that they were being tough on Democrats. “This business of both-sidesism to show that there is no bias gives us another kind of bias,” he said.
“You put all of that together and it is a s–t show,” Ornstein said.
Edited to add: “center-right” my ass.
“Trump, stupid.”
I’m gonna mostly agree, but also I see people continuing to undervalue just how much the repeal of Roe v Wade has motivated people the majority of US voters.
I guess technically that could be Trump too, since he nominated those judges. But to me that’s more policy that all Republicans have either directly pursued or at minimum enabled for decades.
The GOP fucked around into thinking the majority of the US wouldn’t care if nationwide access to legal abortion was removed. Now the GOP is finding out.
It’s a bit complacent to start crowing about how Trump is a “loser” when the democrats are about to lose control of the House of Representatives, isn’t it?
Overturning Roe v Wade was a tremendous own goal by the republicans and they still look like they’re winning back the the House.
I’m no Democrat but I think they’re the lesser evil and this level of complacency tells me that they’re not ready to deal with Trump if he runs in 2024.
If this wasn’t already a sign, two more years of his crimes being prosecuted and people suffering under the unjust rulings of his packed court should really do it, especially with him losing Fox.
Meanwhile, I’m picturing Joe Biden in a three-way debate with Trump and DeSantis and Uncle Joe looks like this:
Should Biden run in 2024??
No, but it looks like he will. 
I hope I’m wrong. I’m so fucking tired of old white guys. At this point, I’m not sure if America is able to elect a non-white, non-guy. We’ve regressed so far. Please, please, please prove me wrong America!
This is going to be the “Would WWII have started if Hitler had gone to art school?” question for the next twenty years.
We don’t know whether they will from talking heads on TV, though. It was never the Republican insiders and elite that backed him in the 2016 nomination fight.
“And limiting access to abortion — Donald Trump delivered that”
Is she trying to rehabilitate the Republican party? Forcing you to have kids is a core Republican plank, don’t pretend that was something Donald Trump brought to the table.
That’s referring to Trump-appointed SCOTUS judges. It could be just as easily attributed to Mitch McConnell, but it was after all a rare team effort from Team Rocket.
Further to various comments above, I’d class Trump as a symptom rather than a cause of roe vs wade. I don’t think anyone seriously thinks Trump gives a shit about reproductive rights. I would be genuinely surprised if he has never paid for anyone’s abortion. We know he cheats vareback, for one thing, and it would just fit his vibe.
Rather, as noted above, he typifies the uneasy alliance of right wing and cultural fringe interests that have led to him and so many other would-be facistic governments.
Ultimately, McConnel and the federalists would have lined up behind whatever they needed to, to achieve their goal.
I understood the reference, but it’s weak in context. Why would (or should) dumping Trump remove the stigma of being anti-choice from the GOP?
I believe he’s expressed - unprompted - his opposition to doing so. Seems like his Senate buddies across the aisle are more real to him than some woman dying out of sight.
