Former Republican and anti-Trumper Tim Miller got some unwelcome praise from Trump ally Steve Bannon shortly after he published his mea culpa memoir last year, "Why we did it: A Travelogue from the Republican Road to Hell."
"You really nailed it," Bannon texted Miller, who, in an interview I conducted with him on The Brief, called it "one of the worst" compliments he received on his book.
Miller, who works for the center-right pro-democracy outlet The Bulwark, said Bannon later elaborated on the text. "You get that I'm using Mitch; Mitch thinks that he's using me," Bannon explained.
Whatever one thinks of Bannon (or Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, for that matter), he's got his finger on the pulse of the Republican electorate while McConnell and his well-heeled cronies yuck it up at their ritzy galas and backroom confabs. Whether McConnell and his muckety-mucks realize it, the MAGA grassroots are calling the shots now, and it's a deeply deluded bunch.
Just look at the latest Fox News poll in which 70% of Republican primary voters say it's "extremely" important to back a candidate who can beat President Joe Biden.
Yet the same poll finds just 13% of GOP voters have ruled out voting for Donald Trump, the twice-impeached, twice-indicted coup plotter who's accused of taking national security secrets, lying about it to federal investigators, and revealing them to people without the proper security clearance. Apparently, Trump is super electable in their view. In fact, fewer GOP primary voters ruled out voting for Trump than any other candidate tested.
Fox poll: PERCENT OF GOP VOTERS WHO WOULD NEVER VOTE FOR...
MIKE PENCE |
35% |
NIKKI HALEY |
20% |
VIVEK RAMASWAMY |
16% |
TIM SCOTT |
16% |
RON DESANTIS |
14% |
DONALD TRUMP |
13% |
Additionally, consistent with multiple other polls, Trump dominates the GOP field at 56%, while the supposed white knight candidate, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at 22%, has galloped off a cliff.
The cratering of DeSantis has left restless GOP donors with nowhere to turn and no one to fund. Some deep-pocketed donors yanked their funding from DeSantis in the spring after he doubled down on MAGA extremism, arguably leaving him with just as much general election baggage as Trump.
Then there's the donors who just don't think DeSantis has the juice to win the primary. The Koch Network super PAC, Americans for Prosperity Action, has a $70 million wad of cash burning a hole in its pocket to put behind a Trump alternative, yet the super PAC remains on the sidelines. Indeed, DeSantis is no sure thing, but the question is: Can another candidate even find enough non-MAGA energy to make a run at Trump?
In effect, Bannon's shock troops of deluded GOP base voters are holding McConnell-aligned megadonors hostage.
At some point in 2021, Mitch McConnell told reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa that Trump was "a fading brand," as reported in the journalists' book "Peril."
"Retired," McConnell continued at the time. "OTTB as they say in Kentucky—off-the-track Thoroughbred.”
Washington journalists like to swoon over McConnell's tactical mastery, but he couldn't have been more wrong about the hold Trumpism continues to have on the party.
Bannon got it right: Trump's MAGA cultists rule the party while McConnell's donors sit around counting their millions, impotent.