Posted on 11/16/2022 8:45:07 PM PST by AndyJackson
The midterm clusterfark has drawn plenty of hot takes and instant analyses that range from insightful to self-serving to unbelievably stupid. But now that we have gotten past the initial blasts of the flamethrower, perhaps we should take a breath and sit down, and think about where we are as a movement and what we need to do as a party for 2024. There’s a lot to talk about, from procedural questions like how we intend to cope with the new world of extended mail voting to substantive imperatives like how we must repeal the 19th Amendment as it applies to single, liberal women who vote for their Democrat Daddy in appalling numbers. We need to ask questions about candidate selection, money, issue choices, and a bunch of other stuff. And we need to answer the question of what to do about Donald J. Trump.
My DMs and texts and chats and super-secret Townhall VIP email (Join with promo code KURT for a discount!) exploded – I mean, they went the full Nagasaki – during the 24 hours after the election, and most of it was along the lines of “I am so done with Trump!” It was not just a few people, and it was not only on back channels (Twitter was alive with Trump-roasting). It was a lot of people, and most were pretty damn hardcore. These were not Never Trump sissies or establishment shills – those losers don’t get to talk to me. These were people who, unanimously, were grateful for what Trump did.
But while Trump, like many others – RINOs, pundits, us voters – own a hefty share of this Jeffrey Toobin Zoom call of an election night, it’s all a little too simple, a little too easy to think that we’re good to go if only Trump gets up and goes. Trump is not the GOP's only problem. It was out of touch with most voters before he took over – hell, that’s why he was able to take over. And the problems with the GOP that led to Trump will not be fixed even if Trump vanishes tomorrow.
But Trump presents problems and we need to face them. Before we go further, we need to be clear because some folks are a bit sensitive when the subject of the ex-president comes up. Get over it. He works for us. We owe Trump nothing. He’s a politician. He owes us. I don’t care if he resents his unfair 2020 defeat any more than I care when a teenager whines that something is unfair. Life is unfair. No one was more unfairly maligned than DJT – I wrote a book defending him against the barrage of lies he endured. But I expect politicians to get it done, every time and every day, with no excuses, and the operative question is always, always, “What have you done for me lately?”
If a politician wants a friend, he can buy a beagle, and if he demands a pass when he starts to fail to cut it, here’s a gold watch and a handshake, enjoy your retirement. Trump was a great president in many ways. The economy boomed. We were energy-independent. We were at peace. He got the Middle East to make peace. And the Supreme Court – no establishment guy would have stuck with Kavanaugh as Trump did. Someday some iconoclast historian is going to look back and say, “Damn, I can’t believe how much Trump accomplished in the face of the full-scale assault by the establishment.” He saved America, or at least put off our fall a little longer.
But let’s not minimize his failures in failing to win this last midterm, and they are failures and they are just more in a line of them. He postures as the head of the GOP, and congratulations, Don – that means you get the blame when stuff goes sideways just like you get the credit when you win. In 2018 we lost seats, a lot of them. He gets a big piece of that demerit. In 2020, he lost the election – yeah, I know about the rigging issues because I lawyered in the aftermath, but the fact is that Crusty O’Senile is in the Oval Office and Trump isn’t, so Trump lost. And in 2022, well, we are still mopping up that mess. No, it’s not all his fault, but some of the fault was his. He picked some candidates who either lost or ran far behind what they should have gotten. He collected a ton of money and then spent barely any of it. He injected dumb drama into the election by hinting that he would announce the night before, issuing stupid nicknames for Ron DeSantis while we were busy trying to win, and did not slack off even after the disappointing loss. His cringe insecurity about DeSantis – and he should be insecure – is embarrassing. All that stuff hurt us in the midterms. And his rumblings afterward about how great he did with his picks were tone-deaf and infuriating. He can be exhausting – I know because many people tell me they’re tired of Trump drama.
That’s a fact, like it or not.
But the idea going around that all we need to do to get our Republican mojo back is to banish Trump is demonstrably wrong. It’s too convenient, and it puts off the deep and searching personal inventory we need to do as a party to figure out how we can start to get the checks in the boxes that have Rs next to them >50% of the time again.
There are two types of people pushing the “Ditch Trump” agenda. The first is folks who have looked at the facts and evidence and believe that Trump does more harm than good. Trump motivates a lot of people who might not participate otherwise, but here’s the hard fact – a lot of people hate Trump and they will never vote for him or anyone with his stamp of approval. For him or one of his endorsees to win, he would need to win an overwhelming number of everyone else in the general election, and from his poor performance in the midterm, there’s no indication he can do that consistently. That’s a legitimate view and not some establishment plot. Paul Ryan, who is a tool, did not make suburban moms and their emasculated husbands hate Trump.
