The Stench Of Trump Won't Wear Off In A Year Or Two
Trump out-sourced the GOP get-out-the-vote to grifter pals and incompetent dabblers who took the money and… well there are no signs of any ground game in crucial swing states where they’re desperately needed. Yesterday, AP reported that there’s none of the door knocking needed to get infrequent voters to turn out for Trump and the down-ballot Republican candidates. One of the culprits— the guy who has run Twitter into the ground and who makes Teslas that fall apart. The responsibilities were shared between Musk’s America PAC staffed by people from DeSantis’ campaign, Charlie Kirk’s useless Turning Point USA and Ralph Reed’s Faith nd Freedom Coalition.
Thomas Beaumont and Joey Cappelletti wrote that “activists and operatives in Michigan, North Carolina and other battleground states say they have rarely or never witnessed the group’s canvassers. In Arizona and Nevada, the Musk-backed political action committee replaced its door-knocking company just this past week… The spotty evidence, however, of what was portrayed as a sophisticated operation has some party activists questioning the operation’s value. Trump’s campaign views the race with Vice President Kamala Harris as a toss-up among likely voters but believes it has the edge among people who stayed away in 2016 and 2020, making it even more essential to reach them. The work is particularly important in Michigan, where Trump lost by fewer than 160,000 votes in 2020, and where the GOP began the year mired in debt and fight an ugly contest over the rightful state party leader… Over the past week, there were complications for America PAC, the most high-profile of the groups helping Trump in 2024. America PAC fired Nevada-based canvassing company September Group, according to two people familiar with the matter. America PAC had paid the company almost $2.7 million a month ago, according to FEC reports. The people familiar with September Group’s dismissal spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private business decisions.”
Trump told Sharyl Attkisson on Full Measure Sunday that if he loses he doesn’t plan to run again. OK, you can’t really run from prison. He’s old and the Alzheimer’s is getting harder and harder to hide. Chances are he’ll be fully incapacitated or dead before 2028. Vance on the other hand, will see himself as Trump’s heir apparent but he also has his Senate reelection to consider. The weirdo, his reputation destroyed, will run for one or the other. Yesterday, the Associated Press reminded readers across the country that Vance has fully embraced the conspiracy theory mentality that he once said were idiotic— “the feverish imaginings produced by ‘fringe lunatics writing about all manner of idiocy.’… [Now he say] that the federal government deliberately allowed fentanyl into the United States to kill conservative and rural voters. He has praised Alex Jones, a well-known conspiracy theorist who claimed the deaths of 20 young children in the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting was a hoax. And he’s echoed— contrary to all evidence— former President Donald Trump's assertion that the 2020 election was unfairly won by Democrats and that those charged in the subsequent Capitol insurrection are ‘political prisoners.’ More recently, he gave credence to the debunked idea that Haitian immigrants were abducting and devouring pets in Ohio.”
Writing about Mark Robinson in his NY Times column Sunday, David French reminded his readers that “Republican voters knew he was a bad man when they chose him. Now they know he is a very bad man.”
In 2022, Trump’s collection of cranks and conspiracy theorists proved that they can lose race after race, even when Democratic approval ratings are low.
While I’m interested in Robinson’s potential impact on the presidential race, I’m also concerned with the ongoing impact of MAGA on the heart of the Republican Party. Last month, I wrote a column endorsing Kamala Harris for the presidency, in large part because I believe that a Harris victory gives Republicans “a chance to build something decent” from the ruins of a Trump defeat.
After enduring weeks of lies about the Haitian immigrants who live in Springfield, Ohio, and an entire news cycle devoted to covering Trump’s connection with Laura Loomer, one of the most overtly racist figures in MAGA America (she once spoke at a conference of white nationalists and declared, “I consider myself to be a white advocate, and I openly campaigned for the United States Congress as a white advocate”)— I’m hardening my view. Trump loses now or the Republicans are lost for a generation. Maybe more.
