Donald Trump has cut his first ad for Georgia GOP gubernatorial candidate David Perdue, and it's everything Democrats could hope for: a rehash of Trump's 2020 grievances squarely targeted at incumbent Republican governor Brian Kemp all while exhibiting impeccably bad taste.
Dim the lights, cue the baritone-voiced circus ringleader announcing, "A message from President Trump."
Man, what an opening!
Trump then takes the baton, saying that Democrats "walked all over" Kemp and charging, "Brian Kemp let us down."
Perdue, the state's former U.S. Senator—who serially abused his insider post to line his own pockets—is then billed onscreen as "An America First Conservative Outsider."
Trump adds that Perdue has his "complete and total endorsement." The entire ad is classic Trump—as in, classically awful.
But in all seriousness, Trump immediately ripping into Kemp because he "let us down" is exactly the pitched intra-party battle Democrats want to see on the right in the Peach State. We want that primary to be as divisive and bloody as possible so that it will hopefully split the loyalties of Republican voters entirely.
It's also perfect (as Trump likes to say) for Perdue to welcome Trump's ad just days after he publicly pledged to pardon Jan. 6 seditionists, called for raucous protests (what could go wrong?) if he is indicted, and admitted that he absolutely did try to overturn the 2020 election.
“Actually, what they are saying, is that Mike Pence did have the right to change the outcome, and they now want to take that right away," Trump said Monday in a statement about legislative efforts to reform the Electoral Count Act. "Unfortunately, he didn't exercise that power, he could have overturned the Election!”
Sane-ish Republicans—and some small segment of them does still exist—will find the timing of Trump’s endorsement outrageous. MAGA enthusiasts will adore it. Thus begins the GOP polarization into two vehemently opposed camps, who will hopefully despise each other before this is all over.
Perdue is dropping at least $150,000 to run the ad, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Beyond the Georgia gubernatorial race, Trump's divisiveness will surely spill over into the GOP effort to unseat Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, who's facing a challenge from alleged wife beater and former football star, Herschel Walker.
Senate Republicans have hoped against hope to avoid Trump flooding a Senate race that presents one of their best pick-up chances with his 2020 fraud lies.
"I do think we need to be thinking about the future and not the past," McConnell said last fall, lamenting Trump's obsession with his 2020 election loss. "It's my hope the '22 election will be a referendum on the performance of the current administration, not a rehash of suggestions about what may have happened in 2020."
Too bad Republicans missed their opportunity to convict Trump and do away with him forever or, as GOP Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming put it, "made themselves willing hostages" to a man who just fessed up to trying to stage a coup.