||| FROM HEDRICK SMITH |||
Hedrick Smith
Olga, Washington – The media keeps telling us that 70 percent of Republicans still back the bogus claim that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump. But for this November, keep your eye on the 20 to 30 percent of Republicans who reject the Big Lie. They’re likely to cast the deciding votes in key elections.
What makes these Liz Cheney Republicans so pivotal this fall is that 2022 is not a normal mid-term election. The media has mostly been treating this year’s contest as a rerun of the traditional red vs blue mid-term election where, by all historical norms, the in-party suffers a shellacking and loses control of Congress.
But that’s missing what’s unique about 2022. The personality cult of Donald Trump has transformed this year’s political warfare into an election that puts American democracy on the ballot. The Trump Cult, masquerading under the flag of the Republican Party and touting its MAGA slogans, has mobilized its own slates of candidates in pursuit of its own radical, anti-democratic agenda.
The main line of attack, deploying more than 30 of Trump’s most pugnacious advocates on the ballot for governor, senator, secretary of state or attorney general, is to try to capture major state offices in more than a dozen states, from Alaska, Arizona and Nevada to Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, and take control of the election machinery in swing states, including the power to reject and override the popular vote, so they can lock in Trump’s re-election in 2024.
The most crucial test this fall is whether the Trump camp will succeed in converting Big Lie propaganda into practical power, or whether an emerging coalition of Democrats, independents and constitutional Republicans can block enough of the Trump slates to protect the future fairness of American elections and discredit the Big Lie strategy.
The Emerging Coalition Against the Trump Cult
For months, the media has focused on tallying Trump Cult successes in Republican primaries. But heading into the general election, the narrative is changing. Democratic voters are newly energized by the Supreme Court’s striking down abortion rights, President Biden’s legislative gains in Congress, and the FBI’s seizure of Trump’s hidden cache of national security documents at Mar-a-Lago.
Independent voters, always important in mid-term elections and more numerous than either major party, are leaning against Trump. More than 60% of independents tell pollsters they think Joe Biden won fairly in 2020 and more than 60% hold Trump accountable for the January 6, 2021 attack on Congress. Trump has risked further inflaming their hostility with his recent demand that the 2020 election be nullified and his strong suggestions that he’ll pardon Trump backers convicted for their actions on January 6 if he gets back in the White House in 2024.
Already there’s a serious independent candidate for the U.S. Senate in Utah, Evan McMullin, running to unseat pro-Trump Re;ublican Senator Mike Lee. Democrats are combining with independents to back McMullin rather than run their own candidate. Independent voters also loom large in Alaska, where Trump is out to punish and banish Senator Lisa Murkowski, who voted to convict Trump in his Senate impeachment trial in January 2021. Based on her historic performance, Murkowski should pull well among independents and Democrats in her race against a handpicked Trump rival, Kelly Tshibaka.
I agree; it is all on the line this November and if MAGA people take over the states there will be a hell of a time getting them out. And the money is so big now I find it very troubling to watch. Get out and vote, everyone, everywhere. We need to make it clear that we will not stand for this nonsense any longer. If we don’t, as a people, we may cease to exist. I don’t think I am being alarmist but realistic. Surely non-maga Republicans, if there are any left, need to step it up and make yourselves known to the rest of us. So we can unite against these non-democratic forces that surround us.
Oh No! The MAGA boogeyman!!! Far better to beg “mother may I” from MAMA: Make America Mediocre Again – Obama redux, by the way who’s in charge at the white house?
Yep been to the store lately, the gas station, lumber yard? How’s that 401K / IRA holding up? Pension COLA keeping you even? Been to Seattle recently and live to tell about it? Title IX, full equality boys in the girls locker room. Critical race theory, no worries after losing two years of schooling idiocracy triumphant!
A new supreme court justice who can’t define what a woman is, a vice-president who can’t formulate a sentence, but thankfully pregnant men can still get an abortion in Washington!
Things are looking up!
Happy days are here again
The sky above is clear again
Let us sing a song of cheer again
Happy days are here again
well I guess we know who one of them is???
Yikes, I’m embarrassed for this “news” website for having posted this article. If I wanted to read hate-inspired fiction, I’d buy a copy of The New York Times.
I’m glad you used the phrase “Trump cult,” Rick, because that’s what it is — not a political “party” in the usual sense. And it looks like we have a few of them among us.
More than a few actually.
Apart from being incredibly biased, the article completely misses the most important issue to voters ( no, it’s not the last election). It’s the absolutely abysmal and embarrassing job the current administration has done. And yes, independent voters are very aware of that fact.