Things don't look good for Cowering Kevin and Mortified Mitch and the party in which they are considered "leaders"
The day after the victory in Nevada by Catherine Cortez Masto securing the Senate for Democrats is one of those days you don’t even have to read the stories. The headlines spewing the panic on the Right are more than enough:
Washington Post: “Republican rivals start plotting a post-Trump future -- The GOP’s disappointing midterm results spur some donors and party leaders to consider other 2024 candidates.”
Washington Post: Election deniers lose races for key state offices in every 2020 battleground -- The candidates could have gained power over election administration. Voters rejected them in the six most pivotal states.
New York Times: Trump Angst Grips Republicans (Again) as 2024 Announcement Looms -- While Republicans pick up the pieces from the midterm elections, former President Donald J. Trump is already forcing them to take sides in the next election.
Washington Post: In election 2022, the party of Trump pays for being the party of Trump
Washington Post: Congressional Republicans panic as they watch their lead dwindle -- Private consternation reached a public boiling point Friday as lawmakers in both chambers confronted the fallout from Tuesday’s elections
Washington Post: Democrats surged to flip state legislatures, defying past GOP gains
If you’re a Republican “leader,” as Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy pretend to be, you have to be looking at the headlines this morning and asking yourself what the fuck happened, don’t you? Well, you would if you were a sane person occupying a leadership position in an actual political party. The situation for Kev and Mitch, however, is somewhat different. If they open their traps and a natural reaction comes out, something along the lines of “Oh, my God!”, it will be read by the MAGA faithful as a betrayal of the real leader of the Republican Party, Donald Trump. If they even twitch in the direction of criticizing the Great One, they’ll be politically drawn and quartered within the hour.
Quite a dilemma for the boys, huh? Well, just as a reminder, their party has been here before – specifically, when Richard Nixon was clinging to the White House by his fingernails after the Judiciary Committee had voted on three articles of impeachment and plans were being made to schedule a vote in the House and a trial in the Senate way back in 1974. Republican Senators Hugh Scott and Barry Goldwater, accompanied by Minority Leader Jacob Rhodes, got in a car and drove from the Capitol to the White House and met with Nixon and told him his support in both the House and Senate was thin and he would not survive an impeachment and trial. Nixon resigned as president the next day.
I’d be willing to bet my next paycheck that ol’ Mitch is ruing the day he didn’t rally his Republican troops and push through a conviction of Trump at his second impeachment trial in the Senate in February of last year. The Constitution’s ban on running again for president would have parked Trump permanently on the sidelines of American politics and left an open field to Republicans in the midterms this year. Instead, Trump hung like a black cloud over the elections in the House and the Senate, not to mention down in the state houses the Republicans lost. So many of Trump’s hand-picked candidates lost, they practically threw a coronation when the odious J.D. Vance was able to win in Ohio.
The option of getting some Republican billionaire to loan them a plane to fly down to Palm Beach for a sit-down with The Man Himself is still open to Tremblin’ Mitch and Shivverin’ Kev. The chances of either one of them overcoming the shakes long enough to Do What Must Be Done for the Republican Party, however, are either close to zero or zero itself, their fear of Trump’s MAGA masses is so great.
It's amazing, isn’t it, to watch an entire political party full of professional politicians be aware of what must be done to save themselves and their party a crushing defeat across the board in Washington and further erosion of their grip on legislatures down in the states in 2024, and still they just sit there petrified for their own political lives if they even move a muscle in that direction.
But that’s where they are, with Kev biting his nails as he watches the last few results come in which will determine whether Republicans regain the majority in the House of Representatives. Piece of advice, Kev: Don’t bother worrying yourself into sleepless nights. You’re finished as a “leader” of the loons who will take charge if the Republicans squeak-out enough victories to carry the day for the party in the House. You’ll have plenty of time to gaze at your pin-striped navel and wonder What Went Wrong.
Alternatively, you could pay another groveling visit to Mar a Lago and ask Mr. Indictment Himself for help corralling his MAGA minions in the House. That would make you look weak and him look strong, but if that’s the way you want to play it with 2024 looming on the horizon, more power to you. I know a few Democrats who hope you do just that.
I have commented on this earlier but believe it is worth repeating.
Democrats must not assume the Republicans are going to self destruct. The Democrats have an opportunity to put a stake in the heart of the corrupted and co-opted GOP but must be pro active in pushing their own legislative agenda to highlight the differences between Democrat problem solving and GOP inertia.
The GOP has. Dug a grave for itself. now the Democrats need to shovel some dirt on it to bury them.
I hadn't thought ahead that far but a very good point, what to do, what to do... By allowing the far right element to hijack the party they now have a dilemma. Lose them all as you say and try to reconstitute the original Republican party where some decency existed, at least compared to now, or eat crow and kneel before Trump once again. . But to go in that direction seems futile now too, I think people are sick and tired of that old broken record playing over and over about massive voter fraud, That's why a lot of these Trump promoted people lost. So true too about McConnell's probable regret that he cut Trump loose from what m normally would have been a certain impeachment. If any Democratic president had done a fraction of what Trump did the Republicans would have fallen over themselves in a rush to impeach. Another peculiar thing I thought that earned the Republican party that age old "The Stupid Party" label: and that was McCarthy and Johnson announcing just before the mis terms, that once in power they would cut Social Security and Medicare? How dumb was that? Must have cost them a heck of a lot of votes. SCOTUS helped too by the way due to the ROE/Wade decision, Many young women voted and voted Democrat because of that. The Republicans didn't help their case by voting 100% against lowering drug prices, etc., and against other social programs. even the infrastructure bill that would create many jobs and v bring money to their states. As a collective the party really is dumb when you think about it. they Kari Lake may lose too for screaming the big lie over and over, a lie she took out of the mouth of a serial liar. Speaking of Lake, who to me seems a very cold hard woman,. oid of any compassion whatsoever, her her batshit crazy supporters have lost it completely "Kari Lake supporters outside the Maricopa ballot counting center: “We the people are requesting the military to step in and redo our election. It was fake.” 🎥 Reuters