Three Things Newly Anti-Trump Republicans Need to Do (But Probably Won't)
The Republicans Who Have Turned Against Trump in the Wake of Mid-Terms Have To Do Some Hard Things To Throw Off Trump...But Will They?
After the disappointing election night for Republicans, the long knives were out for President Donald Trump as his endorsed candidates like Dr. Oz, Blake Masters, and Election-denying Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt lost winnable Senate Seats to the Democrats. Another Trump endorsee, Herschel Walker (GA) is headed to the runoff against progressive Senator Raphael Warnock (D-GA) thanks to a boatload of personal baggage. Walker and Senator-elect JD Vance (R-GA) have required tens of millions of dollars invested to their campaign that could have been spent elsewhere.
At the same time, Trump’s vendetta against Republicans who supported Impeachment has hurt the GOP chances of capturing Congress as two primary winners, both far-right conspiracy theorists: John Gibbs (R-MI) and Joe Kent (R-WA) lost their seats. At the same time, the Democrats took absolute control of state Government in Massachusetts where the very popular anti-Trump Republican incumbent was chased from office by a MAGA primary challenge and in Maryland where the party nominated a Trump-endorsed far-right candidate for Governor.
With a few exceptions (such as Rep. Ted Budd (R-NC) for Senate), Trump’s calls to endorse candidates for major races might as well have gone like this famous meme:
Many pundits, including those who leaned anti-anti-Trump in recent years have seen enough after this latest election debacle. Of course, they’re not the only ones who are talking about it, many Republican officeholders are stating it, a few publicly tentatively suggesting it while others continue to make the strongly worded statements behind closed doors and off the record.
Regardless, there’s momentum to not renominate Trump, particularly in the wake of Governor Ron DeSantis’ (R-Fl) huge landslide in a formerly swing state that makes him look like the future.
Will it actually happen? There are three things that need to happen, but I doubt any of them will:
Conservatives Must Slam the Door on President Trump…Even if It Means a Biden Re-election
Many are defining these newly minted opponents of President Trump as #NeverTrumpers. But that’s not exactly true. It’s true that many are ticked off at Trump leading the Party over the cliff and pre-emptively launching juvenile attacks on the perceived future of the party, Governor Ron DeSantis (R-Fl.). That this tweet :
⚜️ Ellen Carmichael ⚜️ on Twitter: "I’ll just say this: Trump better tread really freaking lightly. He’s not going to be able to name call and minimize Ron DeSantis in a primary contest. RDS hasn’t antagonized Trump. And conservatives love RDS’s record, and they’re not going to tolerate the 2016-style bullying." / Twitter
The question for Ms. Carmichael and any other New Trump critics is what exactly are they going to do if Trump wins the GOP nomination. If the answer is supporting him 110 percent in the general in order to stop Joe Biden than I don’t think there’s been a serious turn.
It’s a misnomer to call such people "“New Never Trumpers” because they’ll be right there with Trump in the end and Trump knows that. And in some way, Trump seems to take more delight in humiliating people who used to oppose him but come to grovel and genuflect to show their support. Such threats are not a deterrence, rather their primary opposition turned to unquestioning support is a bonus he’ll enjoy.
Cut Loose Bad Candidates
In the same vein, if conservatives are serious, they need to cut loose unfit political candidates. Some of these folks were championing every Republican candidate up, praising the debate performance of Blake Masters, or minimizing the bad character of Herschel Walker.
In fact saying, “Americans were clear. They want serious leadership!” And then turning around to back Herschel Walker in the Georgia Runoff is a mixed message.'
President George H.W. Bush famously denounced David Duke during his 1991 Campaign for Governor even though it would mean a Democrat is taking the seat. The truth is that sometimes winning an election is just not worth it.
And I’d argue that’s not just a moral consideration. A bad public official can drag down the party’s image, distract from its agenda, and be a source of constant embarrassment. Mister Trump has proven that. Losing an election is painful but helping elect someone who is awful carries a cost that continues for years to come.
Get Back the O.G. Never Trumpers and the Normies
Conservatives who want to defeat Trump face a massive personnel problem. It seems the campaign against Mister Trump (and for Governor DeSantis’) exists mostly on Twitter and other Internet places. There needs to be an organization.
The problem is that the Republican Party and conservative movement has bled out and cast aside anyone who won’t toe the line for President Trump, Many have been hatefully denounced, while others have quietly resigned and gone on to other things.
