I want to make a point that I think is getting glossed over in the Republican post-mortem of their HISTORICALLY POOR mid-term showing.
There’s been reporting here in the last couple of days that Republicans are all of a sudden like, “Hmm, maybe telling our voters that `early and mail-in voting is corrupt’ wasn’t such a great idea after all.” They’re a bunch of fucking geniuses for sure, but there’s another aspect.
Impugning the veracity of elections depresses turnout. This has been Trump’s clarion call all along: “The polls are rigged. The election is rigged. I won but they stole it from me. There were serious cases of fraud, lying, and ballot dumping.” And all the rest of the bullshit he continues to spew.
Democrats didn’t believe him, of course. But Republicans and Republican-leaning independents did.
Telling the voters that the voting is corrupt inevitably leads to cynicism about the process. Someone, anyone, in the Republican party must point out that not only is Trump solely responsible for endorsing very poor candidates, and solely responsible for urging his voters to die from COVID, but is also solely responsible for lying, and lying, and continuing to this day to lie about the veracity of our elections.
Kari Lake? Loser. Trump’s fault.
Mehmet Oz? Loser. Trump’s fault.
Blake Masters? Loser. Trump’s fault.
Herschel Walker? Loser. Trump’s fault.
I don’t care if they spend eternity in the wilderness. They are, however, still shy of the reality that Lindsey Graham uttered in 2016: “We’re going to go with Trump and we’re going to be destroyed.”