Blabbing about the state of the Republicans

Politics & Elections
1

On the one hand, I fault Donald Trump for a lot of lost sleep worrying about coup d’etats since the Nov election. On the other hand, he’s done an admirable job of arranging the Republican Party into one of those circular firing squads more typical of Democrats.

I hope the Larry Hogan / Susan Collins / Lisa Murkowski pubbies seize the upper hand in the all-Republican cage match. But I also hope the whole party is injured for a generation. They brought it on themselves. There was at time when I thought Susan Collins or her colleague Olympia Snowe would lead the Republicans to a new age. Snowe retired and Collins sold out. I think there are decent conservative ideals in the abstract that the Republican Party that once was had a decent claim to. But honestly I can’t think of a single solitary thing that the modern Republican Party embraces that I don’t push away.

2

They don’t have the votes to emerge victorious in any kind of Republican civil war. It wouldn’t even be close. Any non-incumbents from that branch of the party would probably have the support of something like 10 -15 percent of the voters in red districts and states. Their only chance is to be nominated in a blue district or state and hope they run up against a weak Democrat.