From the start, smart Democrats spotted the GOP’s glass jaw in this midterm cycle, which I’ve described a number of times, including back in March, when the party’s Senate leader, Mitch McConnell, rightly blasted the Republican National Committee’s self-destructive decision to censure GOP representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for their service on the House January 6 committee:
In the post-Capitol riot world, Representative Cheney has been right that the Republican Party has to get Donald Trump out of its system, though wrong about how best to accomplish that end. The Trump presidency did a lot of good, but whatever useful qualities Trump may have provided the GOP — mainly, his zeal to fight the right enemies, often for the wrong reasons and less effectively over time — long ago ceased to be useful. Where Cheney had it wrong is that you can’t force a dedicated base of supporters — one whose leaders have more of a stake in Trump’s future than in the Republican Party’s — to do an instant volte-face just because you’ve had an epiphany and suddenly decided enough is enough.
Comments