Some people have noticed that the GOP keeps losing elections and maybe he’s a drag on the party. Bush’s Brain, aka Karl “Turdblossom” Rove argued in a Wall Street Journal op-ed on Wednesday that Trump’s insistence on wreaking revenge and endorsing MAGA weirdos who fixate on the Big Lie will hurt the GOP’s electoral chances in 2022 and 2024:
President Trump has formally endorsed 85 Republican candidates so far this year, probably far more than any other president so soon after leaving office. He’s backed incumbents, primary challengers and candidates in open races for everything from the Senate and House down to state representatives and even a small-town mayor’s office, often with statements offering his “Complete and Total Endorsement!”
“Settling scores is a high priority for the former president,” Rove said in explaining Trump’s willingness to endorse in primaries where Republicans already hold the seat. Rove added that Trump endorsements are likely a way for him to “maintain his hold over the GOP and keep open the possibility of a 2024 White House run.”
Ya think? And it’s working. He is a big albatross around their necks — and they have decided to hug it tight.
Rove points out Trump’s endorsement is “hardly a guarantee of an election victory” and goes through the list of his endorsees who’ve lost. But it’s not just the weirdos like Herschel Walker that present a problem. It’s any Republican running:
All these candidates face a critical choice: Should they focus on Mr. Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen to protect their endorsement? Or should they make their race about providing a check on President Biden and risk incurring Mr. Trump’s wrath?
Mr. Trump could help some Democrats hang on in an otherwise devastating election cycle in 2022 by forcing their opponents to harangue voters about an unpopular topic. If the GOP can’t learn to shake the Trump obsession with alleged election fraud, the former president could even hand Democrats the White House—again.
They cannot learn to shake it. Trump won’t let them, and I’m not entirely sure they want to. Lindsey Graham has explained the cult’s rationale many times, most recently last week:
“When you look forward to this party, Donald Trump is the most consequential Republican in the entire Republican Party, maybe in the history of the party since Ronald Reagan. And if you’re going to lead this party in the House and the Senate, you have to have a working relationship with Donald Trump or it will not work.”
Republican officials either agree with Graham (and there are more of them Rove thinks) or are terrified of his voters. They are trapped.
Sooo, if Rove is right, this may be the Democrats’ best chance in 2022. As I have been saying, Trump’s Big Lie has been the organizing principle of the GOP ever since January 6th. It’s a nice delusion to think that the party would sober up but if it wasn’t clear before, it’s certainly clear now that they are going to stay on their Trump bender for the foreseeable future. And it’s highly unlikely that Trump and his people are going to allow any more candidates to hedge on the Big Lie or pretend to distance themselves from their leader.
Jonathan Swan of Axios reported that people who see him at Mar-a-Lago say “it’s impossible to carry out an extended conversation with him that isn’t interrupted by his fixations on the 2020 election” and he continues to insist that there should be more “audits” that will somehow overturn the results. He is obviously very disturbed at this point if he actually believes that.
But it doesn’t matter, he’s reorganized the Republican Party around the belief that he must be restored to the White House one way or another.
When it comes to elections, Trump may be the gift that keeps on giving for Democrats.
It’s going to be another tumultuous year in American politics. There are going to be public hearings and trials related to January 6th, the ongoing saga of the pandemic, a very weird booming economy and, of course, a midterm election that everyone assumes is pre-ordained. But as Karl Rove and I agree (I never thought I write those words) there is a big orange wild card that could turn everything on its head.
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Happy Hollandaise everyone!