Donald Trump is a loser. Several of his handpicked stooges he endorsed have lost their races and this is just another one. This loser lost the election in a blowout and his sycophants think he will run in 2024 when he is even less popular in the GOP.
Trump's big Texas loss sent 'shockwaves through the former president's inner circle': report
Always angry, always mentally illThe loss of Donald Trump-endorsed Texas Republican Susan Wright in her House special election race sent "shockwaves through the former president's inner circle," according to POLITICO's Alex Isenstadt.
Now, Republicans are worried that another Trump-backed candidate in a special election next week in Ohio, who is locked in a close primary, could suffer the same fate.
"Advisers worry that a second embarrassing loss would raise questions about the power of Trump's endorsement — his most prized political commodity, which candidates from Ohio to Wyoming are scrambling to earn before next year's midterms," Isenstadt writes. "More broadly, losses could undermine his standing in the Republican Party, where his popularity and influence has protected Trump's relevance even as a former president barred from his social media megaphones."
According to Axios, some of Trump's advisers have blamed the situation on the Club for Growth, a conservative group that reportedly urged the former president to throw his support behind Wright.
"[Trump] totally was taken to the cleaners by the Club for Growth," said Rick Perry.
According to former top Republican National Committee official Doug Heye, a "loss is a loss."
"...and for someone who touts himself as the ultimate winner, putting your thumb on the scale and then losing tarnishes that brand within the party," he told POLITICO.
The upcoming Ohio contest raise the stakes for Trump's endorsement power because it's a Republican-only primary, making it a "purer test of his ability to shape GOP nomination contests."
Read the full article over at POLITICO:
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/07/28/texas-loss-trump-republican-party-clout-501347MSNBC's Claire McCaskill thinks Republicans would be wise to abandon Donald Trump before he brings down the entire partyThe Trump-endorsed Susan Wright lost her Texas congressional special election to fellow Republican Jake Ellzey, and "Morning Joe" host Joe Scarborough said that telling defeat comes against the backdrop of the first Jan. 6 select committee hearing that GOP lawmakers have sought to undermine.
"These so called conservatives are actually embracing the chaos, embracing the fascist violence, apologizing for it, trying to paper over it, trying to cover up the fascist violence, the fascist violence that had one goal, one goal, to overturn the legitimate democratic election result of November 2020," Scarborough said. "It's right here in front of us, and we can actually see as we saw in the last clip."
The evidence of Trump's complicity in the insurrection was strong enough to get him impeached a second time, and McCaskill said Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell and his fellow GOP senators are complicit, as well.
"Let's not let the Republicans in the Senate off the hook here, too," McCaskill said. "Remember, fewer than 10 of them voted for a bipartisan commission to make sure that we did certify the facts for American history, that we did make sure that no one had any questions based on party what actually happened, and Mitch McConnell killed the bipartisan commission. He got out there, he whipped his members, he told them not to vote for it. He told them they couldn't win the midterms if there was a credible body that uncovered the facts. He wanted to make sure that they could somehow try to shoehorn this into some kind of partisan effort, and that is how bad it is."
However, she said, Wright's loss should serve as a warning to them.
"I will tell you this, there is a cold ripple of fear running down the spine of Republicans on Capitol Hill this morning because Donald Trump's candidate lost last night," McCaskill said. "They have all been genuflecting for this ridiculous man that held the Oval Office, trying to say that they have to be for him because otherwise their party can't survive. [Sen.] Lindsey [Graham], Trump's guy lost, so let's just make sure that we realize that as this door begins to swing, we're going to see how many of them scramble to get out of the way."
Trump's support begins melting like a snowball in hellDonald Trump's influence is melting like a snowball left on the kitchen table.
In a special election to replace a Texas congressman who died, voters rejected Donald Trump's chosen candidate, the widow Susan Wright.
Instead, Texas voters in the Sixth Congressional District located southeast of the Dallas-Ft. Worth metro area picked Jake Ellzey, a conservative state representative. Ellzey got 53.3% of the vote; Wright 46.7%, out of fewer than 40,000 ballots cast.