The other kind of people demanding Donald’s defenestration are people who never wanted him in the first place. They include Never Trumpers, who are at best unserious people, and worse, invertebrate traitors shrimping the toes of MSNBC bookers for the chance at a three-minute hit with Joy Reid babbling about “Muh Democracy.” But they also include the Swallow Hard Trumpers, the folks who did not want him but got on the team anyway when he won yet never reconciled fully to him. The idea that ditching DJT will fix all our problems is super-appealing to both groups because it is super convenient. This prescription for a revitalized Republican Party gets rid of their bête noir and allows them to say, “See, I was right all along.” And, of course, the unspoken assumption is that after he goes, these guys would assume their rightful place as leaders of the party. Or re-assume their place, as they are often the same people whose inept leadership created the need for a Donald Trump in the first place. It’s like the climate change commies – “Gee, how lucky we are that there’s this crisis that requires you to do everything we always wanted to do anyway and put us in charge, or else the polar bears will catch fire!” Dumping Donald does not necessarily solve conservatism’s problem, but it sure solves theirs.
Of course, two other groups love the idea of Donald Trump running in 2024. The Trump diehards love it. Some make very good points about why he should run. Again, Trump did some great things and if he is the nominee we should eagerly support him. Other folks are a bit too into him personally. Like Grateful Deadheads following the band from concert to kush-kissed concert, they attend his (often hilarious) rallies, space-dancing to his greatest hits. They never tire of his act, though seven-plus years after he came down that escalator, a lot of other people have. They cannot tolerate hearing criticisms of Trump, whether from enemies or allies. The next two years are going to be very long for them.
And then there are the Democrats. They love the idea of Trump 3.0 because they know how to beat him. They adore the idea of making this a fight over the remaining voters who might vote for him; they have already banked at least 45% of the electorate who never, ever will vote for him. That’s why you see the Twitter bots, those 22-follower accounts that have been repurposed from accusing us of loving Putin, swarming any conservative who dares criticize the ex-president. The Democrats want him to run. That could be a strategic error – it was in 2016. But they sure don’t think it will be in 2024.
The only question that matters to us conservatives is whether we are better off with Donald Trump as a candidate or whether we are not. While he has not said it, some people worry he might go third-party if denied the nod (I doubt this, not least of all because he would have to personally fund it and he is notoriously parsimonious). But some Trump diehards promise to sit out the election if their guy cannot win the primary – they often cannot imagine he can ever lose and attribute all of his failures to establishment conspiracies and cheating, though cheating is kind of baked-in by now and if Trump cannot overcome it in primary good luck doing it in the general. We need to decide whether we think the people threatening to take their ball and go home outnumber the people who might be gettable by a different Republican nominee.
The Godzilla to Trump’s King Kong is Ron DeSantis, who turned Florida red and annihilated the Democrat Party in the hanging chad state without Trump’s endorsement. One thing is clear from the desperation evident in the Trump Faction's so far puny attacks on Trump’s rival, like assertions that Heavy D is in a secret conspiracy with Jeb! and Mitch and Ryan and Trump-endorsed maybe-Speaker Kevin McCarthy to return us to the days of cruise ship conservatism because reasons. They are scared of RDS and want to kneecap him now. But the attacks on the popular gov are not getting the same gleeful response as hits like “Low-Energy” got when applied to fungi like Jeb! The difference is that conservatives like DeSantis and despise Jeb!
hould Trump run and remain the GOP standard-bearer? Note that the idea of him instead assuming some sort of kingmaker role has kind of dissipated in the wake of his midterm failure to make many kings. Let’s have a primary and decide! Right now, the polls say he is the number-one choice for Republicans. He should not be pushed out by poobahs and pundits but, instead, he should be vetted by the people. A primary sharpens the eventual winner while testing all the candidates. Trump has to answer some tough questions. What has he learned from his mistakes? Will he screw up personnel again? Does he intend to subject America to years more of Trump drama, and what makes him think voters want that again? What, exactly, is his plan to win key states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan in 2024 (It’s a fair question to ask DeSantis and any other aspirants too)? Here’s the thing – I do not see a clear path for Trump to get to 270 electoral votes in the general as of today, though that can change quickly, so that’s the big question he and every other candidate has got to answer because we cannot afford another term of these communist bastards wrecking our country.
Trump was always a prix fixe menu with no substitutions; you cannot have a Trump owning the libs without him also tweeting about Rosie O’Donnell. He saved our country in 2016. The idea that 2022 was all his fault is nonsense. It was only partly his. There were plenty of other malefactors and plenty of unrelated screw-ups that we need to identify and address in the next 24 months (particularly adapting to the new mail-in extended voting model). Trump should not be exiled by the establishment or the commentators just because a lot of the same people who never liked him anyway still want him gone. If he does not run, he should either bow out because he wants to bow out, or he should be tossed out by Republican primary voters at the ballot box. If he gets the GOP nomination, everyone should support him in the general. If you are a Nomination Denier, go subscribe to the Dispatch.
Trump will probably announce 2024 soon, and then we will see if his support is wide and deep or wide and shallow. But regardless, the GOP is going to have to answer the Trump question sooner rather than later.
Samuel Johson - "Read over your compositions and whenever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.
