Last week I saw a report that the QAnon-addled Republicans in both chambers of the Wisconsin legislature voted to prevent 7th graders being required to get vaccinated against meningitis. And they threw in a provision that will make it easy for crackpot parents to have their children exempted from chickenpox vaccinations. Anti-social, anti-science Republican parents complained that the requirements violated their liberties. Meningitis is a highly infectious brain disease that can be deadly or cause lifelong disability. Since Republicans don’t use their brains they figure nothing lost. The problem though is that the unvaccinated children of Republicans can get normal people sick. Bacterial meningitis spreads through respiratory droplets— coughing, sneezing, kissing, sharing utensils or drinks. Close quarters, such as schools, facilitate the spread of the bacteria.
Even mainstream Republicans— not members of the Wisconsin legislature— know that the extremists and fanatics in their base are bonkers and dangerous and GOP leaders in the U.S. Senate are trying to block them from being nominated in states where Republicans have a shot to win. Yesterday, Burgess Everett and Ally Mutnick reported that “Senior Republicans are mounting their most aggressive Senate primary intervention strategy in nearly a decade, sidelining candidates they suspect could blow their chances to claim the majority next fall. The moves risk inflaming tensions with the right flank of the party, as the GOP’s official campaign arm backs its preferred picks in surprisingly public fashion. But after losing a seat last year under a laissez-faire primary strategy, Republican leaders are embracing a dramatic change after Trump helped assemble the GOP’s last roster of unsuccessful candidates.”
The NRSC is backing relatively mainstream conservatives against neo-fascists in Nevada (Sam Brown against Jim Marchant), Montana (Tim Sheehy against Rep Matt Rosendale) and West Virginia (Jim Justice against Rep Alex Mooney). It doesn’t look like Jim Justice, West Virginia’s current billionaire governor, a former Democrat, has much to worry about from extremist sociopath Mooney. New polling shows Mooney barely in the running— despite big money from Club for Growth and endorsements from fellow extremists Gym Jordan, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Mike Lee.
This is something McConnell as his lieutenants came up with to prevent extremists who are popular with the base from winning primaries only to lose general elections where they have to appeal to normal people, as happened last cycle in Pennsylvania (Dr. Oz- 46.3%), Arizona (Blake Masters- 46.5%), Nevada (Adam Laxalt- 48.0%), New Hampshire (Don Bolduc- 44.4%), Washington (Tiffany Smiley- 42.7%) and Georgia (Herschel Walker- 48.5%).
[M]any in the GOP see it as a bet worth making. Because if Republicans don’t get it right this time, when they have one of their best maps in years, they may not have another chance to flip the Senate until 2028.
“You can play to win or you can play not to piss people off— you can’t do both,” said Josh Holmes, an adviser to McConnell.
The party brass’ most urgent task is keeping Rosendale out of a race against Sheehy in Montana, where the GOP fears that Rosendale would win a primary but suffer another general election loss to Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT). Rosendale has told colleagues he plans to run and has attacked Sheehy for being backed by McConnell. Sheehy, meanwhile, already has endorsements from Gov. Greg Gianforte and Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT)— as well as nine senators, including Daines.
“After last cycle, there’s evidence that we’ve got to get the electable candidates on the field,” said Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-SD) on Monday afternoon. He’s backing Sheehy as well: “It would be nice if we could clear the field there.”
Daines has also endorsed Trump’s presidential campaign to help preempt any disruptions to the intraparty playing field. And GOP leaders are intent on recruiting Dave McCormick for another run in Pennsylvania; Trump backed Mehmet Oz over McCormick in the 2022 primary. Oz won the primary but lost the general election.
Already, Mooney is making hay of Justice’s strong Washington backing as the governor leads the primary handily in recent polls— even as his coal empire faces legal scrutiny. Mooney’s campaign manager, John Findlay, said that “Jim Justice is one of the all-time worst recruits by the GOP establishment.”
