Georgia: GOP rejects Trump’s voter base … and loses
Naturally because nobody in the political establishment ever takes responsibility for anything, the Republican establishment is blaming Trump for last night’s debacle in Georgia.
But Trump isn’t to blame for this.
If he’s looking for someone to blame, Mitch McConnell really needs to look in the mirror.
Explain for me the logic behind this:
You’re a week away from a run-off election in Georgia that will decide control of the Senate. So what do you do?
You override the President’s veto of a massive defense spending bill. Then, to add insult to injury, you block a vote to provide the $2,000 relief checks requested by the President.
In effect, you decide to use the final days before the Georgia run-off to give the President and the American people the finger.
And you think Trump is the reason Republicans lost Georgia?
Yeah, I don’t think so.
Clearly the Inside-the-Beltway folks weren’t curious at all.
We went into this run-off election knowing that mail-in ballots were rife with fraud. It was a foregone conclusion that Stacey Abrams and her band of misfits were going to exploit the built-in weaknesses to pad the votes for the Democrats. In addition to that, we went in to Tuesday knowing Georgia’s Republican Governor and incompetent Republican Secretary of State weren’t going to do a damn thing to prevent the same fraud that happened in November from happening again.
Our only hope for victory against baked-in fraud was a massive turnout for Republicans.
And Mitch McConnell’s blunders last week all but guaranteed that the massive turnout needed in Georgia wouldn’t be there.
That’s not on Trump.
That’s on the feckless Republican leadership.
Biden’s handlers were smart by comparison. When Biden went to Georgia to campaign, what was his promise?
Flipping the seats would mean $2,000 relief payments would go out.
Just how bad at political strategy must you be to get out-played by that desiccated old booby Biden?
Rather than appeal to the broadening base President Trump secured, Senate Republicans cut them off in favor of the old Surrender Party consultants who brought us McCain and Romney.
As a result, the Senate Republican Leadership along with their gormless GOP “consultant class” squandered their chances in Georgia.
“Help us hold the line” is only an effective strategy if you have a proven track record of not only holding the line, but moving the ball forward. And if the last four years have shown us anything it’s that, except for confirming judges, the Senate Republicans didn’t move the ball forward on Trump’s agenda because they themselves were too busy blocking it.
So in that sense, Senate Republicans were holding the line, but not against the Far Left. Instead, they chose to protect their own sinecures by preventing Trump’s America First agenda from moving forward.
In her Monday column “Losing Would Be a Fitting Coda for the Feckless GOP Senate,” Julie Kelly makes this exact point. After listing all the failures and obstruction coming from Trump’s own party in the Senate, Kelly writes:
Trump, in the messy way that is admittedly part of his political brand, is left to fight the powers-that-be alone, recognizing that this battle isn’t just about him but about the fate and future of the country as a whole.
As for Cruz and his compatriots, their counterattack is too little, too late. The Senate should have shut down all other business from November 3 on and held one hearing after another on election irregularities and illegalities in the disputed states, demanding action from the Justice Department and state lawmakers. Threats to reject certification should have been made several weeks ago, not a few days before Congress is scheduled to certify the Electoral College vote.
But just like so many other instances over the past four years, Senate Republicans cowered and caved; Trump has had to do all the dirty work so craven Republicans could keep their own hands clean.
And this is what should be rewarded with Republican victories in Georgia?
The Republicans failed yesterday, not because of Trump, but because they refused to advance Trump’s agenda or even welcome Trump’s expanded base into the Party. I won’t be at all surprised if we learn that, in response to the establishment GOP’s indifference to them, Trump’s working class base decided to sit this run-off out and stay home.
The people that should have made the affirmative case for holding these two Georgia Senate seats couldn’t be bothered to make that affirmative case to the very people they needed for victory.
That’s not on Trump. That’s on McConnell and the rest of the Surrender Party.
Worse still, the establishment GOP chose to distance itself from President Trump and the broader, non-traditional base he cultivated believing they could win Georgia without them. And they were wrong.
Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face.
As Mike Cernovich pointed out last night on Twitter:
Trump’s not on ballot in 2018 – GOP loses 40 House seats.
Trump’s on ballot in 2020 – GOP gains 10 hour seats. (Every poll said GOP would lose 25 seats in House and 3-6 Senate seats.)
Trump’s not on ballot in Georgia. GOP loses.
But it’s Trump’s fault for tonight’s loss?
In November, Loeffler bested Warnock in a 3-way race. Last night, in a 2-way race, she lost.
What was different?
Without Trump there to bolster turnout, this time Warnock beat Loeffler.
The idea that Trump was holding the Republicans back is absurd. Trump isn’t holding the GOP back; he’s propping them up.
Truth is, but for Trump being on the ballot, I don’t think Susan Collins or Joni Ernst would have pulled off a win in November.
The broadening of the Republican voter base was Trump’s greatest gift to the Republican Party. And their response going into Georgia was to squander it.
Last night these fools gambled everything on downplaying Trump’s impact on Republican turnout.
Is it any wonder they lost?
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