Uh Oh, Do A Bunch Of Republicans Secretly Want Trump To Lose?
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?
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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Of course they want to be rid of him. He’s been an albatross for the GOP for years, and is about to lose another election the GOP is spending hundreds of millions on. Trump’s legal fees are an unprecedented drain on their campaign finances, and almost certainly an illegal one, if campaign finance laws had any teeth. Down ballot republicans are scolded and warned to BACK OFF trying to raise funds that could go into Poppy’s pockets. Being a Republican politician must be a form of kinky sadism.
Trump is only growing more unstable and desperate as his prospects of avoiding prison or fleeing the country grow dim. When asked about reducing the cost of childcare for families, he recently answered that tariffs on foreign countries would somehow help families afford childcare. Tariffs. It’s the kind of incoherent policy answer that would be devastating to Kamala Harris if she had said it. But the media expect Trump to speak gibberish. He also made the laughably absurd claim that the federal deficit would be gone “very very quickly,” ignoring the fact that he added trillions to the national debt. Other than reduce taxes for the wealthy and corporations, which deprived the government of needed revenue, he ignored all his campaign promises. He didn’t make healthcare affordable or available to everyone. He didn’t make the country safer, or wages higher. He could have demanded his party back a $15 national minimum wage. Even a $10 federal minimum wage is a no-brainer in 2024. Minimum wage is still $7.25. That’s about $14,500 for a year of full time work, which is below the poverty line, an astonishing fact.
Trump is a deeply unserious man with criminal convictions, judgments for sexual assault and pending federal indictments that would have ended any other candidate’s career long ago.
No sympathy for these fucking assholes. They KNEW back in 2016 how this would play out, but they decided to go all in on MAGA and lick Trump's taint anyway. Lindsey Graham is one of the bigger offenders despite his accurate assessment over 8 years ago:
If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed.......and we will deserve it.
2:03 PM · May 3, 2016 https://x.com/LindseyGrahamSC/status/727604522156228608