I swear, I’m not making this up *raises right hand*. Yesterday I wrote a diary in which I observed that Hugh Hewitt, noted conservative talk show host, and weekend pox on MSNBC programming opined that Roy Moore could be the one candidate who could lead to a surprise upset in December and flip the seat to the Democrats. While I think it’s optimistic to the extreme, I can see the logic in this. Turnout in the primary was light, the usual flotsam and jetsam of the GOP base. Having a loony like Moore on the ballot in December might just make enough GOP voters with enough of a shred of shame left to sit it out rather than have their states name attached to Moore.
But as the evening wore on, it became clear that Hewitt was not the only conservative who was getting bad vibes in his fillings about Moore. Two more conservative guests raised the specter of at least a viable, if unlikely Democratic upset in Alabama. But the ultimate possible freddie Kruger moment for the Republicans down the road was set forth by Mike Murphy.
Mike Murphy is no snowflake. He is a well respected, long time GOP strategist. And he knows something about Alabama, having been an advisor on Jeff Sessions first run for US Senate. He also expressed the opinion that Moore will be a tough sell in December, although predicted he would still win. But then he looked into his crystal ball, and made a possible prediction that every Democrat can only hope comes true.
Murphy has a bad feeling that the GOP is in for a real bloodletting in the 2018 midterms. But what happens if the GOP loses either the House, the Senate, or both next year? Mike Murphy foresees a tidal wave of anger on the part of the establishment GOP aimed at Trump. After two years of wasted time, effort, and dreams, the frustrations of regular Republicans with Trump’s nonsense will finally boil over. Murphy can see a crowded GOP primary field looking to finally excise the “cancer” that 2016 primary opponents claimed Trump to be. So far, so good, right?
But it only gets better from there. Whispers have been going around that Trump may have already soured on another run in 2020. The one thing that could animate him to go for a repeat would be rebellion in the ranks, nobody is going to tell him what to do. If Trump begins to feel that it may be slipping away from him, he will go full rogue. Trump has absolutely no loyalty to the party that put him in the White House. Murphy can easily imagine Trump tossing the GOP to the curb, and running as a third party, populist candidate in 2020.
Oh, please Lord, let it be so! Trump couldn’t even scrape enough popular votes to win the Presidency in the first place, only the electoral college saved him . But if Trump keeps up his divisive, corrosive rhetoric, specifically designed to keep his base fat and happy, they will follow him. And if that happens, it really doesn’t matter who the Republicans nominate in 2020. They will never woo back the Trump base, and without them, even the electoral college can’t save them.
Remember, this is not me spouting off happy horsehit, this comes from the lips of a long time GOP strategist, with a plethora of connections in the party. If he is already talking about a possible debacle in 2018, I don’t think he’s pulling it out of thin air. And if Mike Murphy is already trotting out a worst case scenario for 2020, I have trouble thinking he’s just making it up out of whole cloth. So, as if we didn’t already have enough motivation for the midterms next year, this is the cherry on the sundae. Don’t touch that dial.