There Are NO Good Republicans-- NONE-- But There Are Plenty Of Bad Democrats

"Who Matters?" by Nancy Ohanian

As lifelong conservative operative Sarah Longwell noted on Monday “Good Republicans” have been driven to “near extinction” by Trumpism. I have a feeling she hasn’t analyzed her old party thoroughly enough if she thinks it was Trumpism that made them the way they are now. She wrote that “For a while, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was supposed to be the Good Republican: a fusion candidate and progenitor of the post-Trump future. Now it turns out that he is a despicable human being, a performative culture warrior who uses the levers of government against companies who engage in speech he doesn’t like and treats refugees as pawns in his political troll game. He keeps a keyboard-warrior press secretary who screams ‘groomer’ at anyone who disagrees with her boss. Oh, and he’s campaigning for Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano, a committed election denier who not only attended January 6th, but bussed others there as well. So: Not a Good Republican. But he’s not the only disappointment. The vast majority of the 2022 Republican nominees this cycle have echoed Trump’s lies about the 2020 election. Many refuse to say if they will certify results they do not like in future elections. Which is extremely bad, but they’re the Trumpy Republicans. We expect that. What many of us did not expect was that Team Normal would be so happy to support these maniacs.”

Well, Sarah… sorry, but that is exactly what many of us did expect. After all, DeSantis totally sucked as a member of Congress, long before he and Trump ever got together. When I was very young, my grandfather told me how horrible the Democratic Party is. And then added that “there’s only one thing worse than a Democrat and that’s a Republican— and they are much worse.” Yeah, much, much worse and that goes back to… long before I was born— and I’m old. And Longwell actually included notorious Georgia election thief Brain Kemp as a former “good Republican,” as well as Doug Ducey (AZ) and Glenn Youngkin (VA), none of whom have— or have ever had— a “good” bone in their bodies.

And yet, that Siena/NY Times poll that has created a narrative that the Democrats “peaked” to soon and that Republican momentum is building towards a wave again. Democrats are wringing their hands in impotence, still refusing to get behind the populist economic messaging that voters want to hear from them. And then there’s Bernie.

Yesterday Shane Goldmacher and Katie Glueck reported that Bernie is planning an eight-state blitz with at least 19 events over the final two weekends before the midterm elections, looking to rally young voters and progressives as Democrats confront daunting national headwinds.” He’s doing two events in Texas, one for Greg Casar and one for Michelle Vallejo (who has been cast aside by the neoliberals who have run the DCCC further into the ground), two events in Nevada as well as events in Pennsylvania (Summer Lee), Michigan, Wisconsin, Florida, Oregon and California.

He told Goldmacher and Glueck that at this point the election “is about energizing your base and increasing voter turnout up and down the ballot. I am a little bit concerned that the energy level for young people, working-class people [is not as high as it should be] And I want to see what I can do about that.”

Sanders maintains an impassioned core following and is one of the biggest draws on the stump for Democrats nationwide. But Republicans have used Sanders as a boogeyman in television ads in many races across the country and even some moderate Democrats have concerns that his campaigning in swing states could backfire.

Sanders brushed off a question about whether his presence on the trail might be used to attack Democratic candidates.

“They’ve already done it,” Sanders said. “They’re going to have to respond to why they don’t want to raise the minimum wage, why they want to give tax breaks to billionaires, why they want to cut Social Security. Those are the questions that I think these guys do not want to answer. And those are the questions I’m going to be raising.”

Throughout the tour, he plans to hold events with a mix of House candidates, a mayoral contender [Karen Bass in L.A.] and liberal organizations in an effort to turn out core Democratic constituencies.

…Sanders said he planned to focus on an economic message in pitching Democrats in 2022. Asked to assess how his party was doing in selling itself to working-class voters, he replied, “I think they’re doing rather poorly.”

“It is rather amazing to me that we are in a situation right now, which I hope to change, where according to poll after poll, the American people look more favorably upon the Republicans in terms of economic issues than they do Democrats,” he said. “That is absurd.”

A top priority for Sanders this year has been electing Mandela Barnes, the Democratic Senate nominee in Wisconsin. Mr. Sanders has allowed the Barnes campaign to use his name to send out fund-raising emails, reaping at least $500,000, according to a Sanders adviser.

It is not clear if Barnes will appear appear alongside Sanders, who is planning at least three events in the state the weekend before the election, in Eau Claire, LaCrosse and Madison, the state capital and heart of Wisconsin’s progressive movement. A spokeswoman for Barnes declined to comment on his plans.

But when Politico reported this month that Wisconsin Democrats were planning possible events with Sanders, Matt Bennett, the co-founder of Third Way [and a total corporate whore and enemy of working families], a centrist group, wrote on Twitter: “I desperately want Barnes to win, so I ask again of his campaign: Why would you do this? Why????”

Why? On April 5, 2016 Bernie kicked the ass of the Third Way candidate for president, Hillary Clinton, in Wisconsin— 570,192 (56.6%) to 433,739 (43.0%). He won 71 counties. Hillary won one. Bernie won among younger voters (73-26%), among Independents (59-40%), among men (64-35%) and even among women (50-49%). That day Bernie also got far more votes than Trump (383,604) and more votes than Ted Cruz (527,067), who won the Republican primary. And when you look at the crucial working class counties that Trump did win in the primary and that later helped power his general election win against Hillary, Bernie beat Trump in those counties as well!

• Kenosha Co.- Bernie- 14,612, Trump- 11,139

• Rock Co.- Bernie- 17,337, Trump- 10,264

• Sauk Co.- Bernie- 7,195, Trump- 4,697

• Grant Co.- Bernie- 4,484, Trump- 3,462

• La Crosse Co.- Bernie- 15,139, Trump- 8,271

• Iowa Co.- Bernie- 3,198, Trump- 1,609

That’s why and maybe if reactionaries like Matt Bennett and his ilk hadn’t spent all of 2016 working to steal the primary from Bernie, Trump would still be just a third rate, loud-mouthed reality show performer and sad-sack grifter.