As we track the latest plot twists in crucial North Carolina – where MAGA gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson’s devotion to Adolf Hitler and transgender porn has sparked the resignations of his entire senior campaign staff, thus humiliating Trump, who’d recently hailed Robinson as a future president (“some day we’re going to see that man at the highest position”) – there’s something important we should bear in mind:
Robinson is merely the latest in a long line of freaks, dolts, and extremists who’ve blown winnable elections for the GOP.
Chris Christie said yesterday, “As long as Donald Trump is our recruiting agent for candidates in swing states, we’re going to continue to get our rear ends handed to us.” That’s certainly been true during the MAGA era. Trump has touted a string of doomed losers, including Arizona’s Blake Masters (the Senate hopeful who said that Joe Biden stole the 2020 election, that America was wrong to enter World War II, and that America’s gun violence should be blamed on “Black people, frankly”); Arizona’s Kari Lake (the gubernatorial hopeful who denied Biden’s win and campaigned with white supremacists); Georgia’s Herschel Walker (the Senate hopeful who lied non-stop about his non-existent credentials and all the kids he sired but never disclosed); Alabama’s Roy Moore (the Senate hopeful who was outed as a serial pedophiliac); New Hampshire’s Don Bolduc (the Senate hopeful who attacked Covid vaccinations and said Biden stole 2020); Pennsylvania’s Dr. Oz (Senate hopeful and the carpetbagging quack doc); and Pennsylvania’s Doug Mastriano (the gubernatorial hopeful who chartered buses for Jan. 6).
But Christie was wrong yesterday in one respect: Trump didn’t invent stupid recruitment. In truth, the GOP has long plucked nominees from the bottom of the barrel.
Back in 2012, the pre-MAGA party offered two nutcase senatorial candidates: Indiana’s Richard Mourdock (who said that an impregnated rape victim is “something that God intended”) and Missouri’s Todd Akin (who said rape victims can thwart pregnancy by blocking the sperm). They lost winnable races. And back in 2010, the party served up Delaware’s Christine O’Donnell (“I’m not a witch”) and Nevada’s Sharron Angle (who said it’s OK if a rape victim is impregnated, because “God has a plan”). They lost their Senate races, too.
The GOP’s big problem, which Trump has merely worsened, is that the party is hostage to the right-wing zealots who dominate its primaries. Over and over, they pick candidates who alienate mainstream voters. And they’re incapable of learning from their mistakes. (Since their first priority is to satisfy their primal urges, they don’t view their nominees as mistakes.) Two years ago, after the various MAGA wipeouts, former conservative talk show host Charlie Sykes said it well: “Somehow we doubt that the GOP will spend much time rummaging through the soul they mislaid years ago.”
And what about Mark Robinson, the North Carolina architect of Pervgate whose November debacle could drag Trump to defeat? Will Trump and Vance locate their mislaid souls and denounce him? Robinson has denied writing all the stuff that he wrote in his perv posts. Do Trump and Vance believe him?
Yesterday, Vance was asked the latter question. His response:
“I don’t not believe him.”
Make room for Vance at the bottom of the barrel.