In response, Justice’s campaign manager Roman Stauffer said the governor is achieving widespread buy-in from supporters in D.C. and West Virginia because they know he “is the strongest candidate to win the U.S. Senate race.”
But not every senator in the conference is eager to see the NRSC pick favorites in crowded fields.
“I wish they weren’t, but I’m not in charge,” said one Republican, granted anonymity to speak candidly about party strategy. “Not everybody agrees” on which candidates are the most electable, this senator added.
And Democrats say the aggressive GOP efforts will backfire come next November, dividing the GOP well into the summer of next year.
“Across the Senate map, Republicans are brawling in vicious primaries and putting forward flawed candidates with disqualifying baggage. That’s a toxic combination that will lead their campaigns to defeat in 2024,” said David Bergstein, a spokesperson for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
In Wisconsin, the NRSC launched a concerted effort to woo Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI), a telegenic military veteran, by commissioning polling and publicly touting his strengths as a candidate. But the congressmember ultimately passed on a run against Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin, sending recruiters back to the drawing board just as polarizing former Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke began to taunt them with a potential bid of his own.
He tweeted a Democratic poll of a possible Wisconsin Senate primary field that showed him leading by 20 points.
Now, GOP recruiters are refocusing efforts on candidates with the resources to block Clarke and tie up Baldwin, who just reported raising $3.2 million last quarter. Eric Hovde, a wealthy businessman who lost a primary bid for the seat in 2012, is still seriously considering another run but does not have a timeline for a decision, according to a person familiar with his thinking.
In Nevada, the NRSC eagerly recruited Brown, a decorated Army veteran who survived an IED attack in Afghanistan, to take on Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen. Their interest in him became more urgent once other candidates moved toward running.
One less establishment-friendly potential candidate, Jeffrey Gunter, had a controversial tenure as Trump’s ambassador to Iceland. And Marchant, a former state lawmaker who ran unsuccessfully for Nevada Secretary of State, is already in the race. A prominent member of a group of Trump supporters who baselessly deny the validity of the 2020 election, Marchant is readying for a primary brawl.
“Jim Marchant has never lost a primary, outspent every time. Sam Brown has never won a primary despite his attempts in multiple states,” said Rory McShane, a spokesperson for Marchant’s campaign.
It’s not yet clear how the party will handle Ohio, where Secretary of State Frank LaRose is looking at joining a field including state Sen. Matt Dolan and businessman Bernie Moreno. That state could be a free-for-all exception to the GOP’s approach, as it looks for a candidate to take on Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown.
There are more headaches in Arizona, where Kari Lake could mount another statewide bid. And in Michigan’s open seat, Republicans have yet to secure a top-tier candidate, although they hope to land NYSE vice chair John Tuttle as former GOP Rep. Mike Rogers [a flat out Nazi] also mulls a bid.
Even with some questions still unanswered, there’s still a new sense of normalcy in the party’s upper ranks. Senate Republicans’ top super PAC is back on the same page with the campaign arm after a high-profile break in strategy last year.
“Aggressively recruiting quality candidates is the only way Republicans will retake the Senate majority. Every one of these top-tier races will be very tough, and sub-par candidates only help Democrats,” said Senate Leadership Fund President Steven Law.
Democrats also have problems with their own subpar candidates, although they are the corrupt conservatives recruited by the DSCC, kind of the opposite of what’s happening among Republicans. GOP-lite dreck like Elissa Slotkin (MI) and Colin Allred (TX) are losers the DSCC is backing and the Democrats have a number of putrid incumbents: Kyrsten Sinema (AZ), Joe Manchin (WV), Jacky Rosen (NV) and Bob Menendez (NJ). The state of the Florida Democratic Party is so dismal that there isn’t even an opponent for Rick Scott at all yet.
And meanwhile, the Republicans have a much bigger nightmare on their hands: Trump, who will act as an anchor or an albatross around the necks of all their candidates up and down the ballot. Yesterday, Chris Lehmann reported that Trump’s rhetoric is becoming more and more unhinged as his legal reckoning gets closer.
