Get your popcorn, because the Republican finger-pointing is in full swing after they dramatically underperformed expectations on Tuesday. Most of those expectations were set by Republicans, too! They hoped that an aura of invincibility would help them, but instead, it left them with more to answer for.
Donald Trump is taking plenty of incoming from the right-wing media, and behind the scenes, there’s a Republican “reckoning about former President Trump,” Robert Costa reported on CBS News, but he can comfort himself, as he weighs exactly how much ketchup to throw after reading the headlines, that he’s far from alone in that. But the great thing is that, after they’re done tearing their hair, Republicans will come out having learned exactly no lessons. And a lot of what they’re angry about stems from Trump’s sway over the Republican base: He chose bad candidates, they say—but the real problem for them is that the Republican base followed Trump’s choice of bad candidates.
RELATED STORY: Right-wing pundits, poohbahs reach for the Copium after their ‘red tsunami’ fails to materialize
Here’s the Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post (along with a good point from Gary Legum):
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Here’s the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal with an editorial on "The GOP's Midterm Failure." (Subhed: “The party wasted a great opportunity, but at least we may get gridlock in Washington.” Woo! Yeah! Gridlock—that’s what I’m talkin’ about!) Republicans in general come in for a lashing in the editorial, which says, “Republicans are dismayed, and they should be—at themselves,” going on to name their handling of abortion among “the party’s mistakes.”
But, according to the WSJ editorial board, “The larger failure was that the GOP nominated too many lousy candidates who courted Donald Trump more than they did voters.”
The thing is, that’s framed as a mistake by Republican Party leaders. But Republican voters nominated those candidates. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell did not go out and clear the field for Mehmet Oz or Blake Masters just because Trump backed them. They won their primaries, because enough voters continue to listen to Trump. (Votes are still being counted in Arizona, where Masters was challenging Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly. Kelly currently leads, 51.4% to 46.4%.) Trump-backed Republican candidates J.D. Vance and Ted Budd won in Ohio and North Carolina, but their wins were much narrower than expected for those states. Donald Trump’s endorsement is powerful with the Republican base, and he chooses crappy candidates. As long as they thought they were going to win no matter what, they were fine with that.
The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) also blamed Trump and his influence on the Republican Party, in a statement saying, “The Republican Party substantially underperformed in yesterday’s elections. Candidates backed by former president Trump had the worst results.” The AEI went on to call on Republicans to “reject an economic policy agenda based on Trumpian populism and grievance.” Once again, they seem to be missing that Republican voters respond strongly to Trumpian populism and grievance—it’s just that it alienates basically everyone else.
Trump is probably happier with Fox News’s Tucker Carlson, who was furious and bitter about the results, but focused his blame on other Republicans.
”So what happened?” he asked on Wednesday evening. “Well, before we give you our theories as to what happened, one obvious point: The people whose job it was to win but did not win should go do something else now. We’re speaking specifically of the Republican leadership of the House and the Senate and of the RNC. There’s nothing personal, some of them are no doubt nice people, but they took hundreds of millions of dollars to paint the map red, and they didn’t. That doesn’t mean they’re evil, it doesn’t mean they should be jailed, but it does mean they shouldn’t be promoted.”
But there’s no question that the right-wing media is nervously shifting its eyes back and forth between Trump, with his disastrous candidate selection and habit of centering himself when he’s supposed to be boosting the people on the ballot, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who provided one of the top Republican bright spots of Tuesday night. Trump already felt threatened by DeSantis. It’s only going to get worse now, so bring on the increased Republican infighting.
Right now, though? Enjoy those Republican tears. (Watch to the end of this one, because you probably don’t know where it’s going.)
Election Night 2022 was full of surprises—mostly for people pushing the last couple months of traditional media narrative of a "red tsunami." The problem is that Americans are not super into the GOP. Markos and Kerry have been saying the media narrative was wrong for months, and on Tuesday, Daily Kos and The Brief team was validated. Time to celebrate!
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