GOP needs more like Hogan, less like Trump
Deep blue Maryland for the past eight years has enjoyed one of the most consistently popular governors in the country: Larry Hogan, a Republican.
But in last week’s primary election, instead of turning to Hogan’s hand-picked successor, who served as his commerce secretary, Maryland Republicans instead chose a 2020-election-denying state delegate backed by former President Donald Trump.
This campaign probably won’t end well for Free State Republicans, but it will probably end soon as the race will not likely be competitive.
Maryland’s electorate, like California’s, is overwhelmingly Democratic. It’s basically mathematically impossible for a Republican to get elected statewide without substantial bipartisan appeal.
Governors like Hogan should be a model for blue-state Republicans, but unfortunately too many Republicans seem unconcerned with ... I don’t know. Outsider candidates? Fealty to the former president? Adherence to the lie that the 2020 election was stolen? Antagonistic personalities?
Maryland had a lot of problems and Hogan ran on fixing them, but he did so without alienating the Democratic voters he needed to attract. He didn’t run on birth certificate conspiracies and the alleged rise of Sharia Law in the United States, which were quite popular at that time among those who would become the Stop the Steal crowd.
Hogan governed the same way he campaigned, which is to say successfully. He caught flak for being critical of Trump and for working with a Legislature dominated by Democrats, but he does not get nearly enough credit for often outmaneuvering the Democratic lawmakers in his state.
Republicans have an identity crisis — Hogans and Trumps are incompatible. This should be an easy choice. Trump lost in 2020. Time has not been kind to him. As the months go by, it becomes beaten-dead-horse obvious that he did not lose the 2020 election because of voter fraud, that he and those around him knew this and that despite it all he pushed ahead with an antiAmerican plan to remain in office that included a discredited legal strategy, complicit members of Congress and a violent mob storming the Capitol seeking vengeance for Trump’s loss.
If you think I’m being over the top, don’t take my word for it. Ask his former campaign manager, Brad Parscale.
“This is about Trump pushing for uncertainty in our country,” Parscale texted to a colleague on Jan. 6, 2020. “A sitting president asking for civil war. This week I feel guilty for helping him win.”
Don’t forget the time Trump called Georgia’s top election officer demanding he “find” enough votes for Trump to win.
“There’s nothing wrong with saying, you know, that you’ve recalculated,” Trump said on a recorded phone call. That’s as close to textbook corruption as you can get without a trenchcoat, alias and briefcase stuffed with fake ballots.
But set aside Jan. 6 for a minute. Trump’s presidency was similar to his coup attempt: incompetent. In times of crises, he indulged his own worst instincts (like gassing a crowd outside the White House so he could get his picture taken with a Bible he’s probably never read in front of a church he never seriously attended).
He had one or two foreign policy successes, but he sucked up to North Korea and Russia and imposed harmful tariffs. The economy was fine, sure, but he penalized blue state residents whose tax burdens increased. He played the same identity politics that Republicans profess to hate and he drove the national debt even higher while abandoning any sense of responsible governing.
His biggest win for Republicans was nominating conservative justices who were merely names on a list handed to him — any Republican president would have nominated names from the same list.
Besides the scandals (remember when he withheld aid from a country that would soon get invaded and slaughtered by Russians?), the abandonment of good governance, conservative principles and common decency, what I think I’ll remember most was his broken promise to “drain the swamp.”
Instead of draining it, Trump brought the mosquitos and leeches.
Parscale, after privately acknowledging the harm Trump caused the country, tweeted publicly: “Statement to Trump: If they only impeached you twice, you need to run again. Because to change the system you have to kick it in the a#$. I would love to be the only President to be impeached three times. Because history remembers those that didn’t conform. I’m in, are you?”
With political advice like that, it’s not surprising Parscale was demoted over general incompetence.
Another Trump campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, went from being fired, to parttime entourage, to selling personal endorsements for $45 online.
Rudy Giuliani, one of
Trump’s closest advisers, went from America’s Mayor after 9-11 to Trump sycophant to conspiracy theorist to a guy selling sandals online for one low price of $49.98 as long as you tell ‘em “Rudy” sent you.
Some are trying to distance themselves by writing tell-all books about their time in the White House while others save their butts and dump their consciences by testifying to the Jan. 6 committee.
The best people, indeed! We need more Hogans and fewer Trumps.