The Republican Party is screwing up mightily. Tuesday's loss in Wisconsin was nothing short of a debacle. Wisconsin is a 50/50 state. In 2016 Trump won with 47.22% to Hillary’s 46.45% (a 0.77 point margin). In 2020, Biden beat Trump 49.45% to 48.82% (a 0.63 point margin). In 2018, Tony Evers ousted Gov. Scott Walker 49.5% to 48.4% (a 1.1 point margin). Last year Evers was reelected against Tim Michels 51.2% to 47.8% (a 3.4% margin). So on Tuesday, when Janet Protasiewicz beat MAGA lunatic Daniel Kelly 1,021,370 (55.51%) to 818,286 (44.49%), that was a veritable landslide. And Protasiewicz didn’t just run up wide margins in blue strongholds like Milwaukee, Dane, La Crosse, Eau Claire, Menominee and Bayfield counties, she beat Kelly in Waukesha City, and held his margins down countywide, making it statistically impossible for him to win statewide. She also won 13 counties that Trump won in both 2016 and 2020— Brown, Outagamie, Winnebago, Kenosha, Columbia, Grant, Dunn, Pierce, Vernon, Jackson, Richland, Crawford and Lafayette— many of them white, rural counties in the supposed heart of MAGA-land. For all the millions of dollars he spent and all the lies he told, Kelly failed to flip a single blue or purple county and did worse in almost every county Trump won in either election!
The Republican Party assault on women’s Choice and on democracy itself, countered their nonsensical attacks on wokeism. But the week was young— and the GOP was just getting started. As Charlie Sykes, once the preeminent conservative voice of Wisconsin Republicanism, noted yesterday, “In a fit of partisan pique, Republicans used their super majority to expel two young African American state legislators. Republicans fell one vote short of expelling a third legislator, a white woman… The Republican good old boys could have fined the three, censured them, written a toughly worded letter of reprimand, or perhaps even ignored the whole thing and focused on the murder of the three children and three adults. But no. Instead, they rushed ahead with resolutions to expel the elected representatives. Not only was this is a horrific look for the GOP, it was also a case of rank political malpractice. By expelling the two Democrats, the Republican super majority accomplished the exact opposite of what they intended: As members of the minority party in the lower House of Tennessee’s undistinguished legislature, the three Democrats— State Reps. Justin Jones, Justin J. Pearson, and Gloria Johnson— had been obscure, local political players. By martyring them, the GOP has turned them into national stars. All three are impressive and eloquent, and they are about to be a ubiquitous presence on television. So instead of disgracing or silencing them, the GOP’s naked retaliation amplified their message beyond anything the three could have done themselves. Idiocracy on steroids.”
And all this while Republican Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was being exposed for taking millions of dollars in secretive bribes from Republican campaign mega-donor Harlan Crow
Not enough? The Wall Street Journal’s far right Kimberley Strassel wrote about The GOP’s Abortion Flop yesterday, noting that “at some point, the GOP might want to acknowledge its glaring abortion problem— and do something about it. Conservatives cheered mightily last year when the Supreme Court returned abortion to the states with Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. And rightly so. Yet that was a legal victory. The political question is something else entirely, and it’s the left cheering now. In race after race, state after state, Democrats are pummeling conservative candidates on abortion, drowning out every other topic, stoking fearful centrists, suburbanites and women to turn out and elect them to office… In early November, a majority of voters in bright-red Kentucky rejected an amendment that would have made it easier to restrict abortion. In the midterms, Democrats hammered GOP Senate and gubernatorial candidates on abortion— and won. They also used it to claw back control of state legislative chambers, including in Michigan, where the midterm ballot featured an initiative guaranteeing abortion rights, which drove turnout.”
The GOP’s problem is muddle and inaction. Fearful of getting crosswise with the pro-life right, Republicans have failed to land on a consensus position. Wisconsin’s Legislature had months to produce common-sense legislation— but instead sat on its hands. This left voters to infer that the only thing standing between them and a 174-year-old abortion law was a Protasiewicz victory. It was a repeat of a midterm that featured dozens of Republican candidates who were unable or unwilling to articulate a position.
…This risks riling millions of suburban swing voters who want a middle position. It will guarantee Democrats a powerful issue in 2024, one they’re already effectively using to crowd out every other voter concern— the economy, crime, the border, national security. And if history is future, it will cost the GOP seats. Conservatives need to decide if they want GOP majorities that will enact common-sense protections, or Democratic takeovers that will open the abortion floodgates.
Mike Allen and Zach Basu, left nothing to the imagination, “screaming sirens everywhere should be warning the Republicans of an epic losing streak— and it isn’t just Trump— the disatrous 2018 midterms (a net loss of 40 House seats), the 2020 presidential election, the 2 Georgia runoffs, the 2022 midterms pitting MAGA candidates against run-of-the-mill Democrats, who kicked their asses. “Trump, they wrote, “is driving an agenda dominated by vengeance and victimhood, diverting Republicans from the inflation- and crime-centered messages that helped them in the midterms [and he’s] stronger and more likely to win the GOP nomination than he was after the November midterms” with congressional Republicans rallying to his defense since the indictment (despite his growing national unpopularity outside of the MAGAverse).
