The GOP Has a Mess on Its Hands

Will Republicans give away two Senate seats in Georgia by suppressing their own vote?

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369

“How do we get out of this?”

That’s the question preoccupying the right these days. The specific “this” varies, but what unites all the concerns is the mess Donald Trump has made.

For Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the “this” is the embarrassing mess in Georgia, where many gettable Republican voters believe there’s no point in returning to the polls for the Senate runoff next month.

Hence one of the great ironies of 2020: For two years, Democrats falsely claimed Republicans had stolen the governor’s race from Stacey Abrams with “voter suppression.” Now, because of the president’s tantrum, Republicans are poised to give away two Senate seats—and control of the Senate—by actually suppressing their own vote with equally false claims of fraud. Even Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, the Trump loyalist who defeated Abrams, is now said to be in on a conspiracy to hand the state to Joe Biden.

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  1. Avatar photo
    Birch Barlow

    I've lived in GA for almost 40 years. Republicans *always* win these runoffs (which are a relic but that's another story).

    If they should happen to lose the blame is ALL on Trump. What happens for the party and their relationship to him after that would be very interesting.

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    Show Jay Janney the 🚪!

    I hate the bell the cat analogy, as it is short sighted. You don't need to bell the cat, you need to poison the cat (and if you ask where mice get the poison, from the same doggone store selling small bells for cats). You get rid of the enemy by stealth, by being clever, by soaking the road with catnip just before rush hour.

    Belling the cat lets it live. A belled cat can still catch mice--a dead one, not so much.

    I may be a pacifist, but I can still be imaginative.

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    Jake

    I don’t trust a party that site idly by while these lunatics continue spreading lies and cultivating hatred, threats, and eventual violence. Gutless cowards. I will never vote Republican again (which means I’ll likely never vote again). The only way to affect change is for *principled* people to take a principled stand. Even if that means losing power. Or especially.

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    DougAz

    The GOP is riddled with addled sick people. Where on earth does Alabama Republican Representative Mo Brooks come from ? One more plus to the ledger of reasons for why the Republican Party needs to be torn down. Unfortunately, Propoganda works well (ref, Fox News, Hannity, J. Goebbels et al).

    https://thehill.com/homenews/house/528446-mo-brooks-planning-to-challenge-electoral-college-votes

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  5. Jennifer Stanowski

    Why have a pic of Mr T here on this? A pic of Mitch or an outline of Georgia would have worked...angry voters shaking their heads. Just wondering when we can finally dump the excessive Mr T everywhere, gawd make it stop. This may be one of the last pics of him with blond (yellow?) hair. At some point it will be less what do Republicans and Americans who want to keep a country do about Trump and more what do we do with all these Qanon, because those people are multiplying everywhere.

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      Charley Warns

      No ... it's perfect!

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      rlritt

      You are so right. And it's not like he isn't telling people what he is. He liked to grab women's privates in order to embarrass them. He likes to watch teen beauty contestants naked in their dressing room because he runs the contest and they can't say anything. He hired contractors and when they're done he refused to pay what he owes them. He is a spoiled upper East side elite who thinks people exist to be swindled by him.

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      wj

      > But of course Trump *does* understand, he does *not* believe in QAnon, voter fraud, or any of the other things he says he believes which currently includes the Republican party platform.

      He's a psychopath but he is also an extreme case of narcissistic personality disorder. Traits of both overlap, and it isn't clear to me what extent the narcissism can exist without psychopathy, but the more vanilla kind of psychopathy we're used to seeing on tv or in the movies doesn't seem to always come with the narcissism, and so doesn't quite capture what he is.

      His lies aren't just cynical manipulations, though some probably are. Many are *actual* delusions produced by his narcissism. Narcissists are highly delusional people to the extreme.

      When normal people are confronted by the delusions of a narcissist, they are often written off or dismissed as boisterousness, or exaggerations for effect, etc. They are not.

      I guarantee you Trump actually beliefs he did more for black people than any president since Lincoln. He actually thinks he won the popular vote in 2016 if you only count the legal votes. He actually thinks he won this election for the same reason, probably.

      He truly is a madman.

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          wj

          Right, exactly. That is important to point out. It's a narcissistic grandiosity. Delusions of grandeur.

