Uh Oh, Do A Bunch Of Republicans Secretly Want Trump To Lose?

(Not Never-Trumpers. They're pretty open about that.)

Cometh Politico Playbook with a terrible scoop this morning!

It says there are a number of Republicans who are willing to say out loud — not Never-Trumpers, they’re not “news” — that they’d really rather Donald Trump just lose in November. Not that they’re putting their names on it, but they’re saying it out loud when Playbook calls and tickles their nips.

Is there a secret ELECTION INTERFERENCE on Trump’s own side that just wants him to go away and lose?

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Playbook kicks off with this tweet from gross weird Erick Erickson, saying that some Republicans would rather Trump lose, they win back the Senate, do what they can to hold President Kamala Harris at bay, and then come back in 2028 with a new nominee. Erickson’s argument is that Trump has done this to himself.

Meanwhile, Playbook links to an article by Jonathan Martin that argues that if Republicans want to actually become a party that wins things, they need Trump to lose in November and hard.

Martin makes a lot of hopeful (for them) assumptions — that Republicans keep the House, that they retake the Senate, that Harris will be powerless to do anything about the Supreme Court — but he says he didn’t get much pushback on the idea when he started calling Republicans to present them his thesis. The question he says he encountered is whether Trump would ultimately go away faster under that scenario, or would it #BeBest if he won in November, then exited at the end of his second term (because he already had one term, you remember, it was just great!) in 2028.

(Oh, the magical assumptions you find in a circle-jerk where Politico and Republicans are both invited!)

Anyway, apparently some of these people have policy reasons for wanting Trump to lose. They’re upset the deal-maker authoritarian president who stacked the Supreme Court with ideologues who overturned Roe v. Wade suddenly keeps mouthing off in the other direction about abortion. They don’t like his populism. They don’t like how he shits on America’s actual allies.

Of course, this fantasy doesn’t seem to work for them if Republicans don’t manage to win back the Senate, and also if they lose the House. That’s no fun to think about at all!

It’s adorable how these people think Donald Trump is just going to go away, though, if/when he loses, and stop holding the Republican Party hostage. Playbook even acknowledges that, referencing both January 6 and the possibility that Trump could literally just keep doing what he’s been doing during Joe Biden’s presidency, and then try again in 2028, when he’s 82.

Which seems to motivate those who think the best way for Trump to go away is to win this year. Again, how adorable that they think he’d give up power at the end of his second term!

Also how adorable that they all think the sun will come out tomorrow for them if Trump just goes away, that the American people don’t fucking despise the very air Republicans breathe. Ha ha!

Anyway, this is all Politico Playbook gossip, and you can read all of it if you really want to lube up and get in the middle of their circle jerk, but honestly we just wanted to write a headline about all the Republicans who secretly want Trump to lose or go trip and fall in traffic or whatever.

So we did.

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