Dem
51
GOP
49
As long as we are on this general subject, New York magazine had a piece by Jonathan Chait last week headlined "Republicans Don't Have a 'Candidate-Quality Problem,' They Have a Crazy-People Problem." The core thesis, as you might imagine, is that the Party is now built around... well, not as much a platform as a kooky worldview. Chait writes:
The right-wing conviction that the Democratic Party is a Marxist cabal that does not operate by normal democratic principles is the central idea promulgated by Fox News and the conservative media. Responding to that belief is not just a messaging choice. It can't easily be turned off because the voters and their nominees actually believe it.
The article concludes with the observation that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-KY) analysis of 2022 is largely off the mark when he said that the Party had a "candidate quality" problem, by which he meant "Donald Trump stuck us with a bunch of losers like Herschel Walker and Blake Masters."
If McConnell was correct, then the removal of Trump from the equation should solve a lot of problems for the GOP. Traditional Republicans continue to speak on this subject with an obvious undertone of hope. For example, soon-to-be-former senator Pat Toomey (R-PA) appeared on CNN yesterday and said that the former president's influence on the party is "waning." "I have heard from many, many formerly very pro-Trump voters that they think it's time for our party to move on," Toomey remarked.
We are inclined to agree with Toomey, and others, that Trump is moving slowly toward irrelevance. The Donald has been doing his best to help hasten that process, between his various legal problems, and his non-campaign campaign, and embarrassing stunts like the NFT sale. But the disposition of Trump won't matter if what's actually controlling the Party is Trumpism, as opposed to Trump.
Consider the 2022 elections, which were theoretically proof of McConnell's concept (i.e., it's all Trump's fault). The former president only hurts the Party, in the way the Kentuckian posits, in elections where Trump manages to elevate a Trumpist nominee over a more moderate, non-Trumpist nominee. But how many elections like that were there this year? In many cases, like the Arizona gubernatorial race or the Ohio Senate race, Trump helped elevate one Trumpist over a bunch of other Trumpists. In other cases, like the Pennsylvania gubernatorial race or the New Hampshire Senate race, a Trumpist easily won nomination without Trump's help. There were very few races where, but for Donald Trump's support, the Republicans would have had a normal nominee as opposed to a Trumpist nominee.
Put another way, it sure looks like McConnell is wrong, and things aren't going to get better for the GOP just because Trump's personal influence wanes. McConnell's counterpart, Chuck Schumer, certainly sees that. In an interview published last week, he said: "The MAGA influence on the party will not go away very quickly. They're very strong. They're very active. They're hard-right."
Ron DeSantis provided an object lesson in this just last week. Nobody would ever describe the Florida Governor as a moderate, particularly on the issue of vaccines. And yet, he looked at the polls and decided he just wasn't making enough inroads with Trumpists. So, he veered ever further right on the vaccine issue, which is actually one of the few issues where Trump himself is not as far-right as he could be. DeSantis is smarter than Trump is, and so may be planning to pivot for the general election, should he land the Republican presidential nomination in 2024. But maybe DeSantis won't pivot, and has decided that his best chance is to gin the MAGA crowd up into a frenzy. And even if a pivot is the plan, will it really be possible? By then, moderates will know very well what DeSantis is all about.
So, if you're a Republican, and you're not a Trumpist, the situation looks to be pretty grim. If it's not as simple as "consign Trump to the dustbin of history," then it's hard to know what it will take to make the Republicans a normal conservative party again, as opposed to a carnival of whackadoodlery. And it's not like the GOP is even trying to chart a course back to normalcy; if anything, the trend is towards even more whackadoodlery. If Harmeet Dhillon takes over the RNC, for example, she thinks that the Party needs to do more to pander to the Trumpists, not less. Yowza. (Z)