Which Republican Party Craves Suicide More-- Michigan's Or Arizona's?

Trump Broke The GOP

Some would argue that the Michigan GOP— riven by civil war between conservatives and fascists and flat broke— couldn’t have gone off the rails in Lansing yesterday because it left the rails long ago. Party delegates, obsessed with election security, spent the morning fighting with each other about how to hand out their own ballots and safely count them. In the end the delegates were forced to pick between two deranged extremists and election deniers, former failed Attorney General candidate Matthew DePerno,who had been endorsed by Trump and the MyPillow Guy, and former failed Secretary of State candidate Kristina Karamo. Karamo won on the third ballot. One precinct delegate from West Bloomfield, Max Rohtbart said having to vote between DePerno and Karamo made him feel “like I should ask for forgiveness for my sins. And I’m Jewish.” He also took to social media to add that the vote was not meant to pick a chair for the party, but rather for “picking a chair for the Titanic.”

Last cycle’s statewide election results in Michigan were disastrous for the Republican Party extremists.They all lost (although Karamo did the worst of all):

Governor

• Gretchen Whitmer (D)- 2,430,5050 (54.5%)

• Tudor Dixon (R)- 1,960,6355 (43.9%)

Attorney General

• Dana Nessel (D)- 2,329,195 (53.2%)

• Matthew DePerno (R)- 1,952,408 (44.6%)

Secretary of State

• Jocelyn Benson (D)- 2,467,859 (55.9%)

• Kristinia Karamo (R)- 1,852,510 (41.9%)

The state legislative election results were an unmitigated disaster for the Republicans as well. In the state Senate, Democrats gained 4 seats, flipping the chamber for the first time since 1982 and in the state House, Democrats gained 3 seats, flipping the chamber for the first time since 2008. Having lost one congressional seat after the census— from 14 to 13— the 7 Democrats to 7 Republicans balance, went to 7 Democrats to 6 Republicans. And that can easily be traced to the selection of a MAGA crackpot in the 3rd district, where John Gibbs defeated mainstream conservative incumbent Peter Meijer in the primary, only to lose to conservative Democrat Hillary Scholten, 185,989 (54.9%) to 142,229 (42.0%).

Michigan Republicans opted for the crazy demon lady instead

Saturday, the state party leaned right into their losses— apparently learning nothing from the very clear message the voters sent them— and ran right to the fringe of the fringe, “fully embracing,” as Neil Vigdor reported, “an election-denying Trump acolyte after her failed bid for statewide office, one in which she unsuccessfully sued to throw out mail-in votes in Detroit and refused to concede… Despite Trump’s endorsement of her rival, Karamo’s victory in some ways signaled an even stronger recommitment to Trump as the state party’s north star: One of the biggest flourishes of applause from the crowd of more than 2,000 delegates came when Karamo reminded them of her refusal to concede the secretary of state’s race.”

Basically, the fractured party is wandering in the political wilderness, shedding— or purging— mainstream conservatives and embracing the idea of MAGA Christian nationalism. Peter Meijer: “In our state, this civil war is benefiting no one but the Democrats. Part of what the Republican Party in the state of Michigan needs to get back to is being a broad tent. To me, the fundamental challenge is, how do you rebuild trust in the state party after losses like we saw in November?” No one in his party was listening to him.

Both Karamo and DePerno had called for reinventing the party’s donor base to include more grass-roots supporters, a departure from recent history when Michigan Republicans had become reliant on prolific donors like Ron Weiser, the party’s departing chairman, and the powerful DeVos family. But the party’s financial reserves have dwindled.

Meshawn Maddock, the party’s departing co-chair, has attributed Republican losses in the state to the lack of support from longstanding donors, saying in a private briefing in November that big donors would rather “lose this whole state” than help the party’s candidates because they “hate” Trump, the Detroit News reported.

Both DePerno and Karamo were badly out-raised by their opponents in last year’s election, raising questions about their ability to mine cash from political donors.

“Donors have said, ‘we’re not buying the crazies that you’re selling,’” said Jeff Timmer, a senior adviser for the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump group, and a former Republican who previously served as executive director of the Michigan Republican Party.

Some current and former Republican leaders in the state have suggested that Betsy DeVos, Trump’s estranged former education secretary who raised the idea of using the 25th Amendment to have him removed from office after the Capitol riot, is pulling back from the state party.

The DeVos family did not marshal dollars for Karamo and DePerno last year, but it did pour $2.9 million into a super PAC supporting Tudor Dixon, a Trump-endorsed Republican who lost the governor’s race, according to campaign finance records, and it gave at least $1 million to Michigan Republicans during the most recent campaign cycle.

Last night, Isaac Arnsdorf put it like this: the chaotic party convention “left no doubt that the bulk of the party’s activists in this key battleground state remain firmly committed to election denial and showed no interest in moderating their message to appeal to the political center… In a Thursday speech to a right-wing ‘patriot’ group in nearby Charlotte, Karamo argued that Christianity belonged at the core of American politics, called evolution ‘one of the biggest frauds ever perpetuated on society,’ and asserted the existence of demons. ‘When we start talking about the spiritual reality of the demonic forces, it’s like, Oh, my God, this is crazy, we can’t go there,’ Karamo said. ‘No. It’s like, did you read the Bible? Didn’t Jesus perform exorcisms? … Scriptures are clear. And so if we’re not operating as though the spirit realities of the world exist, we’re going to fail every time.’… The outcome here Saturday underscores the stark reality confronting Republicans across the country: Months after general election voters across the country rejected extreme, election-denying candidates such as Karamo, DePerno and former Arizona gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake, many party activists remain enthralled by them. Some Republicans have voiced concern that this trend could set the party back at the ballot box in future races.”

In fact, Lake has all but declared she’s going to run for the Arizona Senate seat held by Kyrsten Sinema. “It is the stuff of Republican Party nightmares. For the part of the Republican Party that’s sick of losing, that is. There is Kari Lake, prancing around Washington, D.C., and meeting with the National Republican Senatorial Committee. There is Kari Lake, strutting across Iowa, complaining yet again that she was robbed and teasing the possibility of running for the U.S. Senate. There is Kari Lake, promoting a picture that claims to show her refusing to stand during a Super Bowl performance of the Black national anthem— a picture she, of course, parlayed into greater exposure on social media and right-wing websites. And there is Kari Lake, potentially poised to torpedo the Arizona Republican Party’s chance of reclaiming a Senate seat in 2024. ‘My expectation right now, left to its own devices, is history repeats itself,’ longtime political strategist Chuck Coughlin told me. ‘That they (Republican voters) will nominate another MAGA candidate who is incapable of winning a general election.’… Thus far, however, there appears to be no one on the horizon standing in her way.” That would work out really well for Ruben Gallego who, polling shows, would eviscerate Lake in a 3-way race or in a head to head matchup.