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    3. rob

      Trump is a real estate developer turned reality tv show host. He is not some psychopath. He did not collude with Russians. He is not racist. He is not senile. Nothing that has been said about him for the last 5 years by the MSM has turned out to be true.

      Now the scope has increased. Not only is trump evil, but those that support him are. The country is systemically racist. A teenage boy wearing a red hat is evil.

      None of this is true. You are passing on their hatred of trump.

      But this country is a good country. Filled with good people. Trump is a good man.

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      1. Peter

        He is racist dude. Its ok to be defensive about him though. No one is stopping you.

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        1. Diane Hansen

          Peter, calling someone a racist is a serious accusation, and it better come with a truckload of evidence.....which you don't have. I think Trump is crude, insensitive, and has a serious case of blurting every thought that crosses his brain, but I would not accuse him of racism.

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          1. GregS

            There *is* a truckload of evidence of Trump saying and doing racist things. I don't know what your definition of "racist" is, but claiming that a judge is biased against you because they're "Mexican" is, as Paul Ryan said, the definition of racism. Saying that three US-born congresswomen who happen to be brown should "go back to where they came from" is racist. There are a lot of examples. Racist thoughts crossing your brain doesn't make you racist, but saying them out loud does. "But he says all kinds of things that cross his brain, he doesn't mean them" is not a defense I would accept.

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          David Chen

          He's a good man the way Trump U is a good education.

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          Mudskipper

          Actually, what is amazing is that many actually believe that. I think the reasoning is simple: Trump says he believes what I believe, ergo he is a good man. End of story.

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        Bonzai30

        There is a very high probability that Trump suffers from narcissistic personality disorder, which is a serious form of mental illness. This is a description from Psychology Today, “The hallmarks of narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) are grandiosity, a lack of empathy for other people, and a need for admiration. People with this condition are frequently described as arrogant, self-centered, manipulative, and demanding. They may also have grandiose fantasies and may be convinced that they deserve special treatment. These characteristics typically begin in early adulthood and must be consistently evident in multiple contexts, such as at work and in relationships... Individuals with NPD can be easily stung by criticism or defeat and may react with disdain or anger. A sense of entitlement, disregard for other people, and other aspects of NPD can damage relationships... Treatment for narcissistic personality disorder can be challenging because people with this condition present with a great deal of grandiosity and defensiveness, which makes it difficult for them to acknowledge problems and vulnerabilities.”

        People with NPD also have enormous difficulty conceding defeat because they’re so full of themselves they can’t think people who beat them must have cheated.

        Sound familiar?

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        1. Diane Hansen

          I don't think Trump's narcissism is in question...he's a textbook narcissist with a heavy dose of bully.

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      4. D B

        Honest question, by what definition is Trump a good man?

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      5. Diane Hansen

        Trump is a spoiled child of a wealthy Real Estate developer. Maybe you should do a little digging into Trump's past. Trump was seeded with millions of dollars by his father, and far too many of Trump's business adventures were highly risky, resulted in failure, bankruptcy and debt, and had to be bailed out by daddy...some were illegal bailouts that produced hefty fed fines. Trump has refused to pay and stiffed many businesses who he owed. Then there was Trump University...which was nothing but fraud. Trump isn't a Captain of Industry, he's a Robber Baron. Once he's out of office, I think there are foreign banks who will be calling in their loans, so the financial difficulties ain't over. Moreover, I think Trump isn't worth near as much as he claims....maybe that's part of the reason he doesn't want to release his tax returns. He has rubbed elbows with some pretty nefarious people and greased a lot of palms.

        Socially, Trump's high profile, predatory status is legendary; five kids with three different wives, numerous affairs....some while still married, and even a couple of prostitutes. Trump is a narcissist with an ego the size of a Cadillac. He may not have colluded with the Russians, but he came dangerously close to obstruction of justice, and that phone call to the Ukraine was nothing short of leveraging a personal favor from a foreign gov, using public funds. Trump's intellectual laziness led him to that infamous zero tolerance policy, and getting rolled by the Dems on the wall. Trump fights for Trump...not for you.

