As we wrap up the first month of this election year to end all election years, one thing is quite obvious: there's going to be a Xanax shortage in the United States before Independence Day.
Donald Trump's arrival as a legitimate player on the American political scene in 2015 heightened the tension level in American politics in a way that can't be dialed back as long as he is in the national conversation. I don't blame Trump at all for this. I blame the shift in the American collective psyche that began in the 1970s, when people began being told that their feelings were important and mattered to virtually everyone else on the planet.
As I was being educated by nuns and priests in the '70s, I was, thankfully, spared most of this.
Yes, politics always did inspire passion, but personal feelings are now prioritized over the survival of the Republic by people who should know better. There are millions of Americans who call themselves conservatives and/or Republicans who are so invested in their childish personal feelings-first worldview that they just can't bring their delicate little selves to vote for Donald Trump.
The alternative to voting for Trump in November is, of course, another four years of a White House of Horrors that's solely focused on the dismantling of the United States Constitution.
But we wouldn't want anyone to be embarrassed during cul-de-sac game night because Seth and Rowena next door found out that they voted for Orange Man Bad.
Feelings are just one way that the Republicans will find to screw things up this year. I'll be dealing with the intellectual dishonesty and weakness of the Never Trump tantrum a lot in the weeks to come, so I won't go into depth on the issue here.
This is more about the myriad ways Republicans find to do anything but what they need to do to win an election. I worked on my first Republican campaign in 1984, so I've got some real perspective.
The excuse game is strong on the right side of the aisle when it comes to election failure. There are legitimate potential roadblocks like election fraud in the way of a Republican victory this year. Then there's something like the current Taylor Swift panic in conservative media, which is emotionally unbalanced, unhelpful, and quite insane.
Election fraud is one of those quintessential hot button 21st century issues where no nuance or real discussion is allowed. You either believe that all Republican hopes of victory going forward are doomed or, according to the doomsayers, you're in denial. I would love to blame the internet and social media for this, but I believe that people have always been this ridiculous, they just didn't have as many ways to let us know before.
Throwing one's hands in the air and repeating "It's all rigged!" 24/7 is the path of least resistance for anyone lacking ambitions beyond being a keyboard warrior. Why work a phone bank, knock on doors, or do anything that might affect change when there's online raging to be done in various comment sections over a bowl of Froot Loops every morning, right?
In addition to ignoring reality (perennial swing state Florida flipping to solid red between 2018-2022, for example), the "Why vote? It's all fixed!" crowd is doing the Left's work for them. The glaring mail-in ballot anomalies in a few very large, traditionally blue cities have the effect of keeping Republicans all over the country at home on election day. Winner, winner, plant-based chicken dinner for the Dems.
Enough about how the GOP electorate helps the Democrats, let's take a look at the party and the politicians.
One of the most frustrating aspects of being a conservative/Republican activist is that it's not unusual to have to spend an inordinate amount of time overcoming hurdles that the GOP has placed in its own way before ever getting around to battling the Democrats. After I co-founded the Los Angeles Tea Party, I spent the next few years traveling the country trying to get things done. The majority of the walls we ran into were built by the GOP establishment in Washington.
Two major areas of incompetence that have plagued the Republican Party for decades are messaging and Get Out the Vote (GOTV) efforts.
When it comes to messaging, the root of the problem is that 99.9999999% of the Republicans running for office fail to understand that every question from a mainstream media hack is a gotcha question. They take the bait, say stupid things, then spend weeks trying to overcome their unforced errors. It's a dance that has been going on for as long as I can remember and, as I mentioned earlier, I've been at this for a while.
Reporters will never ask a Republican candidate a question that will reflect well upon the candidate. That's why every Republican candidate needs to learn to reject premises and questions, then change the subject. The only thing I've liked about Vivek Ramaswamy is that he's willing to call any reporter's question "stupid," which is something that all Republicans should reflexively do.
GOP candidates are forever being conned into talking about the Democrats' pet issues, which are never the real issues plaguing America. They need to practice changing the subject.
Here's a handy primer for any Republican candidate running in 2024:
- When asked about abortion, talk about the border.
- When asked about casualties in Gaza, talk about the border.
- When asked to respond to ANYTHING that Trump said or did, talk about the border.
We would practice this if I were running a Republican candidates' media relations bootcamp.
GOTV is something that the Republican Party has never come close to getting right, mostly because it's never prioritized. Oh, there's a lot of lip service paid to it, but that's it. In 2012, I asked then-GOP Chairman Reince Priebus if the Republicans had changed their approach to GOTV and how he thought the party would do that November. He said, "We're gonna crush 'em."
What they did was roll out a system that had barely been tested and failed spectacularly on election day.
With Ronna Romney McDaniel and her legacy of failure still in charge of the GOP, it's difficult to believe that the party is serious about doing well this year. Why Donald Trump supported her for a fourth go-round is beyond me. I know he values loyalty, but some fresh leadership blood was sorely needed in the GOP for this all-important election.
It's always an uphill battle when you're on the side that isn't a hive mind here in American politics. That hill would be a lot smaller if those in the Trump Angst Wing of the GOP would realize that their feelings are stupid and get over them, if only just this one time.
It would also help a lot if Ronna McDaniel tried not to help.
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