DDonald Trump’s big lie was largely lost in Georgia on Tuesday night. Some might take this as proof that his spell on the GOP has finally been broken, but that’s what the GOP wants people to believe.
The former president had been waging a personal vendetta against Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger for failing to overturn the 2020 presidential election in his favor.
Trump selected former Sen. David Perdue and Congressman Jody Hice to challenge Kemp and Raffensperger in the Republican primary. Both repeated like a parrot the big lie and both were severely beaten. It was a tangible sign that even many Trump voters are now tired of “stopping the robbery” and eager to look ahead. It was also a blow to Trump in a primary season in which his scattered endorsements have yielded a decidedly mixed win-loss record.
But studying Trump’s recent record as a kingmaker misses the point. In fact, he actively helps Republicans create the illusion that they have moved on from “Making America Great Again” (Maga) even as they continue to push their radical right-wing agenda.
It all started with Glenn Youngkin, who last year won the election for governor of Virginia as a Trump-style Republican. He never campaigned alongside the former president, but he also took pains to avoid criticizing him and alienating his base. “Don’t insult Donald Trump, but do your best to keep him away,” columnist Peggy Noonan told the Wall Street Journal.
Youngkin projected the image of a confident, sane, old-school Republican who could win back suburban and independent voters. But he became Maga by pushing hot-button issues like coronavirus mask mandates, transgender toilets and “critical race theory” and portraying his opponent as a “woke” liberal. He flirted with Trump’s false claims of a stolen election, but did not accept them.
The formula has been emulated in various ways by candidates facing extreme Trump-backed challengers. It worked for Brad Little, the governor of Idaho, and now for Kemp in Georgia. It should also not be confused with “NeverTrumpers” in the mold of Jeb Bush, Mitt Romney, Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger or Larry Hogan.
Kemp recently acquiesced to Trump’s base by signing bills that would ban abortions six weeks after conception and allow Georgians to carry weapons in public without a license or background check. While he, unlike Perdue, has steered clear of the big lie, he was content to sign voter suppression legislation in the name of “electoral integrity.”
And on Monday he campaigned alongside Mike Pence, who as vice president was one of Trump’s top enablers for four years. Neither of them uttered a word of criticism of Patriarch Maga. Kemp told reporters: “I had a great relationship with President Trump. I have never said anything bad about him. I don’t plan to do that. I’m not mad at him. I think he’s just mad at me and that’s something I can’t control.”
Even Raffensperger, though more outspoken in denouncing Trump’s election lies, has campaigned to prevent non-citizen voting, which is virtually non-existent in Georgia or anywhere in the US, as well as to end voting. by mail without excuses.
Trump’s approach without the tweets is a good fit for governors, who can build right-wing legislative gains in their own states. In the 2024 presidential election, he could prove a useful role model for Pence, offering a promise of Maga’s past, or Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, offering a promise of Maga’s future.
Democrats are aware of the threat of the GOP being sold as post-Trump to voters in swing states. On Tuesday, the Democratic National Committee said in a statement: “From Mike Pence refusing to criticize Trump, to GOP candidates across the country running on his ultra-Maga agenda, the GOP is Trump’s party. , And there is no turning back”.
To underscore the point, while Perdue’s loss showed the electoral limitations of the big lie, the Trump-backed candidates showed that Frankenstein still exerts at least some control over the Maga monster.
In Georgia, Herschel Walker, the former football star, won the Senate primary and will now face Democrat Raphael Warnock in November. Congresswoman and conspiracy theorist Marjorie Taylor Greene easily defeated a group of primary hopefuls to become the 14th District candidate.
In Texas, Attorney General Ken Paxton defeated George P. Bush, the nephew of George W. Bush, a former president and a staunch supporter of the anti-Trump Republican establishment. Sarah Sanders, a former Trump White House press secretary, is now the Republican candidate for governor of Arkansas.
In some cases, Trump intervenes late to endorse a candidate who is already assured of victory; in others, his endorsement lifts candidates, sometimes to victory. It is not always clear whether the chicken or the egg came first. But it’s clear that Maga can be a bottom-up phenomenon: There were boos last August when Trump urged his supporters to get vaccinated.
Similarly, some voters have grown comfortable with the paradox of pledging allegiance to Trump while rejecting some of his endorsements. Thousands, for example, voted for both Raffensperger and Taylor Greene on Tuesday. They feel, presumably, that even those whose faith in Trump wavers, the man remains an apostle of the movement’s Trumpism.
Reference-www.theguardian.com