President Trump is torching his own party and its leaders on his way out of power — and tossing gas on the fire with a public call for mass protest next week and a vote to overturn his defeat.
Why it matters: Trump is demanding Republicans fully and unequivocally embrace him — or face his wrath. This is self-inflicted, self-focused — and dangerous for a Republican Party clinging to waning Washington power.
Look at Trump just this week:
He’s trying to burn down the party’s chances in Tuesday’s Georgia runoffs, raising doubts for Republican voters by tweeting yesterday that the state’s elections are “both illegal and invalid, and that would include the two current Senatorial Elections.”
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He’s trying to burn down Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who congratulated President-elect Biden on his victory. Trump has falsely claimed credit for McConnell’s landslide reelection.
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The big picture: A united Republican Party could have claimed victory for outperforming expectations in House and Senate races, making inroads with Hispanics and delivering stimulus checks. Instead, the GOP is debating an implausible decertification of a presidential election.
And I say, good luck to him! I hope when he’s done, the Repuglicking party is a smoldering pile of ashes.
Yup. I’m moderate leaning left. They could have had John Kasich whom I may have voted for. But no, they voted a vindictive moronic child into the White House.
And now, they want to keep the child in charge because they are worried that the toddlers that voted for him will be upset if he is rightfully removed by people that can think.
It’s not really dangerous to the Republican party, though; it’s dangerous to American democracy and it’s dangerous to those who believe that democracy and self-rule is a competition in the marketplace of ideas.
In that marketplace, there is a space for Trump’s “burn it down” politics – that is what’s really becoming quite apparent. And that space will grow the more he burns it down, and from that, there will be those who promise to not just burn it down, but make the ground itself radioactive.
That’s what is really happening here. People are talking about the death of the republican party and how Trump is killing it off – no, he killed it off in 2015-16, and continued killing it off in the years that followed. What’s happening now is a transition from the republican party as one of two parties participating in a political marketplace competition of ideas, to a new type of party that promises to destroy that marketplace, and promises to kill off that competition.
Are they really, though? Or is this just a meme they’d like us to buy into?
I notice they have zero difficulty defying him when they choose to, like over the Defense Authorization Act or increasing stimulus checks to $2,000. They’ve told him no for quite a number of his proposed cabinet appointees over the past 4 years.
I guess if the choice is to be looked upon as a coward or as a scheming, conniving piece of shit willing to betray your country, ‘coward’ looks pretty good.
Individual 1 orchestrated a phone call with the Secretary of State of Georgia alternately cajoling, sweet talking, and threatening him to produce enough votes to give the state to Individual 1. This article is long and goes into great detail, so obviously somebody on the call leaked it. I particularly like that it was the Secretary who eventually ended the call.