The reason is plain: The yearslong elevation of figures like Mark Robinson and the many other outrageous MAGA personalities, along with the devolution of people in MAGA’s inner orbit— JD Vance, Elon Musk, Lindsey Graham and so very many others— has established beyond doubt that Trump has changed the Republican Party and Republican Christians far more than they have changed him.
In nine years, countless Republican primary voters have moved from voting for Trump in spite of his transgressions to rejecting anyone who doesn’t transgress. If you’re not transgressive, you’re suspicious. Decency is countercultural in the Republican Party. It’s seen as a rebuke of Trump.
This has changed the composition of the party. While many decent people remain— and represent the hope for future reform— Trump’s Republican Party has become a magnet for eccentrics and conspiracy theorists of all stripes. In a sharp essay, Matthew Yglesias calls this phenomenon the “crank realignment.”
Indeed, Trump in his diabolical shrewdness knows how to build and maintain his own base. He’s shed the Republican Party’s traditional commitment to life. He’ll sprint away from any policy or principle that he believes might cost him power. At the same time, he watches his crowd roar when he demonizes immigrants (MAGA’s true north star) and he sees “red-pilled” young men rally to his side when he punches hard and never backs down.
Leaders don’t simply enact policies; they dictate the cultures of the institutions they lead. We’ve all experienced this phenomenon in our workplaces, churches and schools. I’ve compared the cultural power of a leader to setting the course of a river. Defying or contradicting the leader’s ethos is like swimming against the current— yes, you can do that for a time, but eventually you get exhausted and either have to swim to the bank and leave, or you’re swept downstream, just like everyone else.
Trump has set the course of the Republican Party’s cultural river for more than nine years. Fewer and fewer resisters remain, and they’re growing increasingly exhausted and besieged. You can see it online in response to the Robinson news. The mere suggestion that Republican primary voters can and should do better is greeted by scorn and contempt.
Both parties have always been vulnerable to nominating or electing the occasional crank, but Donald Trump’s ascendance meant that a crank led the party, and the best way to join with him is to imitate him. That’s how you get a Mark Robinson, or a Marjorie Taylor Greene, or a Lauren Boebert, or a Matt Gaetz. The list goes on. That’s how leaders change institutions. They make them into images of themselves.
In this case, Trump has done so explicitly. Almost all the worst figures in the Republican Party have ridden Trump endorsements to the top of their local pyramids. Robinson received Trump’s endorsement and swamped his primary opposition. Trump even called him “Martin Luther King on steroids.”
The lesson is simple: If you want more Mark Robinsons, vote for Donald Trump.
It’s possible that the Republican Party is simply too far gone, at least for now. A primary electorate that chooses Robinson over more reasonable candidates by 45 points— and a party that blames “the left” for revealing that he’s even worse than anyone knew— does not seem ready to change.
But unless and until the Republican Party reverses course and purges MAGA from the party every bit as thoroughly as it has purged Reaganism, American politics will remain unstable. A coalition of decency (who could ever imagine Nancy Pelosi and Dick Cheney voting for the same candidate?) will have to continue to set aside profound differences for a larger purpose: defending the American Republic against MAGA’s nihilistic rage.
Listening to Burns is like viewing a work of art. We need more people like him in government. The Orange Menace is a freaking moron, as are his associates and voters.
"I’m hardening my view. Trump loses now or the Republicans are lost for a generation. Maybe more." On the other hand, despite sins ranging from race-baiting, and mocking the handicapped to incitement to riot and stealing government secrets, Trump is still within spitting distance of a second victory. Some of that has got to be chalked up to his opponents. Democrats didn't learn the lesson of their first loss to Trump - they are not providing a better quality of life for a lot of Americans. Instead they continued to focus on "But those guys are so much worse than us!"despite the fact that even the worst of "those guys" don't seem much worse to a lot of Americans than "us".