Trump And GOP Lies May Tank Georgia Senate Races

Former Republican and one time Republican apologist David Brooks has a column in the New York Times entitled "The Rotting of the Republican Mind" which looks at the GOP's detachment from reality and the willingness of much of the GOP base - especially Trump cultists - to believe the most insane conspiracy theories, many of which are fanned by Der Trumpenfuhrer himself.  The biggest lie, of course is that the election was "stolen" from Trump and in Georgia that there was an elaborate conspiracy where by the Dominion Voting System equipment changed votes from Republican to Democrat.  Never mind that a hand count of the votes found zero evidence of any vote changing. Now, thankfully, the insanity and intra-party war in the Georgia GOP may help hand the runoff elections to Democrats if Trump cultists boycott the election. A piece in the Washington Post looks at the rampant insanity sweeping the Georgia GOP.  Here are article highlights:

Sen. David Perdue was encouraging a crowd at a gun club south of Atlanta to support him and fellow Republican Kelly Loeffler in their bids for Georgia's Senate seats, which he called the only thing standing between America and "a radical socialist agenda."

But five minutes into the senator's speech, a man interrupted. “What are you doing to help Donald Trump and this fraud case?” the man screamed, as one woman said “Amen” and the crowd applauded. “What are you doing to stop what’s been going on here and this election fraud?”

The Republican candidates in Georgia’s dual Senate runoff campaign are navigating a highly unusual political labyrinth — caught in the middle of an intraparty war that has erupted since President Trump narrowly lost the state to President-elect Joe Biden and has turned his fire on the Republican leadership there.

The infighting now threatens to turn off the very Republican voters Perdue and Loeffler need to stave off challenges from their Democratic rivals, Jon Ossoff and the Rev. Raphael Warnock.

Trump and his allies have repeatedly, and falsely, accused Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Gov. Brian Kemp, both Republicans, of presiding over a fraudulent election. Trump has pushed the baseless claim that the Dominion Voting Systems machines used in Georgia were rigged as part of a global conspiracy, and Perdue and Loeffler have called for Raffensperger’s resignation.

But therein lies the conundrum: Perdue and Loeffler are traveling the state pleading with Republican voters to turn out on Jan. 5 — effectively asking Trump supporters to put their faith in the same voting system their president claims was manipulated to engineer his defeat.

“There are folks that didn’t come out to vote necessarily Republican, they came out to vote for Donald Trump. I think it’s imperative that [Perdue and Loeffler] do get the Trump voters back. I think it remains to be seen whether they actually come back.”

Complicating the senators’ pitch is the call by some Trump advocates for voters to protest the balloting system in ways that some GOP strategists fear will effectively result in support for the Democrats.

One prominent Trump ally, Atlanta attorney Lin Wood, who unsuccessfully sued Georgia election officials to stop the certification of the vote, has urged Republican voters not to vote in elections with Dominion machines.

Wood has attacked Perdue and Loeffler for not doing enough to help, and he told his 631,000 Twitter followers last weekend that if the senators don’t step up their support, he would take a pass on Jan. 5.

Raffensperger, among the most outspoken who have said such talk will hurt Loeffler’s and Perdue’s chances, expressed exasperation at Wood’s comments. After all, a statewide audit of the presidential result, in which every ballot was recounted by hand, disproved the claims about the voting machines. . . . People need to get a grip on reality.”

Nonetheless, support for the claims being spread by Trump and his supporters is clearly strong in the state’s GOP base.  Hundreds of people attended “Stop the Steal” protests outside the Georgia Capitol and governor’s mansion Saturday.

And the state Republican chairman, David Shafer, has echoed questions about the state’s voting system. He signed a letter along with the state party executive committee demanding fresh scrutiny of signature verification on mail-in ballots.  No evidence has surfaced that ballots with nonmatching signatures were counted.

The Perdue and Loeffler campaigns did not respond to requests for comment. Perdue has privately pointed to the challenges of campaigning in the Trump era and the potential benefit of running now without the president on the ticket. . . . . the runoff is about getting “enough conservative Republicans out to vote” who might have opposed the president’s reelection. Details of the call were shared with The Post by a person who provided a precise account of the discussion.

“I’m talking about people that may have voted for Biden but now may come back and vote for us because there was an anti-Trump vote in Georgia,” Perdue said. “And we think some of those people, particularly in the suburbs, may come back to us. And I’m hopeful of that.”

[M]any Republicans remain concerned that the public hostility within the party — as well as efforts to foment distrust of voting — pose serious threats to Loeffler and Perdue.

And those tensions do not appear to be going away. Trump, for his part, has continued to push as recently as Wednesday the unfounded claims about Georgia’s voting machines.

Raffensperger hasn’t shied away from the divisions, either. His tenor hardened after Loeffler and Perdue called for his resignation — and after death threats began filtering in through social media to him and his wife.

“If Republicans don’t start condemning this stuff, then I think they’re really complicit in it,” Raffensperger said in the interview. “It’s time to stand up and be counted. Are you going to stand for righteousness? Are you going to stand for integrity? Or are you going to stand for the wild mob? You wanted to condemn the wild mob when it was on the left side. What are you going to do when it’s on our side?”

Let's hope the infighting and lunacy continue to the detriment of Perdue and Loeffler.