Posted on 11/15/2022 5:53:45 AM PST by Heartlander
Anyone who cares about the Republican Party needs to understand that the ongoing campaign to blame the midterms on Donald Trump and throw support behind Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for 2024 is a GOP establishment scheme to avoid responsibility for their own failures.
Forget about the Trump versus DeSantis question for a minute. Right now, the far more important and pressing task at hand is to hold Sen. Mitch McConnell, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, and other GOP leaders like Rep. Tom Emmer, the head of the National Republican Congressional Committee, and Ronna McDaniel, the Republican National Committee chair, accountable for their massive failures this election cycle.
Any time wasted speculating on the 2024 primary is time not spent talking about McConnell’s dereliction of duty as the leader of the GOP — not just his horrible funding decisions during the midterms but also the past two years of facilitating President Biden’s agenda.
As my colleague Tristan Justice argued in these pages last week, McConnell didn’t just prioritize his allies over winning a majority in the midterms, long before the cycle began he capitulated to Biden’s agenda, helping to raise the debt limit, pass a massive infrastructure package, and facilitate a CHIPS Act that benefits corrupt special interests. McConnell’s success in appointing federal judges is admirable and will stand as his legacy, but now that Democrats have secured a Senate majority that legacy might well be eclipsed by Sen. Chuck Schumer, who has proven just as adept as McConnell at confirming judges.
And then there’s McCarthy. As House Republicans meet this week to elect a new speaker, rumors are swirling about a plan among conservative members to derail McCarthy’s bid for the speakership. Good. It isn’t even clear at this point whether Republicans will win a majority, and if they do it will be razor-thin, narrower than Democrats’ current eight-seat majority. As minority leader, the lion’s share of blame falls on McCarthy, who should have come up with something better for Republicans to run on than his anodyne and uninspiring “commitment to America.”
But McConnell and McCarthy aren’t the only ones whose feet need to be held to the fire. The dust hadn’t even settled after Election Day when Emmer, a complete RINO from Minnesota who should be kicked out of the Republican Party altogether, launched his bid for House GOP whip, the third-highest ranking position in a Republican House majority. As head of the NRCC, it was Emmer’s job to ensure Republicans won House races, a task he miserably failed.
As Nate Hochman explained recently in National Review, Emmer, who has chaired the NRCC since 2019, “has already fallen far short in his position as chairman of the NRCC, and his shadow campaign for whip during the closing months of the campaign demonstrates a willingness to place his own interests over those of his caucus. He has not earned a promotion.”
If the disastrous midterm results weren’t by themselves enough to disqualify Emmer, his arrogant response to the outcome, that House Republicans should just be happy to be in the majority, should leave no question that he’s not only not the man for the job of majority whip, but he should also be fired from the NRCC.
Continuing the trend of Republicans who think they can fail upward, McDaniel, the RNC chairwoman and a close Trump ally, signaled Monday she plans to run for reelection as party chair, a post she would hold through the 2024 election. But what, in light of the midterm fiasco, has McDaniel done to deserve the post? Nothing.
When the RNC decides the chairmanship at its January meeting, it would be far better to give it to one of the few Republicans who surpassed expectations this cycle, like Rep. Lee Zeldin, whose strong bid for governor in New York did more to help down-ballot races and secure whatever slim House majority Republicans end up with. As columnist Robert George noted on Twitter, “Lee Zeldin had the most successful GOP gubernatorial result in 20 years. Even more remarkably, he had more coattails (as seen in House results) than the winning Democratic governor.”
Whatever happens, the manifest failures of Republican leaders shouldn’t go unpunished. At the very least, those whose job it was to win strong majorities in the House and Senate shouldn’t be promoted for botching it. As Sen. Marco Rubio tweeted Monday, a leadership vote in the Senate should be delayed “until we have a clear explanation for why our 2022 campaign efforts failed AND until we have a clear understanding of the political & policy direction for the GOP Senate moving forward.”
What Rubio is saying isn’t radical, by the way. It’s the bare minimum for any GOP senator right now, given what happened. As my colleague Mollie Hemingway noted, any Republican unable to say this should be primaried.
Now is not the time to get distracted. The 2024 primary fight will take care of itself, and it deserves attention only after there’s been a reckoning among Republican leaders over their failures in this cycle.
If not, we can expect the same class of weak GOP leaders to continue aiding and abetting Biden’s disastrous presidency, working hard to facilitate Democrats’ harmful agenda, and putting their own priorities ahead of Republican voters.
Stand up people. For Pete’s sake, burn this down and rebuild. Leave a few walls and those walls will fail. Burn it down and start over.
this I agree with, the Trump vs DeSantis issue will solve itself, getting rid of leadership can be done now and not wait for another election debacle.
I agree. Get rid of all the RINOs and democrats in disguise
But, as usual, the GOP leadership chose to be wishy-washy about the very disaster of the last two years. This should have been a no-brainer. IT'S THE ECONOMY, STUPID!
Arguing over Trump and LETTING the Dims and media make the mid-terms about Trump doomed all of us.
Ronna (Romney) McDaniel, Rick Scott, and Linseed Graham are the most to blame.
2 words
TERM LIMITS
Agreed, am getting sick of the anti-Trump trolls who were here all of the time last week.
I like to know how? The Dems, through the last several elections, have put their people in place to secure local races in certain states. Judges, SOS, state legislators are all set to make sure the Dems win what they want to win.
I see no way we will ever win a race that Mitch and Schumer haven’t agreed on.
HUGE DITTOS!!!!!!!
Burn it to the ground. Failure again, find and build foundation up. Never, ever give $ to GOP. ONLY to candidates. Bankrupt them, choke them out
“McCarthy and McConnell are the failures in this mid-term. Had their message”
McConnell having NO message was a topic on Mark Levin last night.
“Bickering About Trump Vs. DeSantis” is simply a diversion being pushed by MSM, RINOs and especially with the push of Pence on FOX and ABC special prime time interviews and Pence says “We killed a bear, but everyone knows that Trump pulled the trigger while Pence was hiding somewhere and being non-committable.
It’s not bickering. There are major and fundamental differences between Trump and DeSantis.
Yes the leadership sucks.
But to argue that this election and the one in 2020 was the result of anything but outright fraud and you’re just as bad as McCarthy and McConnell.
Florida took in the fraud, Arizona didn’t. Results speak for themselves.
You can get rid of all of them. And in I 1000000% believe we should. But they better be replaced with some legit folks. Not country club, Frat boy Republicans. That hasn’t and isn’t going to work anymore.
If the new Republican isn’t ready to get into an alley fight, they ain’t worth it.
MTG backing McCarthy is odd, don’t you think?
If there is, can somone on here, explain how mace defeated Arrington(?)?
It’s time to throw the GOP onto the scrap heap of history. For myself, I will no longer support that gaggle of gutless wonders for any office.
How can you have a party where the leadership (and i use that term loosely) hates the base? Tea Party, MAGA, whatever you want to call us, are done with those who continually sell us down the Socialist River.
Old America is hanging on by a thread.
I’m not so sure that they actually ‘failed’. It depends upon what they were trying to do. I’d say they were pretty successful in screwing the whole thing up...
I pretty much agree. If I don’t see a lot of new faces in leadership, I’m done with these guys.
At one time, you could stick with the Stupid Party because they were the lesser of two evils. But they have proven themselves to be as evil as the Baby-Killing Party, maybe more evil because of their deceit.
Never, ever give $ to the GOP. ONLY CANDIDATES.
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