MAGA Mike Is Failing Badly-- But It's Trump Who's Leading The GOP To A Goldwater Electoral Disaster

His mother

Yesterday, Jake Sherman, John Bresnahan and Mica Soellner started the news day by noting that they’d seen fits and starts, crashes and burns and our fair share of missteps by House GOP leaders through the years. But what we’re now witnessing with Speaker Mike Johnson’s House defies definition.” Yeah, MAGA Mike is making McCarthy look good— and that’s mind-boggling. The Punchbowl trio were all bent out of shape at the failure to impeach Mayorkas but the GOP will reintroduce it and pass it and give Marjorie Traitor Greene, an impeachment manager, a chance to goober to the Senate and make a fool out of herself— along with Andrew Garbarino (R-NY) and the rest.

I’m more interested is how MAGA Mike and AIPAC managed to lose the vote on $17 billion in aid to Israel, part of what Sherman, Bresnahan and Soellner termed “truly one of the most embarrassing days in recent House GOP history. (Charlie Sykes called it a perfect storm of GOP dysfunction.) “Regardless of what one thinks of the merits of either effort, losing back-to-back votes shows a House Republican legislative process that isn’t optimized for winning. GOP leaders can reverse both defeats, but the damage to their reputation is immense. Inside Johnson’s leadership circle, there are plenty who doubt his decision-making capability while being forced to begrudgingly execute his questionable strategies. And among rank-and-file House GOP lawmakers, there are a lot of people scratching their heads about where he’s leading them.”

The decision to hold the Israel aid vote right after that is truly befuddling. Because of the [fascist] bent of the House Rules Committee, Republican leaders are forced to consider nearly everything under suspension of the rules, meaning a two-thirds majority for passage.

After the House Democratic leadership and the White House made clear they were opposed to the bill, Johnson’s leadership team went forward with the vote despite knowing it would fail. Republicans spun the narrative that Democrats defeated it— and they did, a decision that some Democrats called into question.

But pro-Israel groups privately questioned the wisdom of creating the optics of the House divided over helping Israel during what the GOP describes as an existential war. All of this while the Israeli Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana is on the Hill this week.

…[T]he Republicans’ tight margins and internal policy splits create an absolutely ungovernable climate.

The Israel bill needed 2/3 to pass… and that wasn’t going to happen with Biden and Jeffries saying no, not to MAGA Mike but to the increasingly detested AIPAC scumbags. 204 Republicans and 46 AIPAC-Dems voted for it, while 166 Democrats and 14 GOP anti-Semites voted against it. First the GOP anti-Semites:

• Aaron Bean (R-FL)

• Andy Biggs (R-AZ)

• Lauren Boebert (R-CO)

• Andrew Clyde (R-GA)

• Eli Crane (R-AZ)

• Warren Davidson (R-OH)

• Matt Gaetz (R-FL)

• Bob Good (R-VA)

• Paul Gosar (R-AZ)

• Marjorie Traitor Greene (R-GA)

• Thomas Massie (R-KY)

• Cory Mills (R-FL)

• Ralph Norman (R-SC)

• Chip Roy (R-TX)

I won’t list them all, but the 20 worst of the AIPAC-Dems, who made common cause with MAGA Mike and his conference, are (in order of worstness— this took me hours to determine— rather than alphabetically):

• Josh Gottheimer (NJ)

• Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL)

• Jared Moskowitz (FL)

• Brad Sherman (CA)

• Ritchie Torres (NY)

• Daniel Goldman (NY)

• Brad Schneider (IL)

• Rob Menendez (NJ)

• Lois Frankel (FL)

• Jared Golden (ME)

• Haley Stevens (MI)

• Susie Lee (NV)

• Don Davis (NC)

• Greg Landseman (OH)

• Darren Soto (FL)

• Henry Cuellar (TX)

• Adam Schiff (CA)

• Kathy Manning (NC)

• Vicente Gonzalez (TX)

• Donald Norcross (NJ)

The first 5 on the list are, basically, American versions of Netanyahu, Itamar Ben-Gvir, Bezalel Smotrich, Aryeh Deri and Yariv Levin.

"Fifth Avenue Shakedown"

As for Señor Trumpnzee, Star Ledger columnist Paul Mulshine wrote on Tuesday that “‘GOP performance in [the] 2024 election may be as bad as McGovern’s and Goldwater’s.’ Those two lost by the biggest margins in modern history.” That’s based on political prognosticator Reid Holloway, who uses market data to make predictions… Holloway says his analysis of trends shows that if this ends up being another battle between Biden and Trump, the Donald could be expected to lose big. In 2020, Biden won the popular vote by seven million. In 2024, he could expect to win it by 20 million, Holloway said.”

Holloway also predicted that Biden could win in both Florida and Texas. I wish he'd predict what will happen in Ohio. But, in any case, I'm pretty certain-- despite any market data-- that Trump will still do just great in Wyoming, Oklahoma, Tennessee, both Dakotas, Alabama and, probably, West Virginia.