The D.C. Republicans Know That Trump Is Toast — Part II
I recently wrote a piece in which I pointed out that many of the D.C. Republicans believe the polls and know that Trump is toast. In that article, I discussed how Mitch McConnell was pressuring senior judges appointed by Republicans to resign, McConnell came out against repealing the filibuster rule and embattled GOP Senate incumbents are ignoring Trump in their advertising.
Since I wrote that blog post a little over two weeks ago, Trump continues to trail Biden in the polls and the economy and the pandemic continue to get worse. Moreover, the D.C. Republicans continue to send strong signals that they know Trump is a one term president.
The former TV reality star tried to distract us from terrible economic news when he tweeted last week that the election should be delayed. On the date of that tweet, it was announced that US economy contracted at a 32.9% annual rate from April through June and that initial weekly jobless claims last week came in at 1.434 million. Trump’s ludicrous tweet didn’t send the message that the former TV reality star is confident about the outcome.
Trump’s anti-democratic idea was blasted by everybody — including many prominent Republicans. Both Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy threw cold water on the idea. Even the usually obsequious Don Bacon was critical: “We are not going to delay the elections and there should be no talk about it … period,” he posted on Twitter.
Trump’s idea was so unhinged that the co-founder of the right wing Federalist Society vehemently opposed it. Steven Calabresi, a Northwestern University law professor, who has loyally supported Trump wrote: “I am frankly appalled by the president’s recent tweet seeking to postpone the November election. Until recently, I had taken as political hyperbole the Democrats’ assertion that President Trump is a fascist. But this latest tweet is fascistic and is itself grounds for the president’s immediate impeachment again by the House of Representatives and his removal from office by the Senate.”
The criticism from the Federalist Society is significant since the former TV reality star has rubber stamped its selection of right wing judicial nominees. It’s evident that Trump is no longer useful to the Federalist Society and that they’ve given up on him.
The return of the faux GOP “deficit hawks” is another sign that Trump is a goner. As Ben Sasse said: “The White House is trying to solve bad polling by agreeing to indefensibly bad debt. This proposal is not targeted to fix precise problems — it’s about Democrats and Trumpers competing to outspend each other.” Somehow, Sasse and his other obstructionist colleagues didn’t have a problem borrowing $2 trillion in 2017 for Trump’s failed tax cuts for the wealthy and big business.
About half of the GOP Senate caucus is opposed to all further stimulus and the other half are only willing to support half measures. Normally, it should be in the short term political interests of the GOP to spend as much money as possible to revive the economy before November. However, the return of the phony “deficit hawks” tells us that they know that Trump will lose and they want to get off to an early start in sabotaging the economy and a Biden presidency.
After McConnell got done obstructing more economic relief for working families and the Senate went on an undeserved vacation on Friday afternoon, CNN reported that: “the Senate Majority Leader has become so concerned over Republicans losing control of the Senate that he has signaled to vulnerable GOP senators in tough races that they could distance themselves from the President if they feel it is necessary, according to multiple senior Republicans including a source close to McConnell.”
At the present time, Biden holds an 8 point lead over Trump in the popular vote and would tally around 350 electoral votes if the election were held today. We Democrats have every reason to be confident that we will win but we should take nothing for granted. We should exude that confidence to create a bandwagon effect — everybody loves a winner.
We could be on the cusp of a new era of progressive reform in America. These eras usually follow a Republican crack up. Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson and Barack Obama all presided over eras of progressive reform. If we elect Joe Biden president along with a Democratic Congress, great things will happen. We will get the change this country needs so badly.
I would urge all Democrat to help Alisha Shelton, Kate Bolz and Kara Eastman. Our candidates will fight for our values — Nebraska values — in Washington. Now let’s get it done!