Samuel Johnson - A man who uses a great many words to express his meaning is like a bad marksman who, instead of aiming a single stone at an object, takes up a handful and throws at it in hopes he may hit.
The wastepaper basket is the writer's best friend." ~ Isaac Bashevis Singer
"Start by writing one true thing" Hemmingway.
Kurt has done a George Will on us, a once great writer and convincingly good conservative gone off the deep end. It's not Trump's fault, but we are tired of him, he serves us, and he needs to be gone so we can get on with muddling in the mire we are in without leadership and direction, without a steady hand keeping us on course. DeSantis is not yet that person, but bring him on.
The deep state used Ukraine to try to impeach Trump. that it was just a laundromat for taxpayer money was a conspiracy theory- but one that turned out to be true as the demise of FTX has shown.
Sure we want to get on with out future without the baggage, but our baggage isn't Trump, but the neo-cons and election fraud and a slowing economy weighted down by debt and the endless wars funded by debt.
I hope Kurt got it out of his system and rationality returns, but I worry about the man. He is showing symptoms of sudden onset late stage TDS.
And anyone who says otherwise is a conspiracy theorist election denier who should be strung up with the Jan 6 crowd you know the guys left standing after the fedbois took off their masks.
“But let’s not minimize his failures in failing to win this last midterm,”
He wasn’t on the ballot. How was it his job to win the midterm?
“and they are failures and they are just more in a line of them”
The vast majority of the candidates he supported won.
Trump reinvents himself constantly. The 2024 Trump will not be the 2022 Trump.
I’ll review this. TDS doesn’t help anybody.
PDJT is the one, and only one, unlike the GOPe UniParty RINOs to get things done.
For the record, I had this guy pegged as an opportunistic phony years ago. I assume anyone who touts his military experience in Kosovo in his biographical profile is nothing more than a globalist stooge. And he’s probably full of sh!t about that, too — because he has it named incorrectly on his own website (he says it was Operation Enduring Freedom, which was actually the military campaign in IRAQ, not Kosovo).
It’s an excellent article and raises some questions that need to be answered - calmly and rationally, without claiming that everyone who raises them is suffering from TDS.
You made his point for him by doing exactly what he said the Trump true-believers do: accuse everybody else of TDS.
He is actually just urging that people think rationally and ask reasonable questions about all their candidates, including Trump.
You do Trump no favors by attacking people who are actually not hostile to Trump but are merely asking the questions they would ask about any political candidate.
Trump is a politician like any other. As Schlichter says, at the end of the day you judge them only by how effective they are and what they can or will do for you now, not whether they do a cute little dance on stage.
That's where you're wrong: Donald Trump is anything but a politician - he doesn't carefully guard his words, he doesn't care about polls or focus groups and he doesn't fall apart when he is mindlessly attacked.
Everyone else out there, including the latest bright penny, DeSanctimonious, is a career politician who will tell exactly what you want to hear and then turn on you the instant they win the election.
Trump or no one.
When someone expresses TDS, they suffer from TDS. There is your grammar school lesson on politics.
Well said
This is the first time I have read Kurt’s stuff and been very disappointed. It’s a word salad piece. You don’t know what he is really thinking or hoping for, just that he doesn’t think Trump should run and we have better candidates. Yeah who? Ron DeSantis? If he runs he would just prove the Democrats were right about him and his wanting the White House more than the State House. He might even lose the Florida vote because we voted him in for keeping Florida free and not so he could run for President. Maybe Pompeo? He has no real following or energy. Chris Cristy? AH no. Who Kurt?
I have elderly family members in Florida who went door-to-door for Trump in 2015. They adored him. Now they cannot stand him for similar reasons as mine. He talks not of country, but of himself. I have resigned myself that we will not win the White House in 2024, but that's the price we must pay to excise Trump from our ranks.
THefactor, Wow what a dilettante and a true a$$hole you are. Style over substance? I wish I had your kind of bank account!! Then maybe I could afford such vanity.
We need Trump!!!
chgogal posted:
Which POTUS was as successful as Trump? Look at what Trump accomplished:
Who the heck can accomplish the above in four years while being impeached twice and investigated by Obama's Weaponized Agencies?
Thankfully this will get resolved in the Republican Primaries. A candidate gor President will be chosen.
At that point, FReepers will have a choice of sorts to make - support the candidate for the election or curtail postings that try to throw the candidate overboard. I’ve always respected site management for adhering to that principal.
Sounds like you have the same narcissistic traits yourself
If preferring to hear a coherent message for the future of the Country rather than constant whining about an election from two years ago makes me a narcissist in your eyes, then you may need an eye exam.
Evidently you didn’t listen to his speech. It’s about policy, not personality.
You are douche wad dilettante BS artist. You prefer style over substance. We know your type. Spit. Typical rich old RINO POS.
You can’t go home again. The 2016 coalition that elected Trump isn’t coming back. Another Trump World reality show travelling circus isn’t going to win new MAGA votes in 2024. It’s that simple, really. Some folks need to face this reality ASAP.
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