Mini-Trumps Are a Midterm Disaster

As always, despite his intensifying legal problems, Donald Trump's primary focus is on supporting those who give him unquestioning loyalty and who are willing to prostitute themselves to constantly stroke his malignant narcissist ego.  The result is that a number of Trump endorsed candidates won their primaries but given their lunacy are increasingly likely to lose their general election contests.  The situation has been made even worse by the Dobbs ruling of the Supreme Court now dominated by the religious extremists appoited by Trump and rubber stamped by the then GOP controlled U.S. Senate which is breathing new life into Democrat chances of reducing losses in both the House of Representatives and provided an opening to gain seats in the U.S. Senate.  The MAGA cultists living in their Fox News bubble remain blind to the reality that a larger number of American's hate Trump and his mini-me candidates.  One can only hope that these insane and/or racist and religiously extreme  candidates go down to defeat in November.   A piece in The Atlantic looks at the growing chances for a GOP debacle in the Senate races.  Here are highlights:

Donald Trump may no longer have the death grip on the GOP that he had while in office, but when it comes to the party’s base, his power remains unmatched. Nowhere has Trump’s sway been clearer than in the success of his GOP Senate endorsements: Eight out of nine Trump-handpicked candidates in competitive races have won their primaries.

Alas, the former president has crafted a slate of Senate hopefuls that each reflect some aspect of Trump back to their Dr. Frankenstein—and to everyone else. Mehmet Oz, J. D. Vance, and Herschel Walker are all, like Trump, semi-celebrities. Both Walker and Oz have their own histories of making sketchy business-related claims, while Vance—who was, up until the past few years, a Never Trumper—has proved he shares Trump’s mercenary willingness to shift allegiances to get elected. Then there’s Blake Masters, who, like Trump, has gone on the record with a wildly racist claim.

Trump and his Senate picks also share the same electoral liability. The nationalistic rhetoric that delights Trump’s base—which, at this point, is also the base of the Republican Party—turns off the people you need to win elections in tighter races. That is, everyone else.

Republicans can’t win purple states merely as mini-Trumps. The GOP establishment knows this; in purple state Virginia, Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin strenuously avoided campaigning with the former president. Trump’s purple state Senate candidates like Ron Johnson and Adam Laxalt, in addition to Oz, Vance, Masters, and Walker, are beginning to figure out for themselves that going full MAGA spooks the electorate. But the bigger problem these candidates have is that they are just terrible candidates—a reality that’s only becoming more obvious as the campaign season continues.

Oz might be the perfect case in point. Once a reasonably likable, if medically unreliable, television celebrity, the Pennsylvania Senate candidate has ended up looking pretentious, spiteful, and petty under the scrutiny of campaign coverage. His campaign has been a parade of gaffes. .  . . even Trump seems to have lost faith in Oz, reportedly lamenting, according to two sources that spoke with Rolling Stone, that the TV doctor was going to “fucking lose” his race. Oz is polling on average around 10 points below Fetterman, according to FiveThirtyEight.)  

The sorry outlook for Trump’s Senate candidates has not escaped the notice of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who reportedly said in an event last week, “I think there’s probably a greater likelihood the House flips than the Senate. Senate races are just different, they’re statewide, candidate quality has a lot to do with the outcome.” While McConnell didn’t specify by name which candidates he found lacking, many read between the lines . . . . it’s clear McConnell’s criticism hit a nerve. Last night, Trump released another anti-McConnell statement, saying, “Mitch McConnell is not an Opposition Leader, he is a pawn for the Democrats to get whatever they want.”  

In the remaining weeks leading up to November 8, Republicans are hoping a last-minute infusion of cash manages to obscure their candidates’ terribleness. And maybe it will. . . . . But I’m not convinced that money can solve an electability problem. The problem with a party being ruled by one figure is that, sooner or later, every vote tends to become a referendum on that one person, who in this case happens to repulse more people than he inspires. And Trump would rather burn the GOP to the ground than surrender his control over it.