Blaming Trump for the poor showing in the Nov. 8 Midterms, the Republican Party has piled on 76-year-old President Donald Trump, completely missing the real reasons for the lack of results. Losing the Senate again, the GOP has little clout in the remaining two years of the Biden administration where it’s possible for Democrats to continue profligate spending that could send the country into a protracted recession. But when it comes to Trump, all the anti-Trump forces have come out of the woodwork, scapegoating Truth for the GOP’s turn to the extreme right. When Trump ran for president in 2016, ironically he was slammed by his GOP for being a “New York liberal” Today, Trump’s MAGA brand has morphed into the most extreme end of the GOP, culminating Jan. 6, 2021 with white nationalist groups aping out on the U.S. Capitol in utterly unsightly riots.
Republicans, Democrats and independents have “Trump fatigue,” no longer finding him electable, regardless of his four-year track record of low-inflation growth and peace overseas. Yet the U.S. press has it in for Trump, giving him zero credit for his many accomplishments in the economy and foreign policy. Today, 79-year-old President Joe Biden has opted to wreck decades of diplomacy with Russia and China, leaving the U.S. in the worst national security place since WW II. Unlike Trump, Biden, since taking office, has wrecked U.S.-Russian and U.S.-Chinese relations, to the point that the U.S. prosecutes in Ukraine a proxy war against the Russian Federation. Biden, for some unknown reason, has a consensus in Congress using the old anti-Russian claptrap, saying 70-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin is trying to take over Europe–complete rubbish to justify the Ukraine War.
Midterm elections sent a loud message to Republicans that the party has lurched too far to the right. When the Supreme Court ruled June 24 against Roe v. Wade, taking away a women’s medical decision-making, the GOP cheered, showing relief after living with Roe v. Wader for nearly 53 years. Republicans, especially the most conservative ones, got what they wanted, robbing a women of their medical rights. Democrats and the press like to blame newly minted conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court like Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, all Trump appointees. But Chief Justice John Roberts and justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Aliton all joined the 6-3 ruling. Exit polling for the Nov. 8 Midterms showed the youth voters under 40-years-old and single women turned completely off to the Republican Party, not for one election maybe forever.
Republican Party under the anti-abortion crowd has turned the part of Lincoln into an extremist political party, consumed with issues irrelevant to ordinary voters. While most voters want peace-and-prosperity, something not happening under Biden, the divided nation requires the GOP to show some sensitivity to mainstream thinking. Only 25% of the electorate opposes abortion, that leaves 75% that agreed with the basic principle of Roe v. Wade: That women have a Constitutional right to medical-decision making. Ripping away women’s rights was not the way for the GOP to win friends and influence people. Whether Trump announces his 2024 run Tuesday or not, the GOP has real problems going forward in any 2024 election. Democrats no longer need Biden to run in 2024. Any number of younger candidates, including Calif. Gov. Gavin Newsom, would beat any generic Republican candidate.
When it comes to Trump’s chosen candidates losing in the Nov. 8 Midterms, it’s unreasonable to blame Trump. Take 63-year-old former TV talk show host Mehmet Oz, he just didn’t persuade enough Pennsylvania voters that his brain damaged rival, 53-year-old John Fetterman was unfit. What does Trump have to do with any candidates’ ability to influence voters? Conservative media pundit Anne Coulter, 60, went ape on Trump, blaming him for the GOP mess. But Coulter and other conservatives don’t want to admit that the GOP is no a longer viable party for national elections. If you can’t appeal to young people or single women, what’s left for the party? Only appealing to the geriatric population? Trump, whether he likes it or not, falls into the same category as Sen. Mitch McConnelll (R-Ky.), aging leaders that needs to step aside so a new general of leaders can eventually rescue the party.
Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel needs to take a serious inventory of the GOP’s direction heading into 2024. Whether or not Trump’s in the picture, the GOP must appeal of young voters and single moms, not by gloating about the Supreme Court’s wrecking ball, ending Roe v. Wade. McDaniel must take seriously the very real prospect that that GOP, as configured today, is no longer competitive in national elections. Trump’s MAGA base only represents 25% of the electorate, not enough to win another presidential election. Republicans must start over by proving to voters that they’re not the party to take away women’s rights or any other rights for that matter. Partisan hacks, like Coulter, want to point fingers but they don’t want to take an honest inventory of the Republican Party. No party in U.S. history has celebrated its own self-destruction.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
