Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Thursday, October 22, 2020

One Caveat

 I agree with most of what Jennifer Rubin says here. I would add a caveat. We need the wave to not only sweep Trump out convincingly but carry the Senate by large margins with places like MT, SC, KS and GA flipping Blue. The problems are two-fold.

First, there is always some pol who thinks they are more clever than the electorate. There are people like Tom Cotton and Josh Hawley who are going to try Trumpism without the rough edges and indiscipline.

Second, the GOP electorate, fueled by QAnon and the Fox/OANN conspiracy cocaine is unlikely to suddenly embrace reasonable conservatism any time soon. They are deep in the fever swamps. Interviews with Trump supporters register people completely at odds with reality. Trump has built his wall, reformed America's trade relations, brought peace to the Middle East and done a great job with the economy.  His health care plan is ready to go. To be a GOP politician, you have to appeal to these whackaloons just to win the primary.

Until the GOP makes up just 40% of the electorate and that's a hard ceiling, we are headed to a time when the new media will treat some QAnon nutter the same as a mildly left wing politician like Ilhan Omar as effectively as the same extremes.

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