Voter Rejection Of The Republican Party Will Be Massive-- But How Massive?

 

I've been writing a lot about Trump's electoral toxicity and how his defeat is going to crash the Republican Party-- losing them the Senate, dozens more House seats and even more dozens of state legislative seats, including flipped chambers. But how do we know? I mean it makes sense that what we see coming is an anti-red tsunami not just an anti-Trump tsunami and that voters are going to take out his enablers as well as him. You see it among the Lincoln Project GOP elites for example, where they are churning out anti-Trump ads and ads aimed at vulnerable Republican senators who have made it possible for Trump to go on a 4 year rampage of destruction. Like the Lindsey Graham one below or this one, not even released yet, for Alaskans





A little tangent: Billy Ray's docu-drama, The Comey Rule. There's no breaking news and nothing we don't already know. But Brendan Gleeson's Trump is nothing like the comedy version Trumps we see from Alec Baldwin, John Di Domenico and J-L Cauvin. Gleeson's Trump uses a repulsively ugly exterior to give insight into an even more repulsive and more ugly interior. If you haven't seen it, you really should, particularly the second episode, which is the Trump episode. Billy Ray portrays Trump as a demented, self-obsessed, psychologically impaired Mafia boss.

In a lengthy Politico essay over the weekend, Fed Up in Flyover Country, Anna Gronewold wrote that growing antipathy for Trump among people who voted for him in 2016 "isn’t necessarily about a policy or a broken promise, it’s about Trump as a person. Trump’s bare-knuckled personality-- which was on full display at the Tuesday debate-- has been his calling card. He has said things that no one else dares, and his base loves him for it. But for this group of former supporters, Trump’s personality has become his biggest liability." She wrote how some of them, actual Nebraska conservatives (not neo-fascists who crave authoritarianism, Trump's actual base) believe "that their highest elected official must display a sense of decorum worthy of the White House. Very simply, Trump offends a deeply ingrained culture of politeness and compromise that, until recently, earned Cornhuskers the very vanilla tourism slogan 'Nebraska Nice.' They are generally not on the news screaming at protesters, waving confederate flags or brandishing firearms wildly. At its core, Nebraska Nice isn’t so much a syrupy sweetness but rather a shared aversion to petty and therefore unproductive conflict... Progressive Democrats on the coasts might expect a break with the president to be driven by disagreements over Trump administration policies that have enraged and animated their own opposition-- immigration, climate change, for example. But the discrepancy-- between a culture of polite coolness and a president who tweets out political punches all day in all caps-- is more rooted in the foundational moral principles of a state where more than half of adult residents rank as 'highly religious' and many adhere to an ethic of commonsense collaboration that persists, in part, due to a collective memory from when their forebears worked together to survive harsh Great Plains winters."





National Journal reporter Josh Kraushaar-- 100% conservative establishment-- wondered about the same question when he sat down to write The October of Doom for Republicans yesterday. First the easy part: how Trump is going down hard: "Arrogance and ignorance are a toxic combination in politics. This week’s case study: The Trump administration’s inability to showcase basic competence and prudence in the middle of a pandemic has crippled the president’s already hobbled campaign, as time for a miraculous turnaround is expiring. President Trump, 74, is now hospitalized at Walter Reed Medical Center with coronavirus, taking a cocktail of therapeutic medicines in hopes of avoiding a worst-case outcome. He will be quarantined from the campaign trail for at least two weeks, serving as a real-life example of the consequences of shamelessly flouting the best medical and public-health guidance from his own government. Worse yet, he’s endangered the health of his colleagues and closest supporters, including well-heeled donors who gathered with him at an exclusive New Jersey fundraiser Thursday, even as he knew he had been exposed to the coronavirus. In a way, the immediate political implications will be inconsequential. Already trailing Joe Biden badly in the polls, it’s downright implausible that Trump will win any persuadable voters after this week of recklessness. Remember: The week began with news of Trump’s tax avoidance, and nearly ended with controversy over his unwillingness to forthrightly condemn white supremacism. Sandwiched in between was an embarrassing, self-destructive debate performance. Then coronavirus came to the White House."

Will the bottom fall out for Republicans, as it did in polling over the summer as he proved himself unable to control the pandemic? That’s a known unknown, complicated by the uncertainty of the president’s long-term prognosis. It’s possible that Trump could benefit from some obligatory bipartisan sympathy as he recovers from his illness. But for a campaign that isn’t planning to stop its negative attack ads during this national moment of crisis-- even as the Biden campaign stood down, showcasing some much-needed empathy-- it’s hard to see any groundswell of support boosting the incumbent.

Transfer of Power by Nancy Ohanian

Here’s the reality: The closing theme of the campaign, whatever remains of it, will be centered squarely on the pandemic. That’s one of Trump’s weakest issues, according to public polling, and he will be living proof of his vulnerabilities on that front. Republicans will presumably rush to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett before the election even though at least three more GOP senators have contracted coronavirus. That will make the proceedings look even more partisan... One Trump adviser told National Journal that the president’s allies are now desperately looking for scraps of encouraging political news-- like latching onto an outlier poll showing the race within 3 points-- to build a safe space against the doom-and-gloom reality.

Democrats now need to just get out of their own way. The Biden campaign’s exhortation for staff not to express any candid thoughts on social media is a good summation of what ails the opposition. Just like Biden and running mate Kamala Harris didn’t want to answer whether they support packing the Supreme Court, the campaign doesn’t want the world knowing what their staffers’ true feelings are about the present crisis. It’s a reminder of how the scourge of social media-- not everything that you think needs to be shared!-- is more of a curse than a blessing, even in more-normal political times. But it’s also why Biden has been the ideal Democratic candidate for this unique moment. The famously impulsive politician has become, thanks to his old-school nature, resistant to the ideological fads and Twitter-driven insanity that plague so much of our politics right now.

Despite all the chaos, the trajectory of the race is unlikely to change significantly in the final few weeks. The biggest consequence of the October of Doom will be that it’s getting even tougher for battleground-state Senate Republicans who have latched themselves to Trump to sound like credible messengers in this moment of crisis. Senate Republicans have a path to maintain a narrow majority, but a worst-case outlook where they lose most of the competitive races is now looking more plausible.

Sign of the times: In the bellwether North Carolina race that may determine the Senate majority, Sen. Thom Tillis tested positive for coronavirus on Friday and Democratic opponent Cal Cunningham admitted to an extramarital affair later the same day. Pick your poison in November.