Unlike the widow, who ran what can barely be called a campaign and proved weak at raising money, Ellzey proved to be an effective campaigner and political fundraiser.
Ellzey never criticized Trump. Had he done that and then won, I'd tell you that snowball was melting on a hot stove.
But Ellzey did have to contend with opposition by the perfidious junior senator from the Lone Star state, Ted Cruz, and the Club for Growth, which claims to be conservative but which exists to ensure that little people are more heavily taxed than the already rich. That Cruz, a servile Trumper, backed the wrong candidate suggests that his never strong standing with Texas voters is also dwindling.
This week's election results show yet again what a terrible choice Republican leaders made after Trump's failed coup in January. The insurrection, a clown show attempted coup, gave them the option to denounce Trump, to walk away from the crazy old man from Mar-a-Lago who tried to overthrow our government.
The Republican leaders are akin to the fools who received stock options during the dot con era at the turn of the century but failed to exercise them because they foolishly believed their options would become even more valuable but instead turned to dross.
Politics, it's often noted, is the art of the possible. The current Republican leadership has pretty much made it impossible to separate itself from Trump, a decaying albatross they chose to hang around their collective necks.
True believers continue to think of Trump as a demigod, lost in denial of his delusions, lies, and incompetence in accomplishing what he promised voters in his first campaign.
At a multi-racial ice cream social on Sunday, a friend told me that one of his sisters, who has an advanced degree, says Trump is literally a god.
It was far from the first time I heard such nonsense – blasphemous to any religious believer – but it was the first time anyone told me that a person with a first-rate education embraces such craziness. That shows how much this is about emotions, not rational thinking.
Sadly, few people know that while Trump claims to be a staunch Christian who reads the Bible more than anyone, his words show that he holds Christians in utter contempt. He went on for page after page in his Think Big book, denouncing those who accept Jesus's teaching in the Sermon on the Mount as "fools," "idiots," and "schmucks."
Unless you believe most Americans are damn fools, support for Trump will continue to dwindle.
That's a good thing for democracy in America. Our Constitution embraces Enlightenment principles of freedom rooted in rationality and reason, not cultish devotion to a wannabe dictator, especially one as incompetent as Trump and his gang.
As Trump continues his descent into madness and frets about his pending indictments, we should hope that the Republican leaders hold fast in their foolish embrace of Trump. Sticking by their awful decision after the Jan. 6 insurrection establishes they are knowingly evil in submitting to Trump and his anti-American desire to become our dictator. That submissiveness should reduce their numbers in Congress.
Let us hope that actual Republicans with some principles arise to defeat the faux Republicans who put Trump ahead of their oath to defend our Constitution. Otherwise, we will continue to suffer from those who, like Cruz and the Senate and House minority leaders, show allegiance to the criminal mind of Donald J. Trump.
https://www.rawstory.com/trumps-support-begins-melting-like-a-snowball-in-hell/Trump 'trying very hard to pretend he actually won' after his big loss in TexasState Rep. Jake Ellzey pulled off a major upset in the special election runoff in Texas' 6th district on Tuesday when he defeated Susan Wright, a fellow Republican who was endorsed by former President Donald Trump. But in a phone call with Axios on Wednesday, Trump tried to reframe the defeat in Texas as a victory for himself.
"I think this is the only race we've lost together," Trump said, referring to himself and the Club for Growth, which reportedly pushed him to endorse Wright.
But, according to Axios, the former president caught himself "mid-sentence" and quickly tried to change his language.
"This is not a loss, again, I don't want to claim it is a loss, this was a win," Trump said. "The big thing is, we had two very good people running that were both Republicans. That was the win."
The former president endorsed Wright in April. "Susan Wright will be a terrific Congresswoman (TX-06) for the Great State of Texas," he said in a statement. "She is the wife of the late Congressman Ron Wright, who has always been supportive of our America First Policies."