It’s easy to imagine that every #NeverTrumper has lurched to the far left (ala Max Boot or Bill Kristol) but that’s not the case. I’m not saying you need to try to get Project Lincoln back into the GOP, but they need to find some way to get people who left and are still conservative back in the fold.
Even more than that, the Republican Party has scared away normal people. They might not be Independent, they may not be a #NeverTrumper. They may vote Republican out of tradition and obligation. Still, many of the everyday businessmen and young lawyers who seven years ago may have been active in the GOP are staying away. They don’t want to be part of the dishonesty, the personality cult, and the utter mess of the GOP.
Those are the sort of people the GOP needs to defeat Trump and I doubt newly minted Trump critics are going to get them in the door as long as the GOP remains the party of folks who admire the Unabomber.'
The biggest problem I’m seeing with these folks is that what they think is wrong with the GOP is that they lost a lot of elections on Tuesday. They’re not really interested in addressing the big reason for that…which goes beyond Trump.
And because they won’t do that, they won’t get rid of Trump either..
Election Forecast v. Reality And What Lies Ahead
I thought many folks in the predictions game were going bonkers with predictions of Republicans picking 3 or 4 seats in the Senate and 30 or 35 in the House. I thought this was a misreading and settled on more conservative numbers: 1 or 2 in the Senate and 20 or 25 in the House.
Yet my conservative prediction turned out to be not conservative enough. The best Republicans can get out of this cycle is to hold steady and more likely than not, they’ll lose a seat in the Senate. Gains in the House are probably going to be 6-9 seats once all is said and done.
This is the best mid-term result for the party in power since 2002 when the Republicans gained seats in the wake of September 11th. Biden’s approval rating is about half as high as President Bush’s, so this is an incredible result.
I think there were a couple of things that were missed by myself and other predictors missed. First, we underestimated the impact of January 6th and the Republicans’ failed response to it, all of the poor-quality crazy election-denying candidates. Democrats were able to make the idea that democracy was at stake seem credible with the GOP’s cast of comic book villain candidates. In one way, the election shows we may have undervalued Americans’ support and concern for democracy.
Second, it was assumed that merely pointing out obvious problems such as inflation and crime were going to lead to GOP victories even while candidates cynically didn’t explain how they intended to address them. I think voters looked at all the joke candidates and concluded that while they raised legitimate problems, none of these yay-hoos were going to be the solution.
Finally, it’s fair to acknowledge that the Dobbs decision played some role in the election, though its unclear to what extent it made an impact. given the pro-life candidates who were successful. It seemed solid pro-life candidates like Governor Brian Kemp (R-GA) won while bad anti-abortion candidates like Blake Masters lost. That’s not particularly helpful in determining impact.
Dobbs no doubt cost some Republican losses, but it’s a price I’m more than willing to pay, particularly with this rum group of Republicans up this time.
There are warning for both parties in these results. I’ve talked about the Republicans. The Democrats’ great danger will be over-interpreting the results and also overplaying the “democracy” card. If Democrats should take one lesson from the Republicans of 2002, it’s to not keep betting on the same thing. The War on Terror slowly began to decline as a winning issue for Republicans in 2003 and 2004 and voters were quite tired of it in 2005 and 2006. Eventually, voters, attention does return to kitchen table issues. Democracy can’t hide behind “democracy” forever. If they fail to get the economy on sure-footing and address the long-term problem, there will be a day of reckoning at the polls and it may be a hard one if Republicans ever get their act together.
For voters, this may have been the best possible outcome. A congress full of radicals who would have contrived an excuse to Impeach President Biden and cut off U.S. Funding to Ukraine, a Senate teaming with election deniers, and far right secretaries of States chasing their own tails with fantasies of stolen elections and conspiracies would not be good. What we’ll get instead is gridlock.
The likely Republican Majority of 218-222 seats is going to be so small that Democrats and a few Republicans can use discharge petitions to bring funding for Ukraine up. Impeaching Biden is a dead proposition unless he actually commits an impeachable offense. The lofty ambitions of House Progressives to remake America with a bare majority is effectively dead for the next two years. And all the swing-state election-denying Secretaries of State candidates lost.
The final result is that most Americans can go about their lives without having to worry too much about our political situation destabilizing the country. In an environment like this, that’s about the best you’re going to get.