Shot in the Dark

The Battle/s For The GOP

Every election, and GOP primary, is a “referendum on Donald Trump”.

Just ask the Democrats and media (ptr), who want and need every election to be a referendum on Orange Literal Hitler.

Of course, as a conservative who wants to see DeSantis mop the floor with whomever the order of succession puts up against him – Harris? Pelosi? Buttigieg? Beto O’Rourke? – in 2024, I’d very much like the whole “referendum on Trump” thing to shut up and go away.

The Youngkin victory in Virginia last fall should have put that to bed – he was elected while the Democrats tried to make the vote about Trump, and still try to retroactively apply him to the race – but then, our media being dishonest about this sort of thing is hardly Man Bites Dog, now, is it?

This past week has given both sides evidence.

The primary in Pennsylvania earlier this week had Dr. Mehment “Doctor Oz” Oz winning the Senate primary – but by a narrow enough margin that Trump reportedly may start swearing off endorsing people.

On the other hand, in Georgia, Trump’s bete noir Governor Kemp cruised to a comically easy victory over Trump-endorsed Perdue in the race against Stacey Abrams, the unelected real president of the US and EU.

In the meantime, a week that saw Madison Cawthorne exit his race, saw Marjorie Taylor Greene winning her contest handily.

My two cents: The battle will center on the GOP fight against the depredations of Obama’s third term, versus the Democrats trying to stretch Donald Trump’s relevance two years beyond his exit from office.

Meanwhile, in Minnesota, the CD1 primary ended in a recount-worthy race between Brad Finstad and Jeremy Munson…

…and a blowout of Jim Hagedorn’s widow and, uh, controversial former MNGOP chair Jennifer Carnahan.

Who may still seek a recount, for all we know.

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Mitch Berg

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24 responses to “The Battle/s For The GOP”

  1. kinlaw Avatar
    kinlaw

    Nothing to disagree with, here’s my two cents:

    Making it about Trump will not fire up any more of the left’s base.

    If gropey joe had been halfway decent, making it about Trump might have moved some voters towards the dhimmis. But he has been so historically bad, that I think people are starting to miss Trump, mean tweets be damned.

  2. Emery Incognito Avatar
    Emery Incognito

    A few glimmers of rationality, but it’s still clear that the inmates run the asylum.

  3. Joe Doakes Avatar
    Joe Doakes

    E-I is correct, but doesn’t answer the main question: WHO are the inmates running the asylum?

    Plainly, it’s not Lesko Brandon – the man is senile and everybody knows it. Plainly, it’s not Kamala – she can barely string three sentences together. So who is it? Who set in motion the policies that gave us half-a-million illegal aliens every month, $5 a gallon gas, highest inflation in 50 years, and necessitated a charity airlift of baby formula from an civilized First World nation (Germany) because we shut down our only factory and forbid imports?

    Who are these inmates? I want names. I want home addresses. I want their wives’ and childrens’ names, and where they work, and where they go to school, and what cars they drive. What? No, not so I can terrorize them, so I can engage in mostly peaceful protests outside the homes, offices and schools, day and night, waving signs and playing loud music to convince them to change their ways.

    Just playing by the new rules. That’s how we do things nowadays, right?

  4. justplainangry Avatar
    justplainangry

    It is very interesting that if you search for Trump’s endorsement record, what you mostly find is a rehash of individual races and focus on his losses but not the total tally. The official current record, as far as I can tell, is 93-7. That is 93 wins vs 7 losses. Nope, no referendum here… no pattern… no mandate… but each loss is celebrated as repudiation… each.. and… every… time…

  5. jdm Avatar
    jdm

    jpa, exactly. The Trump skeptics all the way out to the obsessed haters see what they want to see. You’d think they would be happier and less obsessed about two years of no mean tweets.

  6. Mammuthus Primigenesis Avatar
    Mammuthus Primigenesis

    I think that what was done to Taylor Greene by the house was hideous. Her constituents voted for her, and the primary was a vote of confidence by Republicans in her district.
    Shame on the 11 GOP congressmen who voted with the Democrats to remove Taylor Greene from her committee assignments. Remember this next time you hear the usual suspects bleating about “threats to our democracy,” they do not believe in democracy at all.

  7. Emery Incognito Avatar
    Emery Incognito

    I am not sure the base is anti-democratic as much as anti-elite, whatever they understand that elite to be…. It would perhaps be worth analyzing the policy objectives of the ‘Trump without the crazy’ candidates, notably Ron DeSantis, beyond the red meat ‘stolen election’ talk they shell out to the base… one would perhaps be surprised that some of the resentments these policy objectives look to cater to are not that different from the ones the Bernie bros are attuned to as well. Leaving aside the salient culture war issue du jour, one perceives little difference between either group. They both are anti-elitist, both want in effect to sock it to the man/rich, even if the rhetoric is different.

    The US is currently barely governable with a so-called Democratic majority as it was and would be also be with a Republican one, mainly because both parties are in existential crisis as evidenced by their own voters’ behavior, and are not in fact unified around a coherent policy platform.

    Ten years from now, one would suspect to see a rearrangement of party membership along populist and conservative lines, with many of the currently self-identified Democrats and Republicans finding themselves in one same party based on their proclivity to the populist or conservative ideals. Fascinating, really. After all, who would have predicted in 1866 that the Democrats would one day garner upward of 80% of the black vote? Or in 1905 that Teddy Roosevelt’s party would become big business’ best friend for decades?

  8. Blade Nzimande Avatar
    Blade Nzimande

    JD, if Ron Klain isn’t writing Pedo Joe’s teleprompter text, and telling him where to put his signature, he knows who is.

    I’d start there.

