And look what’s happening to them. Trump is backing primary challengers who have already said that they support the BIg Lie. IMHO, its not about party vs country. It about “What will get ME re-elected”. Party and country are a distant second and third.
I worry about this being the case as well. In my more pessimistic moments, I think that this current trend will continue until Trump is dead and his followers end up resorting to calling each other out for stealing elections, with the Trump base splitting up when they realize that their guy is now on the receiving end (by a different Trumpist) of the tactics they pioneered.
And the real “die hard Trumpers” know exactly who those officials are, and have been trying to get rid of them. 2020 was a good first effort, but it won’t be the last effort, and they have learned a lot of lessons from it.
Incumbent Republican governor Brian Kemp is eligible to seek a second term in office; he has announced that he will run for re-election. He is facing a primary challenge from former Senator David Perdue who was handpicked by Donald Trump after Kemp refused to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.[1]
Kemp was a Trump supporter, and spent years trying to rig elections in favor of the GOP, but none of that matters. He balked at just blatantly giving the election to Trump, and so he must go.
Kemp is probably the most prominent of such people, but he’s not the only one.
Hell, it’s already built into the Constitution, Black votes only count as 3/5ths of a white vote. Don’t tell me there’s no one who would make that argument.
I don’t think they’d be that blatant about it. But they don’t need to. GA has passed a law that allows a state official to investigate and take over a county election board in case of any “improprieties”. So if they do that in Fulton County prior to the next election, now a single state official has broad power to suppress votes in a heavily Democratic area.
So it wouldn’t be like “oh, we lost by 23,001, and coincidentally we invalidated that many.” More like “state officials took charge of Fulton County months before the election due to issues. Unfortunately the remedy required throwing out 40,000 suspicious votes from several blue precincts, but we followed procedure and the system worked!”
I believe Republicans would love to throw out as many blue precincts as they possibly can, but I also do believe they’re smart enough to bury their deeds in opaque procedure as much as possible.
I disagree.
Me, Me, Me is first, second, and third.
Party and country come in a distant 27th.
You know in a movie when a villain has some innocent person tied up, and they turn to a henchman and say, “Shoot them!” And the henchman aims the gun, their hand shakes, then they sigh and say, “I can’t do it boss.” And the villain nods and says, “Hand me the gun then, I’ll do it myself.” The henchman is relieved and shakily hands the gun to the villain, who promptly shoots the henchman in the head.
That’s basically how Trump has operated in this process.
Except for the part about Trump actually doing something.
He tends to go for the “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?” option. So far, he’s always found someone willing to be his fall guy.
The equivalent of Trump shooting the henchman in the head is when Trump badmouths that person and calls them a pariah. Trump certainly has an active role as a braggart mouthpiece. He’s not a sloth, at times he’s like a hyperactive toddler.
I’d say the equivalent of Trump shooting the henchman in the head would be if he fired the person directly. His "You’re fired! schtick to the contrary, he tends not to even do that himself. He farms it out to other people as much as possible.
The badmouthing is just how he lets other know who should be fired. It’s the least possible effort he can put into it. I suppose he could try dramatic sighs and eyerolling, but that would take to long for people to get the hint.
This. There is no list. Anything that doesn’t benefit Trump doesn’t matter in the least.
Sure, Trump thinks he’s the greatest man ever and it’s certainly in his self-interest to get nominated again.
But a lot of Republicans are going to be asking themselves if it’s in their self-interest. Like you said, they’ll be asking themselves “what will get me re-elected?”. And a lot of them might figure they’ll do better in 2024 if Abbott or DeSantis or Pence or Pompeo is the presidential nominee instead of Trump.
And of course, Abbott and DeSantis and Pence and Pompeo would all find it in their self-interest to be the nominee rather than Trump. And every one of them is more skilled at politics than Trump is.
The first question they will have to answer is, “What will get me renominated?” And the sine qua non of surviving a modern Republican primary is unswerving loyalty to Trump.
Yep, and then there’s the old rule, “The nail that sticks up gets hammered down.”
Which of these people do you think will be the first to publicly oppose Trump, under the current conditions? If they had the moral courage to risk their standing in the party, there have already been ample opportunities to show it, and they haven’t.
Counting on these poltroons to save the US is no different than just accepting the end of US democracy, at this point.
If Donnie doesn’t run, he’ll give a terse endorsement of the nominee. Then he’ll claim credit if the guy wins and blame him if he loses. If the GOP nominee wins, he’ll spend his term with the Sword of Damocles over his head. Any failure to be sufficiently deferential to the former guy will cause the rabid hounds of the base to be unleashed and his presidency will be doomed. And of course, there’ll be a price to pay for his endorsement. Cash is preferred, bitcoin accepted.
I still figure this was Trump’s plan for 2016.
The first question they will have to answer is, “What will get me renominated?” And the sine qua non of surviving a modern Republican primary is unswerving loyalty to Trump.
Exactly. While things may change, Trump holds sway over enough voters to scuttle the ambitions of anyone who publicly opposes or disagrees with him. I think it may actually benefit Dems if Trump runs and gets the nomination. The idea of four more years of Trump might motivate enough voters to send him packing, again. How sweet that would be. Some less Trumpy candidate would likely inspire yawns but not much more.
Unless it also sways them to vote against his anointed congressional candidates, that won’t really fix anything, alas.
They’re not that subtle. Like, in Trump’s Pennsylvania lawsuit, the proposed remedy was to throw out every single vote from the counties containing Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.
Trump isn’t that subtle, but not all Republicans are Trump. I’m sure they’ll analyze how and why Trump failed, and will adjust their strategy accordingly. They have 2-4 years to tweak their approach and coordinate it with Republican governors, legislatures, and secretaries of state. They’re well underway already.