        You are master of your own destiny....you don't have to support or defend Trump,, you choose to, and many of us in the light of the last five years, don't understand why....not everything he did was wrong, but collectively there was more bad than good. Save yourself....

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        1. rob

          Why did all these claims only come after he entered politics. I’ve known of Trump for 30 years.

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            John Kramer

            You've known of Trump for 30 years, and you think his reputation as a con man only started when he entered politics? You haven't been paying much attention. People who *were* paying attention made this documentary about his grifting 30 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYU2FJxsSeE

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            Jess

            People in NYC knew that Trump was unreliable, obnoxious, womanizing, and crude. When he bought the Bonwit Teller building (now site of Trump Tower), he promised to preserve the Art Deco friezes and give them to the Metropolitan. Then, he specifically ordered them demolished with jackhammers and claimed they were "nothing" and "junk".

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            rlritt

            Are you kidding me? New Yorkers have known this for years. Why do you think 9 out 10 New Yorkers voted against him?

            And don't forget he bribed two porn stars to keep quiet about their having sex with him until after the election. I don't care how many porn stars he sleeps with but maybe if that had come out before the 2016 election some evangelical Christians might have not wanted to vote for him. But I doubt it.

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            George.Skinner

            30 years should be sufficient to cover the collapse of most of his business ventures in the early '90s, plus the hodge podge of bizarre branding schemes to monetize his name that a self-respecting billionaire would never need to engage in.

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          5. Diane Hansen

            They didn't....Trump's reputation was notorious and legendary in NYC. Many of us tried to tell the Trumper base who the Donald really was, and they didn't want to hear it.

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        Mudskipper

        Does a good man run a charity and then use the donations for himself? Does a good man refuse to pay small business contractors what he owes them? Does a good man make fraudulent claims about a product he sells?

        If you answer yes to those questions, then you have a different definition of good man than I do.

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      7. Bob Lebenson

        America is filled with good people, but Trump is assuredly not one of them.

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        Adam Bridge

        Nothing about your initial description of Trump says he's NOT a psychopath. I'd suggest sociopath as being closer to the mark. He's a creature of his own power without morality. Right and wrong only have meaning if they advance his position. Which IS one of the hallmarks of a sociopath. Also of a personality disorder - but we've all seen that.

        Trump is NOT a good man. He's duped a lot of people into his cult.

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        1. rob

          I was raised Christian, and I was taught not to throw around slurs of people.

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          1. Keith Schooley

            In that case, you can't possibly think much of Trump, who slurs, name-calls, and mocks everyone who isn't an obsequious supporter of him.

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    Charley Warns

    It's a pickle! I like the C.S. Lewis quote. First, stop going in the wrong direction. That and the act of turning around and stepping in the right direction is progress. We often make life too hard. (A scene in "What About Bob?" comes to mind.) We should reflect on why Mitt Romney, the only Republican to do so, attempted to put the bell on the cat. Trump, a public servant, committed an act that by all rights should have been grounds for his dismissal. How do you argue that? You can create a defense as if you're his attorney, and yet we know exactly what Trump's intent was ... he wanted dirt on Biden. He's attempting to blackmail the GOP as he did Zelinksy. I note a new reply just came in ... sorry about stepping on it right now.

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    rlritt

    This made me think of the Al Wilson song The Snake. He begs a woman to let him in and when she does, he bites her. She demands to know why since she was kind and let him. He says because I am snake, and you're crazy to let let me in.

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    Jesse Blankenship

    I think this is an important point and yet another reason for my complete contempt of popular culture. It is shallow, empty, vacuous and devoid of reality or substance...ergo Trump. We have become a society infatuated with bright shiny fools gold. We become like our idols.

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      Charley Warns

      War and Peace is on sale for $0.41. Per page, that's quite a deal!

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    Donny from Queens

    I am feeling forced to choose between people attacking our entire system without regard to long term consequences, or people with whom I have sincere disagreements about policy. However, the ones with whom I disagree on policy are not trying to dismantle our institutions. GOP needs to do much, much better. I am particularly displeased with Perdue.

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    1. Nickson

      I feel your pain. This thought helps me: Maintaining the integrity of our federal Republic is perhaps the most important policy goal of all, because everything else can be worked out eventually. But there’s likely no return from actual authoritarianism.

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