Where Fools Rush In
“…Take my hand
Take my whole life too
For I can't help falling in love with you…” – Elvis Presley – “Can’t Help Falling in Love”
So Spencer Bokat-Lindell in The New York Times wonders why the Republican Party can’t give up on the former guy.
In a piece entitled “Why Can’t the Republican Party Quit Donald Trump?”, Spencer tries to figure out why the Repubs are still enamored with the loser former guy.
Usually when a party loses so spectacularly, as the Republicans did in 2020, they undertake an “autopsy” and try to figure out what went wrong. But this time around the Republicans did not do any such thing.
Spencer spends a lot of words trying to figure out why the Repubs are still in love with 45. I’ll make it easy for you Spencer.
It’s the media. I’m looking at you MSNBC and CNN.
The media won’t let him go. Both cable and print are in love with him and can’t find a way to quit him. He’s on the news cablecasts and in web stories every day. No matter if he makes real news, like his business being under criminal investigation, or their speculation about whether he’ll be extradited from Florida to another state if he’s indicted.
All of it is way more coverage than he deserves.
But according to Spencer in The New York Times, these are not the reasons for the Repubs’ love for him. They’re incapable of “moving forward” without him. He’s still the head of the party. They are embracing his “pugilistic” style.
Then Spencer really steps in it.
“For one thing, Trump is still a force in the party: Anyone who discusses his shortcomings in the open risks provoking his ire and a primary challenge,” he writes. “For another, despite presiding over a pandemic-induced recession, the Republican Party almost won the White House in 2020: If Trump had done only about one percentage point better in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and about three points better in Michigan, Joe Biden wouldn’t be president.”
Come again? He almost won?
Sure. And if the Queen of England was born a man she would be the king.
Trump didn’t almost win. By that logic you could say he almost didn’t lose. But he’s not almost a winner. He’s a loser. When you come in second in a two man race you’re not the winner. Not almost. You’re just not. You’re the loser.
And the only reason he’s still a force in the party is because he’s a bully and chicken-shit Republicans are afraid of him. God knows why.
Spencer obviously got some of his points from Perry Bacon Jr., writing in Five Thirty Eight, “Why The Republican Party Isn’t Rebranding After 2020.”
Bacon also make the points that the former guy is still a “force” in the party. Yet no one has so far been able to cogently explain just why he still wields so much power, given that he’s such a big loser.
Maybe it’s because the Republican Party gained some ground in Congress and locally in 2020. This is where the “Trump almost won” bullshit comes from.
Everyone keeps making the argument – including Bacon – that Trump is still a “force” because if any politician crosses him, he’ll get mad and primary them. But they have yet to put forth a cogent argument for it.
“Everyone in the GOP knows that irritating Trump could result in the former president attacking them, which would make them vulnerable to a primary challenge, with conservative activists likely backing their opponent,” Bacon writes.
It’s not that Republicans are afraid of being primaried, per se. They know they can’t win on the arguments and their policies because they don’t have any good arguments for being in power and they don’t have any policy positions. Their only policy is cut taxes for the rich. That’s it.
They can’t win by actually running a good, solid campaign because they don’t know how to. All they know is lying, cheating, gerrymandering and hoping their constituents won’t care or notice.
But, as Bacon rightly concludes, there’s three years to go before the next Presidential election. And in that time anything can happen. The former guy may be in jail for all we know, so he won’t be able to run anyway.
For now he’s still the king to most Republicans. But three years is a long time.
Let’s hope the media decides to treat him as what he really is. A failed, losing politician who is a historical curiosity and not a political elder statesman with some sage advice for his party.
I’m not going to hold my breath though.