This piece by Tim Miller about the emerging narrative that there are going to be two “lanes” in the Republican party sounds right to me. I’ve written about the two lanes myself but I think he’s got the better argument. There are a few presidential players like Cheney and Sasse who are taking their chances on a Trump crackup. But I think Miller is probably right that there really is only one lane:
A dour, sullen, unsmiling, political hack. This was former president Donald Trump’s assessment of Mitch McConnell in a press release this week. Politico reported that Trump was persuaded to leave a comment about McConnell’s droopy jowls on the cutting room floor, so maybe there’s more to come. Wattle’ Mitch or Dewlap Mitch or some such.
But underneath this war of words was the substance of Trump’s threat. In the statement, he promised to “back primary rivals” to any of the McConnell supported Senate candidates who do not prostrate themselves before the Apricot Idol and swear to uphold the MAGA truths about the Sacred Landslide Victory of 2020 that was thwarted by the thieving apparition of Hugo Chavez and voting machines that revealed Satan’s Dominion over the earth.
There has been much hubbub in the press about this promise as they speculate about what a Mitch vs. Don hot war would look like. Might it take a similar shape to Mitch’s previous primary battles with the Tea Party and Bannon-backed nationalists? Might Cocaine Mitch get the last laugh?
Color me skeptical.
Out there in America where this “civil war” is gonna be fought, it sounds a lot more like a dinner-time family dispute at Jefferson Davis’ country home than the battle of Antietam.
The Ohio Senate race provides a nice preview to what I’d like to call the Republican party’s UnCivil Unwar. There are currently two major, declared candidates in the GOP contest to replace the retiring Rob Portman.
The first, Josh Mandel, was formerly the state treasurer and back in 2012 he ran for Senate against Sherrod Brown as your conventional Marco Rubio/Eric Cantor/Mitt Romney style Republican. The second is Jane Timken, the former Ohio GOP chair, a Harvard graduate and the wife of a steel magnate. Both had been allies of the centrist Republican Governor John Kasich, with Timken even supporting his bid for president in 2016.
If you were not familiar with Ohio politics, you might think that both of these candidates would be on the McConnell side of the “Civil War” and that there must be some rabid, Gym Jordan-style Trumpkin waiting in the wings.
But in fact, both Timken and Mandel are competing in the “Trump Lane” in the primary according to NBC News. No, really. After Trump beat Kasich in 2016, Mandel started vouching for Pizzagate Jack Posobiec while Timken Brutused John Kasich and cleansed the state party of anyone who wore the scarlet K.
Trump fealty (and Kasich calumny) has been the coin of the realm in the nascent primary campaign. Ohio Capital Journal reporter Tyler Buchanan notes that over two-thirds of each candidate’s tweets have been about Trump since they launched their respective campaigns.
So who exactly is on the “McConnell” side of this primary fight? I see no indication that a candidate will emerge who will dare echo anything in the ballpark of McConnell’s post-acquittal speech about Trump’s “unconscionable behavior.”
And forget Ohio: I don’t expect there to be any contested Senate primary in the lower 48 where there will be a viable Republican candidate who blames Trump for the insurrection, admits Biden won the election fairly, and argues we need to turn the page on Trump.
The Trump/McConnell Civil War is one big Spiderman Doppelgänger meme, with Spidey #1 supporting a Trump autocracy both privately and publicly and Spidey #2 supporting a Trump autocracy in public, while privately whispering to donors that the cop-killing coup went a tad too far for their taste.
In the Ohio Senate primary the “Trump Lane” is the entire highway.
He goes on to talk about Arkansas as another example of this dynamic. It’s very persuasive.
Update —
In case you were wondering, Trump is preparing his Revenge Tour as we speak as well as an elaborate “kiss the ring” ritual for those seeking his endorsement. Should be fun.