Mitch McConnell may be using a bit of psychology to raise Republican enthusiasm by suggesting that they are in trouble — but they are in trouble. And he’s making sure that everyone knows whose fault it is. Trump chose the loons and his voters love him and Mitch can’t do anything about it.
Trump isn’t happy about that:
Former President Donald Trump went after Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., over social media for expressing skepticism around Republicans’ chances of retaking congressional majorities in the November midterms.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump called the Senate minority leader a “broken down political hack” and challenged his party loyalty.
“Why do Republicans Senators allow a broken down hack politician, Mitch McConnell, to openly disparage hard working Republican candidates for the United States Senate,” Trump asked.
He added: “This is such an affront to honor and to leadership. He should spend more time (and money!) helping them get elected, and less time helping his crazy wife and family get rich on China!”
What a guy.
Jonathan Chait correctly points out that it’s their own fault:
Having driven out the one member of their party who fought back against Donald Trump’s election lies, Republicans find themselves mystified that election liars are taking over. What is fascinating is that the party’s mainstream wing sees no connection between these two things at all.
Trump began to signal his refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election months beforehand. The Republican Establishment has dealt with this by refusing to acknowledge it and hoping the problem goes away on its own. Mick Mulvaney famously wrote an op-ed before the election predicting, “If He Loses, Trump Will Concede Gracefully.” When Trump refused to concede defeat, McConnell went along, saying, “A few legal inquiries from the president do not exactly spell the end of the republic.” For a few days during and after the insurrection, Republicans were prepared to make a break with Trump, but quickly reconsidered. One week after the insurrection,
on January 13, Axios reported that McConnell still leaned toward impeaching Trump, but his allies were “divided whether to do it with one quick kill via impeachment, or let him slowly fade away.” The question answered itself: If Trump was going to “fade away” without them having to take action, why bother?After making the decision to stop challenging Trump’s election lies, it followed that the rest of the party needed to go along. Cheney stubbornly refused. As a result, Republicans stripped her of her leadership post and then began to abandon her as Trump backed a primary challenge.
The party Establishment decided to treat Trump’s coup as a minor detail they could put to the side. Confronting the insurrection would open a damaging schism within the party. They expected the party to work together in an authoritarian-led coalition.
Accordingly, the Establishment Republican view is that Cheney has nobody to blame for her defeat but herself. Cheney might be correct about the 2020 election result, but she should have kept quiet. “In Wyoming, Cheney lost because her constituents saw that she cared more about fighting Trump than fighting Biden. She was more concerned with waging a civil war within the Republican Party than the inflation that is forcing her voters to choose between staples such as gas and food,” argues Marc Thiessen. “Telling truths is important, but we rightly regard people who only ever tell the same one truth all the time as fanatics who have lost perspective,” explains the National Review’s Dan McLaughlin.
But of course one completely foreseeable consequence of the party’s decision to cede the argument over 2020 to Trump is that it has allowed Trump to retain his influence. Republicans complain over the personal aspect of Trump’s influence — he has interceded in primaries to endorse unqualified candidates — but his ideological influence is more profound.
If Republican voters believe the 2020 election was stolen, of course they are going to demand their party nominate candidates who will stop it. Why would they even consider “moving on” from a historical crime so profound? It makes perfect sense that their primary consideration in choosing nominees going forward is a willingness to fight against the future steals they believe will occur.
Yet the party Establishment has persisted in believing Trump’s influence is the result of choices other than their own refusal to confront him. This explains why the Democratic Party tactic of running ads highlighting the extremism of Trumpist primary candidates, and thus to help them win, has become an obsession of anti-anti-Trump Republicans. The tactic may be deplorable, but its effect on the outcome of Republicans primaries is marginal. The greatest determinate by far is the GOP backing off its brief determination to purge Trump. Once they decided they couldn’t win without him, they ceded all the leverage to Trump.
In a just world, the Republican Establishment would pay a dear price for its cowardice. In reality, the price is likely to be bearable. Very few Republicans have any moral compunction against electing extreme or even outright fascistic Republicans to office. Witness the near-total absence of any intraparty resistance to candidates like election denier Kari Lake or Christian nationalist and Nazi ally Doug Mastriano, both of whom have enjoyed full public endorsements from Ron DeSantis, the main hope of the GOP’s non-Trump wing.
The Establishment is not worried about kooks being elected. It is worried about the kooks losing to Democrats.
They had their chance with the 2nd impeachment to put Trump away but they were afraid he’d go against him and use his clout to interfere with the party. He did it anyway. And now he’s going to be their nominee in 2024 (unless something very drastic happens.) It’s all on them.