What Is The Republican Party Doing Since It Lost?

Get over it. The Republican Party and Trump lost the 2020 election. Stop crying about “stolen elections”, “voter fraud”, “mail-in ballots” and move on. BUT the Republican Party is no where to be found. Biden and his puppeteers are literally running this county with apparently no resistance, discussion or input from the political party that is SUPPOSED to be representing the 72 million of us that voted for Donald Trump. As for why he lost, the consensus among most of us is that he’d be President today if he’d only kept his mouth shut. It’s still amazing to me that the business community never sat him down and told him simply to be quiet and continue growing the greatest economy America has seen in 50 years! As they said about Jimmy Hoffa in the movie “Hoffa”…”Jimmy was a nice boy, but he just didn’t know how to shut up”……and he disappeared too!

Usually after a loss of a Presidential or mid-term election the losing party does an “autopsy” to see what went wrong. There’s a smattering of that going on but you’ll never hear much about it from MSM. The Republican Party has lost 3 of the last 4 elections. An excellent article on the website http://fivethirtyeight.com (an American website that focuses on opinion poll analysis, politics, economics, and sports blogging. It’s name comes from 538 which is the number of electors in the United States electoral college and is led by Nate Silver). The entire article is here: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-the-republican-party-isnt-rebranding-after-2020/ and here is a summary:

• “Republicans on Capitol Hill and at the state level are returning to their Obama-era strategy of opposing everything the incumbent Democratic president does.”
• “Republicans at the state level are adopting laws that make it harder for left-leaning people to vote, just like they did before and during the Trump presidency.”
• “Republicans in Washington and at the state level are sticking with the party’s positions on issues of identity and race, which are a big part of the reason that the GOP is struggling among the growing parts of America’s electorate, namely people of color and white college graduates.”
• “And, perhaps most surprisingly, Republican Party officials are largely continuing to align themselves with Trump”……who as I said in my opinion served his purpose and shouldn’t be viewed as a potential Presidential candidate if 2024 if the Republicans actually want to win.

Now 528 leans a bit to the left but I think they’re right about the above. While the Republicans started to make inroads among blacks and Hispanics the core group “running the RNC isn’t allowing any real conversation about change to take place. Mitch McConnell had to get back in line supporting Trump during the 2nd impeachment trial and it was made very clear that the 10 Republicans that DID vote FOR the impeachment were quickly told to get back in line. So the SWAMP is running the show again.

Trump is still tremendously influential despite his loss. It’s nearly sacrilege to be critical of him and when I have been I get looked at like I’m Judas. It’s well stated here:

“Trump’s continued popularity among key GOP constituencies prevents Republican insiders from undertaking a formal, public discussion about his political shortcomings and how the party should move on from him.”

Of course he’s still popular and ALMOST won re-election and would have if he had won about 1% better in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and about 3% better in Michigan. Aside from the Presidential Election the Republicans actually did VERY well in the state races. They also did better among Black and Latino voters but still lost to both those groups. That being said there are many among the party that see no reason to change. Republicans at the local level, could theoretically win control of the House, Senate or both next year without them changing a thing. 

So what do some of the polls tell us about 2024. A recent survey from Fabrizio, Lee and Associates, a GOP-leaning firm that worked on Trump’s presidential campaigns, found that about 40 percent of Republican voters didn’t want Trump to continue to be a leader in the party. That’s a substantial number of voters who are ready to “move on” but so far the RNC isn’t paying any attention to that group…….I would say at THEIR peril which is why I’m even writing this post!……as I said before McConnell and the SWAMP are really apparently pretty happy with the return to “normal”.

But not all of them. Ex-NJ Governor Chris Christie recently spoke to the Republican Study Committee during a packed private lunch at the Capitol Hill Club. His message was to “take the gloves off” and go after Biden like the Dems went after Trump for 4 years. “Call Biden out as a liar” was part of the message. “Oh, it’s ‘poor old Joe’ now? You can’t call poor old Joe a liar?” asked the former New Jersey governor. “No. You can. And we need to.” Christie believes the Democrats will ruin themselves without the Republican’s help.  “When your opponent is in the midst of committing suicide,” he told the lunchtime crowd, “there is no reason to commit murder. The result is the same.” He spoke for 40 minutes and also added  “I told the president 131 days out,” he recalled, “if you don’t knock off some of this crazy stuff, your behavior is going to obscure your accomplishments.” Obviously Trump was deaf to the advice. You can read more here: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2021/04/15/christie_to_gop_study_group_call_biden_out_as_a_liar_145591.html

How about our own Florida Governor Ron DiSantis? Many feel he may be the future of the Republican Party and I wrote this post a month ago: https://drjonsicu.com/is-governor-ron-desantis-the-future-of-the-republican-party/ Even the NYSlimes has an op-ed piece on DeSantis: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/17/opinion/sunday/ron-desantis-republicans.html The writer puts it this way: ” the trauma of Trumpism has taught the G.O.P. elite that some compromise with base politics is inevitable, and right now DeSantis seems like the safest version of that compromise — Trump-y when necessary, but not Trump-y all the time.” EXACTLY and I think DeSantis is the undeclared favorite for 2024 already! The writer concludes “the donors circling DeSantis at least seem to have learned one important lesson from 2016: If you want voters to say no to Donald Trump, you need to figure out, in a clear and early way, the candidate to whom you want them to say yes.“

So there you have it. The Republican Party is still licking it’s wounds and it remains to be seen if they will remember the 72 million of us that are tired of seeing just how fast America is being dismantled. Time will tell. DeSantis 2024 !!