Will Debate #1 Feature Someone With A Ruler To Measure Everyone’s Dick?
Senate Republicans are worried sick that their party’s primary is shaping up to result in a Trump nomination— two many mediocre candidates splitting whatever there is of an anti-Trump or even just mainstream conservative vote so that Trump waltzes into the nomination… loses and hands Congress— and more state legislatures— to the Democrats. Few Republican senators have the guts to say it out loud for fear of the wrath of Señor T, but John Cornyn (R-TX) came close: “I’m worried about it. [Trump] hasn’t figured out how to expand beyond his base.” And when asked if the field could consolidate, he replied, “I can dream can’t I?” Another member of McConnell’s leadership team, John Thune (R-SD), has endorsed Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) and McConnell himself… well everyone knows he’d like to see Trump in prison or his casket. But McConnell, like most Senate Trump-haters, is keeping it to himself lately.
The party is off the rails. Actually that became clear when Trump won the nomination in 2016. And it’s been all downhill for the Republicans since then. The leadership is bad enough— but not nearly as bad as their voters. Do you know any Republicans well enough to talk with them? The Democratic Party may suck— it does— but they’re God-sent compared to the GOP. Let’s look at a new PPP survey of Wisconsin Republicans that was released yesterday. 69% said they have a favorable opinion of Trump. And if the primary were today…
Trump- 41%
Meatball- 25%
Pence- 8%
Nikki Haley- 5%
Tim Scott- 5%
Ramaswarmy- 2%
But the polling got even more interesting— and unique— when it went into the Senate race. The only contender with a favorability rating over 50% is MAGAt Milwaukee ex-Sheriff David Clarke, who should probably be residing in a mental institution. He is a far right Republican, the Joe Arpaio of Wisconsin, who called himself a Democrat when he ran but was disowned by the Democratic Party. He dismissed criticism by Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele as “penis envy” and called him a drug addict. He is a sadist who tortured prisoners and was responsible for several murders in the county jail, including an inmate’s newborn baby. By the time he suddenly resigned as sheriff in 2017, his approval in Milwaukee County was just 31%— with 65% disapproving.
And if the primary was today…
Clarke- 40%
Rep. Mike Gallagher (the Establishment candidate)- 20%
MAGAt Rep. Tom Tiffany- 10%
Eric Hovde- 3%
UPDATE: After this poll was released, Gallagher announced that he's not going to run after all. That will leave Wisconsin Republicans with a choice between two psychopaths: David Clarke and the little-known neo-fascist congressman, Tom Tiffany.
In Oregon, Republicans in the rural eastern part of the state are literally trying to secede and join Greater Idaho. Greater than what? Wyoming and the Dakotas? There are also California Republicans in backward rural northeastern counties like Lassen, Modoc, Del Norte, Tehama, Siskiyou and Shasta that want to join Idaho too. I think we should give them all one-way bus tickets and, if they sign binding, iron-clad agreements to never come back, money for a trailer home.
Yesterday, Asawin Suebsaeng and Adam Rawnsley reported that the GOP primary is headed for the dumbest places imaginable— including a dick-measuring contest. The two Rolling Stone reporters wrote that “It wouldn’t be the first juvenile move by Team Trump in this young primary season. Already, Trump has suggested that DeSantis, his chief rival, might be secretly gay. He’s gone after DeSantis over pronunciation of his own last name. He has claimed to have salacious dirt on Florida’s governor, that he might release during the primary. Recently, Trump’s campaign went after one of DeSantis’ top aides, apparently insulting her physical appearance. Now, some of Trump’s longtime advisers are even urging him to continuously make reference to the size of DeSantis’ penis, telling him such insults could stick with GOP primary voters and mess with his rival’s head. Trump’s team discussed having Trump refer to the Florida governor as 'Tiny D.' While some understood it as a shot at DeSantis’ height, the sobriquet was specifically intended to suggest diminutive genitalia, four people familiar with the topic say... Team Trump’s attempts to focus the public on DeSantis’ anatomy underscores just how dark and puerile the GOP primary promises to be— even as the former president asks voters to return him to a seat of awesome power and responsibility. His venom towards DeSantis is enhanced by a campaign staff whose personal loathing of DeSantis eclipses even Trump’s. Several of the former president’s lieutenants have worked for DeSantis and come away from it with such bitter experiences that they wish not just to defeat the governor and his team, but to abjectly humiliate them.”
The two Rolling Stone reporters also noted that "Trump’s allies are open about his plans to wage a personal war on the Florida governor, saying that it may be more critical to winning than any policy differences. 'As the primary progresses, emasculating Ron is going to be a big part of the Trump campaign’s efforts,' says a Trump ally close to the ex-president’s campaign. 'It is important to make the policy argument. But one of Donald Trump’s biggest talents is defining his opponent’s character traits and highlighting their biggest personality flaws. Doing that— defining who Ron DeSantis, the person, is to the American voter, before he has the chance to do it himself— is arguably more important than any policy contrast.' In the past several weeks, a handful of key political advisers and confidants have told Trump he should start using 'Tiny D' as his principal DeSantis nickname, instead of only ones like 'DeSanctimonious' or 'DeSaster,' according to two sources with direct knowledge of the situatio.' Some of Trump’s aides and longtime allies have repeatedly told Trump that, in their personal experiences, DeSantis is a uniquely 'sensitive,' 'thin-skinned,' and 'insecure' man, making him a perfect target for Trump’s needling. (Trump himself, of course, is also famously sensitive to personal slights, and known for going to extreme lengths to respond to them— even to his personal detriment.)... During Trump’s last contested GOP primary in 2016, it took until February of election year for genitalia measuring to become part of the contest."
A few months after Trump’s attempted coup, John Pavlovitz wrote about the sadness many of us feel about having to share a country with Trump supporters. “People,” he wrote, “actually still support that unhinged madman. They admire him. They look up to him. They feel affinity with him. They are fighting for him… I see people regurgitating fictional Fox News talking points and hear them parroting back conspiratorial nonsense and I watch them pass by with his name affixed to their heads and attached to their bumpers in cultic adoration— and it grieves me to know how far gone so many around me seem to be. I no longer recognize the place I’ve always called home… It’s simply demoralizing sharing a country with people who think Donald Trump is someone worth emulating: to be surrounded by that kind of moral inversion every single day, to be continually encountering such cruelty. It’s a source of profound and sustained grieving to believe that everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and afforded opportunity— and to know how many simply do not share that belief. I don’t hate these people but I am deeply saddened by them. It isn’t just the reality of the despicable human being who allowed to ascend to the Presidency that brings that sadness, though that would be reason enough for despair. It’s the ugliness we’ve seen in our neighbors as he’s made his way there, and perhaps even worse now following his departure: the doubling down despite all we know about his reckless and incompetence. It’s the sickness that the America we love has shown itself afflicted with: the weight of every horrible reality about our nation; all our bigotry and discord and hatred set upon our chests, hampering our breath.”