Close to two decades ago I decided the Republican Party was headed towards moral bankruptcy as Christofascists were foolishly voted onto positions on city and county committees with many existing members foolishly/cynically believing they could control the science denying, religious extremists, many of whom descended from segregationists. Time proved that the unwashed cavalierly voted onto these committees were beyond control and they cancer they represented has now spread across the Party and, perhaps belatedly, a majority of Americans are seemingly waking up to the reality of the incompetent, morally challenged horror show the GOP has become. I have long said that the GOP cannot be reformed from within - the members of the Lincoln Project seem to have come to a similar conclusion - and that only electoral disaster will force change on the Party. While Donald Trump has no doubt helped showcase the ugliness of today's GOP, the hopefully looming electoral debacle facing the GOP will impact many others in the Party who prostituted themselves to Trump and tossed aside the needs and wishes of the majority of Americans as they have pandered to Trump, white supremacists and religious extremists. A column in the Washington Post looks at signs the GOP may be about to reap what it has sown. Here are excerpts:
Republicans are in deep trouble. It is not simply President Trump’s atrocious national and state polling numbers. It is not merely the growing list of incumbent Senate Republicans facing difficult elections. (Five incumbents are in toss-up seats, according to the Cook Political Report; four are in the next-worst category of “Lean Republican.”) There are three new signs suggesting the Republicans’ grip on power is draining like sand out of an hourglass.
First, for all of Trump’s support among Republicans (not 94 percent as he claims, but generally in the high 80s), there is stunning evidence of what we suspected was underway in 2018. It is not so much that Republicans are abandoning Trump but that voters are abandoning the Republican Party, and now adding to the anti-Trump vote. Gallup reports:
Since January, Americans’ party preferences have shifted dramatically in the Democratic Party’s direction. What had been a two-percentage-point Republican advantage in U.S. party identification and leaning has become an 11-point Democratic advantage, . . . In June alone, there was a three-point increase in Democratic identification and leaning, and a corresponding five-point drop in Republican identification and leaning.
The flight from the GOP just in June, in the wake of the killing of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter protests, suggests millions of Americans may have decided it was unacceptable to identify as Republicans. The implications are ominous for Republicans up and down the ticket. Per Gallup: “Four months before Election Day, Democrats appear to be as strong politically now as they were in 2018 when they reclaimed the majority in the House of Representatives and gained seven governorships they previously did not hold,” . . . . “If the strong current Democratic positioning holds through Election Day, Democrats could build off those 2018 successes to possibly win the presidency and Senate in 2020.”
Second, without directly challenging Trump, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is abandoning Trump’s stances emphatically and quickly. Over the past few weeks, he has become a poster-boy for mask-wearing, bemoaning those who have politicized the issue. He is also caving on the next stimulus bill. . . . She [Nancy Pelosi] also noted that McConnell knows how to read the polls and that he listens to his members. The momentum is with Democrats, and he better hop on board — quickly.
Third, Republicans are panicking over money, as well they should. The Wall Street Journal reports: “Democratic candidates in the 11 most competitive Senate races collectively raised $67.3 million in the second quarter of the year, $20.5 million more than their Republican counterparts, according to fundraising reports filed Wednesday with the Federal Election Commission. The total includes two Republicans who gave almost $6.5 million to their own campaigns.” At least one Republican operative is living in the real world, telling the Journal, “We’re scared to death by what we see.”
The House picture is no brighter. ABC News reports, “House Democrats are outpacing their own previous fundraising records, bringing in nearly $40 million in the second quarter — a signal of both the party’s enthusiasm in the final stretch of the cycle ahead of November and the difficult road ahead for the GOP seeking to take back the majority.” What’s more, reliable third-party groups that normally give big money to Republicans have not been opening their wallets.
Former vice president Joe Biden (never known as a prodigious fundraiser) has been raking it in. The New York Times reports: “Mr. Biden’s campaign announced on Thursday that he entered July with $242 million in the bank, up from less than $60 million at the beginning of April. He still has less money than Mr. Trump, who reported $295 million, but the cash gap is suddenly far less daunting.”
To recap: The GOP is shrinking, Republicans are scrambling to get on the right side of stimulus, and the fundraising numbers indicate donors are figuring out the party will lose big. At some point, all of this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy — and a big blue wave.
Let's hope the trend continues and that the GOP suffers horrific electoral losses in November. It's the only way there will be a chance for a remaking of the Party that will include jettisoning white supremacists and evangelical extremists.
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