Friday, January 15, 2021

SPIKING THE FOOTBALL ON THE 40-YARD LINE (updated)

I like the fact that the GOP is now the party seen by Beltway insiders as "in disarray," but it's way too early to write something like this Axios post by Jim VandeHei:
The post-Trump GOP, gutted

Republicans will emerge from the Trump era gutted financially, institutionally and structurally....

* They lost their congressional power.
Yes, but in 2022 they need to flip only six seats to win the House back, and one seat to win the Senate back.
* Their two leaders, Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy, are hamstrung by corporate blacklisting of their election-denying members.

* The GOP brand is radioactive for a huge chunk of America.

* The corporate bans on giving to the 147 House and Senate Republicans who voted against election certification are growing and virtually certain to hold.
We have no emprical evidence -- not a single poll -- suggesting that "the GOP brand is radioactive" for a larger number of people than felt that way before January 6, or on November 3. The Trump brand may be radioactive -- although as the memories of the Capitol riot fade, that could easily cease to be true -- but we know nothing about the public's impression of the GOP as a whole.

And I think VandeHei is wrong about the corporate boycotts of certification challengers. Again, as the memories of January 6 fade, I expect corporations to give the way they always have.
... * Democrats crushed [Republicans] in fundraising when they were out of power. Imagine their edge with it.
Democrats crushed Republicans in fundraising because Democratic voters with disposal income despise Donald Trump. The party has to prove that it can sustain that level of fundraising now that Trump is gone.
* Sheldon Adelson, the party's biggest donor, died Monday.
Yes, but as The Guardian reported in 2019, his wife, who's alive and well, appears to have been the driving force behind the couple's political giving:
Evidence suggests that she is the driver in the couple’s political and philanthropic activities, whether pushing for the relocation of the US embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv or donating an unprecedented $113m to this year’s midterm elections

“Everybody says it’s Sheldon, but it’s Miriam,” says Michael Cherry, the associate chief justice of the Nevada supreme court, who sits on the board of the Las Vegas methadone clinic that the Adelsons founded.
More:
* The NRA is weaker than it has ever been, after massive leadership scandals.
Legal and financial woes might really doom the NRA, but we learned today that it's reincorporating in Texas. When the idea of a move to Texas was first brought up (by Donald Trump) last summer, the state's attorney general and lieutenant governor seemed delighted:


* The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, once controlled by rock-ribbed Republicans, also gave to Democrats in 2020.
The Chamber endorsed 23 first-term Democrats, but it endorsed more first-term Republicans -- 29 of them. And it didn't get a number of those Democratic endorsees reelected: Xochitl Torres Small of New Mexico, Joe Cunningham of South Carolina, Kendra Horn of Oklahoma, TJ Cox and Harley Rouda of California, and Ben McAdams of Utah all lost, while Anthony Brindisi of New York appears to have also been defeated (by 19 votes).

I'd love to believe that the Republican Party is broken and will suffer further losses in 2022. I'd be thrilled if memories of the Trump presidency put an end to its hold on white voters outside cities and upmarket suburbs. But I need to see a lot more evidence of these changes before I'm ready to believe.

*****

UPDATE: Well, there you go:



Pfizer won't give to the 147 House members ... for six months. After that? "We will review our decision" -- meaning they'll drop the boycott.
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