I have tuned out a lot of the insane politics in my country because it is so upsetting. A GOP politician said right after the midterms that his party now had a strong brand as the "anti-woke" party. That's their big agenda item now that they've gerrymandered back a majority in the house. And while they go on about wokeness, the more sinister narrative they all believe is "replacement theory". The "anti-woke capitalism" bill being proposed will make it illegal to consider climate or environmental concerns for financial investments because it's not real capitalism if it isn't destroying the Earth (even though "green capitalism" will too).

#RacialJustice #WhitePrivilege #GOPMess

https://www.npr.org/2022/11/18/1137836712/college-university-florida-woke-desantis-1984

Pretending that they didn't consciously choose to follow Trump because they didn't care about the country but just wanted power!

Was It Really All Just Trump’s Fault? - The Bulwark https://www.thebulwark.com/was-it-really-all-just-trumps-fault/

"...When Trump’s “grab ‘em by the pussy” remarks were publicized late in the 2016 race, Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan worked behind the scenes to force him off the ticket. Senator Mike Lee and then-Rep. Jason Chaffetz publicly called on Trump to leave the race. At least they tried?

More recently, after Trump’s MAGA army launched a violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol to stop the counting of electoral votes, GOP establishment types once again looked to a post-Trump future.

National Review’s Dan McLaughlin declared that January 6th heralded The Abandonment of Trump: “it is impossible to miss the number of conservatives now either openly regretting voting for Trump ten weeks ago, or simply being done with him and telling him to go away.”

Former Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said it was time for “hard truths”, telling Tim Alberta that “we shouldn’t have followed him, and we shouldn’t have listened to him. And we can’t let that ever happen again.”

Lindsey Graham announced on the Senate floor that he and Trump had “a hell of a journey. I hate it being this way . . . count me out. Enough is enough.”

But while the spirit may have been willing, the flesh was weak.

House speaker Kevin McCarthy and Florida Senator Rick Scott sought out the former president to pay him homage. Graham also reversed course, declaring that any GOP leader “must have a working relationship” with Trump and that the 2024 nomination is “his . . . if he wants it.”

And so here we are. Again.

Can the GOP successfully dislodge Trump from the commanding heights of Republican politics this time? Possibly. Party leaders and conservative media are attempting to create a sense of inevitability around Ron DeSantis. Even some in Trump’s orbit are reportedly urging him to “delay” his rumored forthcoming presidential announcement.

Could a rebranded MAGA movement continue by just replacing the frontman? Is it still Journey without Steve Perry, or the Grateful Dead without Jerry Garcia? In a way, yes. MAGA could Jefferson Starship itself indefinitely as long as the crowds keep vibing. But without the original magic the venues tend to shrink, the fans get old, and it all starts to seem a little pathetic.

How much of a burden can you place on a single scapegoat? Over the last seven years we were told time and again that Trump was a symptom of a larger phenomenon. Is that no longer the case?

Take local TV news star Kari Lake’s struggle to defeat her less media-savvy opponent in the race for governor of Arizona. Katie Hobbs didn’t even debate! Is Lake’s underperformance Trump’s fault?

Mehmet Oz might have been a Trump-endorsed “bad candidate,” but his loss to a recent stroke victim probably had as much to do with Pennsylvania voters ranking abortion as a more important issue than inflation as it did with Donald Trump.

What about Herschel Walker? Do you hold Trump responsible when his real first choice was David Perdue?

And who gets the blame for picking a weird Ron Paul acolyte to take on a popular astronaut? Do you put that all on Trump? Or do you share some of the blame with Blake Masters’s patrons in the venture capital bubble and the emerging “national conservative” movement?

Where does Trump end and the far-right begin? If you dump Trump but keep the people who built him up and protected him every step of the way, did you really change anything?

Blaming Trump is easy. Organizing a realignment of the GOP coalition to improve its standing with younger voters—by purging the party of its openly racist and seditionist elements, for example—is more of a challenge.

An early test of the GOP’s determination to put the former president out to pasture will come during the Georgia Senate runoff between Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker. Will Trump rally for Walker? Will Walker disavow Trump and all of the Stop the Steal lies?

Or perhaps Republicans will find a way to rationalize following their former leader into one last battle—“Lord, make me chaste, but not yet.” Though if Trump somehow agrees to sit out the Georgia runoff, he will have effectively conceded leadership of the party. He knows weakness when he sees it.

#GOPMess