You did, you did and you do.
Own this, Lindsey:
Even before yesterday’s methhead putsch, Politico reported that Republicans were turning on the Orange God-King like the hyenas turned on Scar at the end of The Lion King:
…when Democrat Raphael Warnock defeated Loeffler early on Wednesday — and with Democrat Jon Ossoff having a good chance of toppling Perdue — Republicans were quick to blame Trump.
“Trump is the cause of this, lock, stock and barrel,” said one Republican strategist. “But when you’re relying on someone to win you a Senate race that also lost statewide eight weeks prior, you’re not in a position of strength.”
The immediate recrimination is emblematic of the complicated GOP dynamics that have emerged after Trump’s loss in the November election. Fissures are forming as Republicans decide whether it's useful to cling to Trump — even as he tries to subvert an election — or to distance themselves. And if the Georgia races are any indication, it appears Republicans are willing to turn on Trump if he can’t reliably turn out the vote for candidates in the months and years ahead.
When asked why Republicans didn’t prevail on Tuesday, a senior Senate Republican aide simply said: “Donald J. Trump.”
[…]
“Turns out if the leader of a party spends two months actively delegitimizing elections and saying voting doesn’t matter, voters listen,” said a Republican who worked on the runoff races. “There was one decisive factor in Georgia and anyone who says otherwise is probably sharing substances with Lin Wood.”
Josh Holmes, former chief of staff and campaign manager to McConnell, pointed out how poorly Trump’s message had played in the Georgia suburbs.
“Suburbs, my friends, the suburbs,” Holmes tweeted. “I feel like a one trick pony but here we are again. We went from talking about jobs and the economy to QAnon election conspiracies in 4 short years and - as it turns out- they were listening!”
Trump’s closest allies pointed the finger right back at McConnell, arguing his decision to block the Trump-backed $2,000 Covid stimulus checks doomed the Georgia candidates.
Behind the scenes, Georgia Republicans were also frustrated that Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son and one of the GOP’s most popular surrogates, backed out of appearances in the state on the Sunday before the election. Perdue personally asked for Trump to reconsider, but Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) stepped in instead.
In the end, Republicans appeared gobsmacked at the emerging results in two Senate races that most believed favored the GOP at the outset.
“This should not be close. This should not be a conversation for us at this point,” said former RNC chairman Michael Steele on MSNBC. “We should be going for beers right about now because the evening would have been over. And the reality of it is, it's not, because of what this president has done to the Republican Party.”
In 1945, everyone in France had supported the resistance all along.
Republicans had so many chances to throw Donald Trump overboard. When it was clear that he had lost re-election, they could have told him to go away and based their Georgia run-off campaign on keeping control of the Senate and blocking Joe Biden’s radical socialist agenda!!!!!!!!! They could have made it clear that the people had spoken in November and that it was time for the GOP to move on from Trump.
And they didn’t do it. They indulged his every whim and fed his victimhood narrative. They knew he was unhinged and that his fantasies about election fraud were completely groundless, but they stuck with him anyway - the country be damned - for what, exactly?
Were they afraid of some mean tweets? Were they afraid that the hardest of the hardcore Trump base wouldn’t show up to vote on Tuesday? Because guess what: they didn’t show up to vote on Tuesday:
The President ran ads over the past week telling Republicans that the Georgia election was stolen. He came in the night before the election and spent most of his time attacking the GOP. He too helped suppress the vote. His voters did not vote. Yes, the President deserves some blame here.
The Georgia congressional delegation also told everyone Georgia and its Republican Secretary of State were collaborating with Democrats to steal the vote. So Trump voters did not show up. They took the my way or the highway approach. The area of state that saw the GOP mostly like to stay home is the area of the state with the QAnon Congresswoman who has vocally complained the election was stolen and everything is rigged.
It really was amazing.
As polls closed and votes started pouring in, I started getting messages from Republicans across Georgia. “The numbers are not where the models are,” was a common refrain.
The GOP estimated a Republican turnout that did not show up. Again, and this is crucially important, the Republican voters did not show up while Democrats did. The area of North Georgia where Donald Trump went on Monday night turned out at a lower rate than the rest of the state. That area also has a QAnon Congresswoman now who very vocally has been claiming the Democrats were stealing the election.
“The Republican Party is going to have to find a way for a Trump and non-Trump right-of-center coalition to survive,” writes Erick Erickson. No, Erick: there are no “coalitions” with Trump. You are all in for Trump or you are his sworn enemy. Trump supporters in the Republican Party are like the Skittles in this racist, fearmongering meme his kids were spreading during the 2016 campaign:
Mitt Romney voted to remove Trump from office during the impeachment process. I’ll give him points for that. Every other elected Republican should be forced to wear this embarrassment for the rest of their lives.
It wasn’t that long ago that many Democrats, not to mention very online progressives, had pretty much written off the Peach State.
In 2016, Georgians voted for Trump. In 2018, Georgia elected a Republican Governor by the narrowest of margins, and very possibly because of voter suppression. In 2019, people were calling for a boycott of the state after it passed a restrictive abortion law. (Disney threatened to stop making movies in Georgia. They had no qualms about making movies in Xinjiang. But that’s another rant for another day.)
In 2020 Georgians voted to reject Trump. And in 2021 they elected two Democratic Senators, one of whom is the pastor at Dr. Martin Luther King’s church.
The United States has had a rough few years, and today feels like rock bottom. President-Elect Biden has a lot of hard work ahead in regaining the world’s trust. But amidst the gloom there is still light.
Politico tonight: “Nearly half of Republican voters — 45 percent — approved of the storming of the Capitol, according to a YouGov poll . And while Washington devolved into chaos, tensions were flaring at state capitols from coast to coast, with precautionary building closings, evacuations and protests.” (https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/07/trumps-grip-on-gop-grassroots-456062?nname=politico-nightly&nid=00000170-c000-da87-af78-e185fa700000&nrid=00000170-6a29-dbf6-a97a-6ffd68970000&nlid=2670445)
Sorry Damian, but the light that you see coming is a Chinese lantern.