Former presidents and vice-presidents have told us how psychologically difficult the first months of lost political power can be. We can therefore empathize if former President Trump is frustrated these days, and perhaps that explains his attack on us Thursday because of his role in the GOP’s loss of the Senate.
“The editorial page of the Wall Street Journal knowingly continues to fight for globalist measures like bad trade deals, open borders and endless wars that favor other countries and sell out our great American workers, and they fight for RINOS who have so badly hurt the Republican Party”, said Trump in a statement. “There they are and there they will always be. Fortunately, nobody cares about the Wall Street Journal editorial anymore. “
For someone who says we don’t matter, they surely spend a lot of time reading and responding to us. Thank you for your attention.
What seems to really upset the most famous resident of Mar-a-Lago is not his caricature of our political differences. It is so that we see the reality that Mr Trump is the main reason Republicans lost two races in the Georgia Senate in January, losing the Senate majority. Mr Trump, against all evidence, refuses to take responsibility for these defeats.
Trump’s statement blames GOP Governor Brian Kemp and Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell for the losses in Georgia. His rap against Mr. Kemp is that he didn’t fight hard enough to overcome the president’s loss of state in November. A claim that Mr. Trump made his main campaign topic ahead of the Georgia Senate elections on Jan. 5.
All polls showed that the best argument for choosing the two Republicans was control and balance against an all-democratic government. But instead of pointing it out to voters, Mr Trump focused on his complaints against Mr Kemp and his allegations that the election was stolen. Mr Trump told Republican voters that their November votes were meaningless, so it’s no surprise their turnout fell in January. As the FiveThirtyEight website noted in January, “The better Trump was in a county in November, the more likely it was that voter turnout fell in the drains.”
Mr. Trump also blames Mr. McConnell’s “refusal to go above $ 600 per person” for the stimulus check payments when the two Democratic opponents advertised ads at $ 2,000 per person. This is rewriting history.
Mr Trump’s Treasury Secretary announced support for the $ 600 checks on Dec. 8, and the GOP swung behind the proposal. He didn’t approve the $ 2,000 checks until December 22nd and gave the Democrats a sword against the two GOP Senate candidates who approved $ 600. The two eventually approved of $ 2,000 but looked unprincipled. Mr. Trump’s $ 2,000 flip-flop knee got his own party’s candidates kneeling.
“Even more stupid,” adds Trump, “the National Republican Senatorial Committee has spent millions of dollars on ineffective television advertising with Mitch McConnell.” That is also wrong. We learned that the Senate committee only spent about $ 90,000 on ads run on national cable television to raise funds. They raised approximately $ 6 million that was then spent on ads in Georgia that featured the Senate candidates, not Mr. McConnell.
We’re rehearsing all of this because it’s important for future GOP wealth. During Trump’s tenure, Republicans lost the House, the White House, and eventually the Senate. How can anyone but the most prominent Republican in the country be responsible for victories but not the defeats that Republicans left in the wild?
Lose against
Of all things, and with 7.1 million votes as incumbent president, it must be painful. Advice might be fine. Any good analyst will explain that the first step to recovery is to accept reality. Same goes for Republican voters looking to win back Congress in 2022 and the White House in 2024.
Wonderland: Is Trumpism Separable from Donald Trump? Or does Mr. Trump believe like Louis XIV: “Trumpism – c’est moi?” Images: Superstock / Everett Collection / Getty Images Composite: Mark Kelly
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