Part Two: Dems wise up. GOP gets stupid.

Republican voters are embracing the crazies in their party. They are pruning their RINOs. 

Suicidal.

Yesterday I wrote that there are signs Democrats are avoiding political suicide. Democratic voters are saying "NO!" to the progressive college-town academic elite portion of the Democratic coalition. That subset of Democrats are "woke" on race, uncomfortable with policing, and opposed to border enforcement. People of all political persuasions consider them "preachy" and "judgmental." That elite coalition contains the thought leaders, but not the voters. When moderate Black voters in South Carolina chose Biden, it should have sent a clarifying message to the party. Party leaders still imagined they had a progressive governing majority. They didn't. 

A political temptation dangles in front of Democrats in the form of a national spokesperson. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez understands modern media and manipulates it brilliantly. She is articulate and photogenic. She says things that sound good to a lot of Democrats. But voters are leading the party away from that temptation, and back toward the center. The San Francisco School Board recall was the most recent iteration of this.

Republicans are doing the opposite. They have a national spokesperson in Donald Trump. Like AOC, he understands modern media, manipulates it brilliantly, has a point of view, is articulate, and can photograph to look like a powerful CEO. Voters are embracing his message, and him personally.

Trump drives a hard bargain. He insists GOP officeholders accept the full Trump package: 

     ***Trump won the 2020 election in a landslide. He was robbed.

     ***The January 6 insurrection was done by patriots.

     ***Vice President Pence had the right and duty to overturn the election.

     ***State officeholders in Arizona, Georgia, and other battleground states who oversaw the 2020 election were derelict and disloyal when they failed to reverse the election. 

No one is immune from Trump's wrath. Mike Pence, Mitch McConnell, Mitt Romney, Liz Cheney, and many others pay a price for heresy. 

Trump's power in the GOP comes from the fact that a majority of Republican voters support Trump.  A February 8 Pew poll reports that 57% of Republican and Republican-leaning voters think Trump bears no responsibility at all for the Capitol riot. And 66% of Republicans said they believe Trump won the 2020 election, some say certainly (33%), some probably (33%).

We see the effect of that loyalty to Trump in contested primary elections. Ohio's has an election for an open U.S. senate seat. There are well-known, well-funded GOP candidates vying for the nomination. They are competing to be as Trump-positive as possible. Here is a 30 second ad from candidate Mike Gibbons, who calls himself "Trump tough" and calls opponents J.D. Vance and Jane Timken "Washington Wimps."

In the open senate race in Pennsylvania, there is a similar competition for Trump's blessing. GOP organizer Val Biancaniello said, "Trump is looming over this whole thing. Everyone knows if Trump comes out and endorses a candidate, then all bets are off."

There is one giant hope for Democrats: Trump front and center, continuing to claim he was robbed. Biden is unable to project a powerful, confident narrative of progress on peace and prosperity. The Democratic message is bad. A Trump message of election fraud is worse. 

Democrats can hope that GOP candidates have no choice but to soil themselves winning their nominations. Some Republicans will be Trump-positive, willingly and eagerly. They will continue to say newsworthy, cringeworthy things. That is where the money is in GOP fundraising. Madison Cawthorn writes me frequently, soliciting money. He proudly calls himself "the Donald Trump of Congress!"

GOP candidates may try to win nominations while preserving wiggle-room ambiguity. Trump-positive Republican candidates are pouncing on that, even in blue states like Oregon, where the Trump-positive candidate is calling out opponents for timidity in failing to say the election was stolen. Winning candidates will be stuck with what they said. They will also be stuck with what people like Cawthorn and Marjorie Taylor Green continue to say which spreads the message of an extreme GOP. 

Republican candidates are in a tough spot. They are led by a narcissistic con man with an extraordinary gift for marketing and persuasion. He has created a block of extreme and loyal voters. They are pushing candidates off a political cliff into unelectable Trump-craziness. 

Democrats have no message-leader in Biden, but voters on their own know they aren't comfortable with the preachy judgements and policies of elite scolds. Better to have no leader than a bad one.