YES, RED AMERICA WILL STILL NAME SCHOOLS AFTER TRUMP

Jonathan Chait writes:

[The] repudiation I predicted is at hand. Trump has lost the popular vote twice, and been impeached as many times. His approval ratings have sunk to around 30 percent, half the level of where Obama’s stood when he left office. His Republican partners are already whispering they were privately against him all along. His anathematization by social media, corporate America, and other mainstream institutions is a preview of the place he will occupy in the popular imagination. He will join the likes of Andrew Johnson, Joe McCarthy, and George Wallace as an enemy of the civic creed. A century from now, Obama’s name — not Trump’s — will adorn schools, roads, and plazas.

Trump's approval ratings haven't "sunk to around 30 percent" -- he's at 39.4% in the Real Clear Politics polling average, and at 38.3% at FiveThirtyEight. He's doing worse in some polls (Gallup, Pew, Quinnipiac), but his approval is still above 40% according to others (Suffolk, NBC/Wall Street Journal). In the FiveThirtyEight average, Trump's 38.3% is a lot lower than Barack Obama's 51.1%, but it isn't "half the level."

Chait is right about Obama's legacy -- his name "will adorn schools, roads, and plazas." But so will Trump's. We know this because the events of January 6 haven't dampened the right's extremism.

In Wyoming, the Republican Party in one county has voted unanimously to censure Liz Cheney, the state's only member of the House, for voting to impeach Trump, while the state GOP chair just appeared on Steve Bannon's podcast and expressed interest in secession, citing secession moves by some Texas Republicans.

Earlier this month, Texas Republican Rep. Kyle Biedermann announced he would be sponsoring a bill in that Legislature’s 2021 session to put the question of secession to voters this fall, a step that comes roughly four years after the Texas Nationalist Movement came within two votes of adding Texas independence language to the state’s Republican platform.

In Michigan, the state GOP

wants to replace the GOP member of the Board of State Canvassers who cast the pivotal vote to certify election results in favor of Democratic President-elect Joe Biden....

His term ends on Jan. 31. Instead of renominating him for a four-year term, the Michigan Republican Party has proposed three well-know activists to take his spot, according to a letter obtained by The Detroit News. Among them is Linda Lee Tarver, who was involved in a lawsuit that sought to have the GOP-controlled Legislature intervene in the results showing Democratic President-elect Joe Biden won.

And then there's the Arizona GOP.

... when the party leadership meets this weekend, the most pressing items on the agenda will be censuring three moderate Republicans who remain widely popular in Arizona ... Cindy McCain, the widow of the Senator John McCain; former Senator Jeff Flake and Gov. Doug Ducey.

Cindy McCain endorsed Joe Biden. Jeff Flake criticized Trump. Doug Ducey wouldn't intervene to reverse Trump's loss in the 2020 election. This has nothing to do with whether they're "moderate."

Here's the text of the censure resolution for Cindy McCain:

WHEREAS, Cindy Hensley McCain, the wife of the late Arizona US Senator John McCain, has supported leftist causes such as gay marriage, growth of the administrative state, and others that run counter to Republican values, a Republican form of government, and the US Constitution;

WHEREAS, Cindy McCain has failed to support Conservative Republican candidates such as President Trump;

WHEREAS, Cindy McCain has supported globalist policies and candidates, including Democrats such as Joe Biden, in direct opposition to Republican values, the interests of the American people, and the Constitution of the United States;

WHEREAS, Cindy McCain has condemned President Trump for his criticism of her husband and erroneously placed behaviors over actual presidential results; and

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that Arizona Republican Party members meeting at their January 23, 2021 Meeting in Phoenix, Arizona, hereby object to Cindy McCain being a member of the Republican Party and officially censure her;

FURTHER, the Republican Party in the State of Arizona agrees to dissolve any connections whatsoever to Cindy McCain.

If the Capitol riot hasn't inspired Republican officials to rethink these moves, why would GOP-dominated locales hesitate to name schools, roads, and plazas after Trump? They'll do it largely because it offends the rest of us.

Think of the battle against Trumpism as roughly analogous to the Iraq War. We've taken Baghdad. Saddam is out of power. But it's way too early for the MISSION ACCOMPLISHED banner.