DEMOCRATS CAN'T PERSUADE VOTERS THAT THE GOP IS THE PARTY OF TRUMP. WILL ELON MUSK?

Politically engaged Democrats and Never Trumpers know that the Republican Party is a party of wackos, lunatics, and corrupt authoritarian extremists, led by Donald Trump. But much of America believes that Trump (whom most of them don't like) is somehow separate from the Republican Party (which they increasingly favor and plan to reward in November with complete control of Congress). Democrats haven't succeeded in making what would seem to be the extremely obvious connection between the Republican Party and Trump.

But maybe Elon Musk will. Tim Miller of The Bulwark thinks that might happen, if, as expected, Musk invites Trump back onto Twitter and Trump stops playing hard to get and accepts the offer.

Musk Twitter might ... be a disaster for ... Mitch McConnell and the establishment Republican ostriches who are doing everything in their power to put their heads in the sand and pretend Donald Trump doesn’t exist....

In Georgia on Insurrection Eve, we saw how a big Trump megaphone could divide the Republican base, resulting in political success for the Democrats. The election fraud mass formation psychosis led Trump voters in rural parts of the state to stay home rather than participate in yet another RIGGED contest while a small percentage of Atlanta Kemp/Raffensperger Republicans refused to be a party to the anti-democratic horror show. As a result, Georgia elected the state’s first black and Jewish senators—on the same day!—despite the fact that both had fewer votes than their GOP opponents during the November election.

A repeat of that is the worst-case scenario for the GOP at a time when the political environment is looking rather rosy for them.

Back in January, Bloomberg’s Joshua Green interviewed experts on the possible ways Republicans could screw the pooch in the midterms. Liam Donovan offered this hypothetical: “For the last year Trump has been in a straitjacket where he can’t harm his own party ... Maybe he gets back on Twitter, there’s no bigger wild card than letting the tiger out of its cage.”

Rawr.

Now I’m skeptical that Trump trash-tweeting the Republican haters and losers who don’t prostrate themselves before the MyPillow altar will be enough to cost Republicans Congress on its own. They’re surfing a wave, baby. But it certainly isn’t going to help.

For instance, it’s not hard to imagine the Herschel Walkers of the world overcompensating to appease the Orange One in ways that harm their campaign, costing the party a few seats.

And even if it doesn’t cost Republicans any seats, forcing these assholes to actually defend all the insanity Trump’s feed would push into the public square would be a good unto itself.

I don't whether any of this will happen, but I think that Trump simultaneously attempting to own the news cycle via Twitter every other day and barnstorming the country on behalf of Republican candidates could remind the Trump-averse that he's the party leader. At least, I hope so.