One post-arraignment Truth Social message stood out in especially high relief. “NOW THAT THE ‘SEAL’ IS BROKEN…,” the outburst read in part, “I WILL APPOINT A REAL SPECIAL ‘PROSECUTOR’ TO GO AFTER THE MOST CORRUPT PRESIDENT IN THE HISTORY OF THE USA, JOE BIDEN, THE ENTIRE BIDEN CRIME FAMILY, & ALL OTHERS INVOLVED WITH THE DESTRUCTION OF OUR ELECTIONS, BORDERS & COUNTRY ITSELF!” Journalist Jeff Sharlet, a close student of religious movements on the American right, noted that the broken-seal reference echoed the language of the Book of Revelation, which was sure to resonate with Trump’s fundamentalist or conspiracy-minded base. Following his earlier invocation of the approach of World War III and a pledge that he was the “only one” who could reverse America’s rapid plunge into the cosmic abyss, Trump’s vow of legal vengeance on his Democratic persecutors doubled as a “claim to divinity,” Sharlet wrote.
For all the procedural intrigue surrounding Trump’s escalating legal woes, the former president’s ongoing apocalyptic makeover is likely to be the most troubling and enduring legacy of his tour through the justice system. Even before he left office in January 2021, Trump had increasingly adopted the messianic imagery and rhetoric of the QAnon movement, which foretells an imminent eliminationist purge of liberals for their coordinated sexual predation and sacrifice of children, among other ghastly trespasses. Trump all but formalized his alliance with QAnon forces during the 2022 midterm campaign. As claims of persecution and deep-state martyrdom have become his main line of defense against increasingly unanswerable criminal charges, the chiliastic phase of the Trump movement will likely dominate right-wing messaging in the coming presidential election.
And the QAnon and militant white-nationalist elements of the evangelical world are heeding Trump’s call. After his arraignment, Trump walked into a Miami cafe, where supporters swarmed to lay hands on and pray for him. That same evening, a group called Pastors for Trump hosted former national security adviser Michael Flynn, himself having pleaded guilty to lying to FBI agents about trafficking in classified intelligence, in a Twitter Spaces event devoted to national prayer and unity— which of course translated into more biblically themed vows of retribution for Trump’s political enemies. (Sample Flynn homily from the digital gathering: “We want to pray for President Donald J. Trump, his entire family, and all those that are part of this war we’re involved in, this spiritual war we’re facing…. This is good versus evil— an America First, if you will, versus a globalist elite.”)
Trump’s own televised statement that night hammered away at the same points, railing against “the misfits and Marxists” engineering his indictment and denouncing special prosecutor Jack Smith as a “deranged lunatic,” a “thug,” and “a raging, uncontrolled Trump hater.” He decried federal agencies for “running illegal psychological warfare campaigns against the American people” before he built to the revival-style climax: “We have a nation in serious decline. If the communists get away with this, it won’t stop with me. They will not hesitate to ramp up their persecution of Christians and pro-life activists, parents attending school board meetings and even future Republican candidates, which they do. We must end it permanently and we must end it immediately.” And he once more pledged to appoint a special prosecutor to target Biden “now that the seal— so important— the seal is broken by what they’ve done…. When I’m reelected— and we will get reelected, we have no choice, we are not gonna have a country anymore— I will totally obliterate the deep state.” To send off his crowd of ardent supporters, Trump again invoked Revelation to offer himself as a propitiatory sacrifice for a nation of despised and persecuted believers.
This is more than just a split-screen ideological divide or an alternative timeline tracing the prerogatives of executive power; it’s a cult of personality morphing into a hard-core formation of divine messengers firmly convinced they are standing at Armageddon. Far from being defeated by subpoenas and indictments, the Trump movement draws an endlessly renewable sense of righteous retribution from the fable of its own persecution. Unless and until we’re able to recognize these basic truths, Donald Trump’s legal travails will produce no better outcomes in our politics.