Of course it Ronna Romney McDaniel’s fault
Somebody has to pay and it can’t be Orange Julius Caesar:
After watching Donald Trump lead the Republican Party to a third straight bad election season, his followers appear to be coalescing around a consensus: It’s all Ronna McDaniel’s fault.
Rather than blaming the coup-attempting former president — who made the willingness to spread his lies about the 2020 election a condition of his support — activists, lawmakers and even some fellow Republican National Committee members have instead turned on the RNC chair who is seeking a fourth two-year term.
“To play off of a famous catchphrase, Republicans are tired of losing. And I think that we need to radically reshape our leadership in order to win,” said Harmeet Dhillon, an RNC member from California who counts Trump as a law client, in her announcement on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News program that she would challenge McDaniel for the chairmanship.
Dhillon did not respond to HuffPost’s queries. Neither in her Monday appearance on Carlson’s show nor on Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s podcast the next day did she even mention Trump.
“Don’t pee on my leg and tell me it’s raining,” she told Bannon, ridiculing the idea that the midterm was a success because Republicans will take control of the House. “We really need a fresh perspective.”
Former New York Rep. Lee Zeldin, who this November lost his bid for governor, announced Wednesday that he would not be seeking the RNC chairmanship. “Chairman McDaniel’s re-election appears to already be pre-baked, as if the disappointing results of every election during her tenure, including yesterday’s in Georgia, do not and should not even matter,” he said in a statement, and then added in a tweet: “That doesn’t mean she should even be running again. It’s time the GOP elects new leadership! It’s time for fresh blood!”
McDaniel’s spokespeople did not respond to HuffPost queries.
Other Trump supporters argue that it’s not just McDaniel who needs to be ousted, but also Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell and House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, the likely speaker come January. “The GOP needs more Lee Zeldin, Harmeet Dhillon, Thomas Massie, Mike Johnson, Jim Jordan, and less corrupt McLeadership,” wrote former Trump campaign lawyer Jenna Ellis, whose latter three references are Trump allies in the House.
A common gripe is that McDaniel failed to advocate early voting and absentee voting, giving Democrats a huge advantage heading into Election Day. “I think Republicans have been unwilling, for whatever reason — reluctant, resistant ― to voting early and voting by mail,” said Fox host and informal Trump adviser Sean Hannity.
Fellow Fox host Laura Ingraham complained to former Trump White House adviser Kellyanne Conway that she was “pissed” and “mad” about losing the Georgia Senate runoff Tuesday. Conway responded that Republicans had to start taking better advantage of early and absentee voting.
“We need to compete not just for votes, but ballots. We need to compete for ballots. If we don’t bank ballots early, we’re going to keep losing,” Conway said.
Ingraham responded that “everyone” had advised against that, including “at the very top of the Republican Party” — to which Conway responded: “Not everyone.”
The exchange, though, elided entirely Trump’s vilification of mail voting during his 2020 reelection bid, when he claimed, without proof, that the process was corrupt. In fact, Conway herself defended that position in a May 27, 2020, session with reporters at the White House.
“They wait in line at Georgetown Cupcake for an hour to get a cupcake. So I think they can wait in line to do something as consequential and critical and constitutionally significant as cast their ballot,” she said. “Next it’s online voting. Then pretty soon we’re just going to have DoorDash and Uber Eats deliver everything we need, including our ballots.”
And you just won’t believe this:
A common gripe is that McDaniel failed to advocate early voting and absentee voting, giving Democrats a huge advantage heading into Election Day. “I think Republicans have been unwilling, for whatever reason — reluctant, resistant ― to voting early and voting by mail,” said Fox host and informal Trump adviser Sean Hannity.
Fellow Fox host Laura Ingraham complained to former Trump White House adviser Kellyanne Conway that she was “pissed” and “mad” about losing the Georgia Senate runoff Tuesday. Conway responded that Republicans had to start taking better advantage of early and absentee voting.
“We need to compete not just for votes, but ballots. We need to compete for ballots. If we don’t bank ballots early, we’re going to keep losing,” Conway said.
Ingraham responded that “everyone” had advised against that, including “at the very top of the Republican Party” — to which Conway responded: “Not everyone.”
The exchange, though, elided entirely Trump’s vilification of mail voting during his 2020 reelection bid, when he claimed, without proof, that the process was corrupt. In fact, Conway herself defended that position in a May 27, 2020, session with reporters at the White House.
“They wait in line at Georgetown Cupcake for an hour to get a cupcake. So I think they can wait in line to do something as consequential and critical and constitutionally significant as cast their ballot,” she said. “Next it’s online voting. Then pretty soon we’re just going to have DoorDash and Uber Eats deliver everything we need, including our ballots.”
Have I mentioned that they are shameless?
It’s going to take years to wring out Trump’s edict that Republicans should all vote on election day if they want their votes to count. They have indoctrinate the conspiracy theory faction (which seems to make up about 50% of the party) to believe this. A lot of them will never believe otherwise.
The big problem with all this is that early voting didn’t make the difference: