Blaska would like his party back

Revenge of the RINOs!

This week the President of the United States vowed to extinguish “a whole civilization” — language used by no wartime President — not even Richard Nixon jabbering to the portraits hanging in the White House, scotch in hand, during Watergate. Peggy Noonan calls Trump’s tweet, “the language of sociopathy.”

This RINO is less offended by threats to enemies who swear “Death to America” than by Trump’s open-range cruelty. Blaming critics for their own murders and mocking disabled “fake news” reporters gives a stiffie to a certain kind of Republican. But the gratuitous meanness rubs independent voters counter clockwise.

We postulate that the President’s coarseness gets in the way of real achievements. His loose lips have tarnished the brand, dissuading otherwise persuadable voters, at least partly accounting for the 20-point whomping of the Republican-backed candidate in this week’s supposedly non-partisan supreme court race. Someone down the food chain must take the fall — it was Pam Bondi at Justice for not convicting Mark Kelly and Letitia James. In Wisconsin, it’s Wisconsin Republican chairman Brian Schimming for not electing Maria Lazar.

Tired of winning?

Trump promised we’d tire of all the winning. Where in the United States have Republicans been winning?

•  Replacing Marjorie Taylor Greene in Georgia this week, the Republican candidate did win by 12 percentage points but in a congressional district Greene won by 29 and Trump by 37.

•  In Virginia, a Democrat succeeded the popular, term-limited Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin, winning 55 to 45 percent last November.

•  In states like New Jersey, Iowa, Pennsylvania, and Mississippi, Democrats flipped 21 percent of all the GOP-held legislative seats last year. (Source here)

The Republican leaders of both houses of the Wisconsin legislature have announced their retirements. Canaries in the coal mine? Maybe. But for not overturning Trump’s 2020 defeat, MAGA has made Robin Vos’s life so miserable that the Assembly speaker avoided the party’s last state convention. Is that Brian Schimming’s fault?

→ Republicans will be “slaughtered in the midterms.” — Marjorie Taylor Greene

Scaring the voters

Brandon Scholz managed Scott Klug’s stunning victory over Democratic bell cow Bob Kastenmeier in the Madison-based Second congressional district in 1990. Scholz and Klug were the kind of relatable Republicans who could win tough elections in places like MADISON WI! Both would be called RINOs today except that Scholz, as he reminds reporters, quit the party cold turkey in 2021.

Speaking of the January 6 insurrection, too many Republicans — hostage to the Stolen Election lie — blame Nancy Pelosi (!!!) and not Trump’s Proud Boys. How does that tinfoil hattery position the Grand Old Party in the minds of everyday voters?

Brian Schimming took over a situation in which rabid Trump supporters had split the party and insisted they needed to take over control because the establishment leaders were Fk’d and idiots … Trump Republicans wrestled control away from the longtime Republican leaders at the county level, and then … [did] nothing with it. Look, it’s hard truth time. These so-called MAGA Republicans who insisted they could do better haven’t done better. …

Oh, they worked hard for Trump. They can get excited about Trump. They just don’t particularly care about anyone else on the Republican ticket. — Jay Weber WISN radio

Wisconsin Right Now editor Jessica McBride adds:  

Republicans in the age of Trump traded some more college-educated, affluent suburban voters (especially women) for formerly disenfranchised rural voters. This strategy worked for Trump … But they only turn out for Trump. — Jessica McBride

Blaska’s Bottom Line: We reported that the Marquette Law School Poll shows President Trump 14 points to the bad. In true MAGA fashion, a Trump cultist named Bill Elmhorst counters, “Why do you trust a Marxist University for anything?”

That kind of paranoid dumfukkery is the Republican cross — or curse — any state GOP chairman must bear. BTW: we voted Maria Lazar.

Can we take the party back from the crackpots?