New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman commented on the story on Twitter, saying that "Trump [is] trying very hard... to pretend he actually won."
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-texas-defeat/Paul Krugman: GOP 'family values' rhetoric is as 'intellectually bankrupt' now as it was in 1992"Hillbilly Elegy" author J.D. Vance, who is seeking the GOP nomination in Ohio's 2022 U.S. Senate race, was cynically playing the family values card when he railed against the "childless left" during a speech on Friday night, July 23 — and he even mentioned some Democrats by name. Liberal economist Paul Krugman has responded to Vance's speech in his July 26 column for the New York Times, stressing that Republican "family values" rhetoric is as empty and vacuous in 2021 as it was when the GOP made "family values" the theme of the 1992 Republican National Convention.
Vance was speaking at an event hosted by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, and the Democrats he singled out as examples of the "childless" trend in the U.S. included Vice President Kamala Harris, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York City. And Vance praised Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán — a far-right authoritarian — for encouraging more procreation in his country. Booker and AOC, reporter Martin Pengelly noted in The Guardian, don't have any children. Harris has two stepchildren with her husband, Doug Emhoff.
Vance's speech, Krugman writes, brought back memories of the GOP's "family values" rhetoric of 1992.
"For a few weeks in 1992," Krugman writes, "U.S. politics were all about 'family values.' President George H.W. Bush was in electoral trouble because of a weak economy and rising inequality. So, his vice president, Dan Quayle, tried to change the subject by attacking Murphy Brown, a character in a TV sitcom (and) an unmarried woman who chose to have a child."
Krugman continues, "I was reminded of that incident when I read about recent remarks by J.D. Vance, the author of 'Hillbilly Elegy,' who is now a Republican Senate candidate in Ohio. Vance noted that some prominent Democrats don't have children, and he lashed out at the 'childless left.' He also praised the policies of Viktor Orbán, the leader of Hungary, whose government is subsidizing couples who have children, and asked, 'Why can't we do that here?'"
The Washington Post's Dave Weigel, covering Vance's speech, noted that he failed to mention President Joe Biden's child tax credit — which, Krugman points out, "will make an enormous difference to many poorer families with children."
"It was also interesting that (Vance) praised Hungary rather than other European nations with strong pronatalist policies," Krugman observes. "France, in particular, offers large financial incentives to families with children and has one of the highest fertility rates in the advanced world. So why did Vance single out for praise a repressive, autocratic government with a strong white nationalist bent? That was a rhetorical question."
Krugman goes on to say that "family values" rhetoric coming from Vance and other Republicans is meaningless without economic policies that actually help parents.
"The whole focus on 'family values' — as opposed to concrete policies that help families — turns out to have been an epic intellectual misfire," Krugman stresses. "Dan Quayle, of course, was no intellectual. But his sitcom offensive took place amid a sustained argument by conservative thinkers like Gertrude Himmelfarb that the decline of traditional values, especially traditional family structure, presaged widespread social collapse. The demise of Victorian virtues, it was widely argued, would lead to a future of spiraling crime and chaos. Society, however, declined to collapse."
Krugman cites some specific economic policies that are helpful to families, and they aren't Republican policies.
The economist writes, "When politicians rant about values, or attack other people's personal choices, it's usually a sign that they're unable or unwilling to propose policies that would actually improve American lives…. Doing more to help families with children — with financial aid, better health care and access to day care — is at or near the top of the list. The point, by the way, isn't to encourage people to have more kids — that's up to them — but to improve the lives of the children themselves, so that they grow up to become healthier, more productive adults."
Krugman adds, "On the other hand, yelling at members of the elite over their personal life decisions isn't on the list at all. And when that's all a politician does, it's a sign of intellectual and perhaps moral bankruptcy."
https://www.rawstory.com/paul-krugman-gop-family-values-rhetoric-is-as-intellectually-bankrupt-now-as-it-was-in-1992/
