Has the NY Post doomed "red trickle" Trump - or will he shrug off his failure?
The Republicans shot an airball on Tuesday night. In reaction, many conservatives in the wannabe sane lane of the GOP have declared that Trump has to go. To that end, they have wished — really, really, hard — that the midterms prove he is a spent force, a naked Emperor, and that his bubble has burst.
Arrayed against the post-Trump reactionaries are the forces of MAGA who are buying the hokum Trump is shoveling about the vast majority of his anointed candidates winning elections in a wave of success unmatched since God started keeping score of this kind of thing.
The ranks of 'anyone but Trump' have expanded. Political pundits once subsumed by his malignant charisma have walked forth from the dank cellars of obeisance, blinking in the sunlight of reality — much like Jenny Agutter and Michael York in their escape from a fatal future in the film Logan’s Run.
Ruppert Murdoch has turned his back on the loser. And DeSantis is now his man on Fox Propaganda. His Wall Street Journal has told the oleaginous bloviator to stick to the dessert bar. And his New York Post has characterized the carbuncle on America’s body politic as a Humpty Dumpty who could not build a wall.
The Republicans in the Senate — win or lose — will send a message when they elect their leader. Will it be the cadaverous fraudster Rick Scott or will they stick with what passes for the far right’s mainstream and stick with Mitch — the senior member of the anti-Trump caucus? The House will likely promote Trump’s boy McCarthy to Speaker on condition that he gives the rabid squirrels of the Freedom Caucus — including Gaetz, Greene, and Gosar — plum positions at the trough.
I do not know whether Trump will slough off his dismal night as a flesh wound or if he has hit his iceberg. But his position is far more fragile than at the 2020 Republican Convention when the GOP gave up on policy and retreated to “What he said.”
The problem for the GOP is that they are not the party of governance. They are the party of bomb throwers. They are happiest on the barricades, fulminating revolt. They are rudderless when in power. For two years, 2017-18, they controlled the whole shebang. And all they did was make the wealthy richer. Not much of a feat as for 40 years it was the only thing they could agree on. They would not fund Trump’s white whale, the border wall. And they failed in their number one legislative goal — to strip Americans of their healthcare.
The policies that are now important to them are anathema to the vast majority of Americans. On Tuesday, voters in five states choose to expand or protect abortion rights. The result was not a surprise in California, Michigan, and Vermont. But in Montana and Kentucky, it was not as expected. Republicans think women should be second-class citizens. The people do not. Not that the GOP is getting the message.
Kayleigh McEnany, who has her finger on the public pulse as only someone choking on hair spray and foundation can, has blithely declared that “Abortion is gone.” It is time for her to stop day drinking. When conservative men are mad about an issue, they have a public tantrum. When liberal women are, they vote. The media then reports the noise and fails to understand that quiet passion runs deep.
Meanwhile, the post-Trump pundits are making noise. Republican pollster Frank Luntz analyzed the data and concluded,
"The people I talked to over the last 24 hours have essentially said enough Donald Trump, enough of this chaos, enough of the yelling and screaming. They look at the U.S. Senate and they're mad at the former president. They think he supported the wrong candidates.”
Trump has chosen to remain unchastened and wrong. He complained that Oz lost because he did not promote the stolen election nonsense vigorously enough. This is absurd when you consider that his Pennsylvania Governor candidate, Doug Mastriano, a rabid election denier, won 246,000 fewer votes than a guy from New Jersey.
At least 69% of non-incumbent Republican candidates who ran on a MAGA election platform are projected to lose. Another 11% are in races too close to call.
Virginia's Republican Lt. Governor, Winsome Sears, who was formerly the chair of “Black Americans to Re-elect President Trump" said of her former flame,
“The voters have spoken, and they’ve said that they want a different leader. And a true leader understands when they have become a liability.”
She should not hold her breath. Trump has no quality found in a true leader.
In one New York district considered safe for the Democrats, state assemblyman Mike Lawler beat incumbent Democratic Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, head of the DCCC. His win had nothing to do with Trump. Lawler was clear about where he thought the GOP needed to head,
“Anytime you are focused on the future, you can’t so much go to the past. And I think people are really excited about the opportunity to address the challenges that we’re facing as a country. And I think more focus needs to be on the issues and the substance of those issues than on personalities.”
Other conservatives telling Trump to go away included Michele Tafoya, who wrote an open letter on Substack saying, “Please don’t run for President again.” And Brian Kilmeade begged Trump to back off his attacks on DeSantis and say nothing to hurt Hershel Walker. Long-time Trump advisor David Urban said, “Republicans have followed Donald Trump off the side of a cliff.” And ex-GOP Rep. Peter King offered this opinion, “I strongly believe he should no longer be the face of the Republican Party,” adding that the party “can’t become a personality cult.”
I will let the Cook Report have the final word on the serial failure's latest crackup.
"In 36 House races that the Cook Political Report rated as tossups, Mr. Trump endorsed just five Republicans. Each one lost on Tuesday."