  9. Blade Nzimande Avatar
    Blade Nzimande

    MP, 9 of the 11 turncoats are Republican weaklings from leftist shithole states who chose re-election over honor. Two however, Mario Diaz-Balart and Carlos Gimenez (both FL) are just pure, dirty scumbags.

  10. Blade Nzimande Avatar
    Blade Nzimande

    Having said that; who cares? In the end, it’s scumbags all the way down.

  11. bikebubba Avatar
    bikebubba

    Regarding the special election, I’m really glad that Munson didn’t win, as he was going to drag the party back into the election chicanery/Kraken argument. I was also sad to see so many “cookie cutter” candidates who kept in the race despite pretty much identical platforms. It seems that at some level, the GOP really needs to have guys sit down and say “OK, we can have bruising primaries between guys with basically the same views, or we can offer a few decent candidates without a lot of skeletons in their closet and take it to the Democrats.”

  12. Mammuthus Primigenesis Avatar
    Mammuthus Primigenesis

    <Emery Incognito on May 25, 2022 at 12:30 pm said:
    I am not sure the base is anti-democratic as much as anti-elite, whatever they understand that elite to be….
    How can we figure out what an ‘elite’ is? How is that even possible? Well, we could start with a dictionary definition:
    elite noun
    Definition of elite
    (Entry 1 of 3)
    1a singular or plural in construction : the choice part : cream the elite of the entertainment world
    b singular or plural in construction : the best of a class superachievers who dominate the computer elite— Marilyn Chase
    c singular or plural in construction : the socially superior part of society how the French-speaking elite … was changing — Economist
    d : a group of persons who by virtue of position or education exercise much power or influence members of the ruling elite
    e : a member of such an elite —usually used in plural the elites …, pursuing their studies in Europe— Robert Wernick
    2 : a typewriter type providing 12 characters to the linear inch

    I elucidate, Emery obfuscates.

  13. Blade Nzimande Avatar
    Blade Nzimande

    A Bush got clipped real bad in Texas, Delenda. “Compassionate conservatives” are as finely finished as an Amish rocker.

    I bet that really hurts, don’t it?

  14. bikebubba Avatar
    bikebubba

    Since you mention it, dullee, Putin delenda est

    And if you think I’m terribly worked up about a member of the Bush family losing, you’re mistaken. I’m personally a fan of the populism that Trump brought into the party–it was long overdue–but not the shenanigans and his personal idiocy.

  15. Night Writer Avatar
    Night Writer

    What is an elite?

    I wouldn’t know. I’m not a sophist.

  16. Joe Doakes Avatar
    Joe Doakes

    NW – excellent.

  17. Emery Incognito Avatar
    Emery Incognito

    The election was probably stolen from Trump, by a majority who voted against him.

    I am not a lefty — very much a centrist — but I have to laugh a very hollow laugh when right-wingers accuse the left-wing of being “elite”.

    Do you understand the difference between the proletariat (the exploited workers) and the bourgeoisie (the capitalist land/factory/company-owner elite)?

    It is really fascinating how Republicans, many of them very wealthy and alumni of elite universities, have somehow convinced masses of citizens that they are “just like them”.

  18. Mammuthus Primigenesis Avatar
    Mammuthus Primigenesis

    ^^ demonstrates that he does not understand the meaning of the word “bourgeoisie.”^^

    bourgeois adjective
    Save Word
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    bour·​geois | \ ˈbu̇rzh-ˌwä also ˈbu̇zh- or ˈbüzh- or bu̇rzh-ˈwä \
    Definition of bourgeois (Entry 1 of 2)
    1: of, relating to, or characteristic of the social middle class
    2: marked by a concern for material interests and respectability and a tendency toward mediocrity
    3: dominated by commercial and industrial interests : CAPITALISTIC
    bourgeois noun
    bour·​geois | \ ˈbu̇rzh-ˌwä also ˈbu̇zh- or ˈbüzh- or bu̇rzh-ˈwä \
    plural bourgeois\ ˈbu̇rzh-​ˌwä(z) also ˈbu̇zh-​ or ˈbüzh-​ or bu̇rzh-​ˈwä(z) \
    Definition of bourgeois (Entry 2 of 2)
    1a: a middle-class person
    b: BURGHER
    2: a person with social behavior and political views held to be influenced by private-property interest : CAPITALIST
    3plural : BOURGEOISIE

  19. Mammuthus Primigenesis Avatar
    Mammuthus Primigenesis

    I took the online political compass test. My score was nearly dead center, economic L/R 1.75, social libertarian/ authoritarian 0.36.

  20. bikebubba Avatar
    bikebubba

    EI, it’s interesting that, as a supposed “moderate”, you use Marxist definitions, including perjoratives, of “proletariat” and “bourgeoisie”. Just sayin’.

    And really, the great achievement of Trump (and before him other Republicans) is that he persuaded the mass of workers that their interests largely aligned with those of entrepreneurs and small business owners.

  21. Mammuthus Primigenesis Avatar
    Mammuthus Primigenesis

    I took a second online political test, http://political-coordinates.org/test_en.html
    Accounting for the difference in scale compared to the political compass test, I scored 1.5 x and 1.5 y, again very close to the center.

  22. Blade Nzimande Avatar
    Blade Nzimande

    Well, MP…hope springs eternal….I’ll keep working at it 😉

  23. Blade Nzimande Avatar
    Blade Nzimande

    I took the same test, MP:

    YOUR POLITICAL COORDINATES ARE:
    69.4% RIGHT, 8.3% COMMUNITARIAN

    I think my stance on the death penalty and drugs shorted the bot out.

  24. Blade Nzimande Avatar
    Blade Nzimande

    rAT squeaked: “ I am not a lefty — very much a centrist”

    You’re centered the way an cornhole is centered between ass cheeks.

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