Voters done with extreme politics
A week ago Tuesday, the nation’s voters served notice that they are done with the Republican Party’s diversion into extreme politics that was born in the wreckage of the Great Recession.
In Arizona, they told us they are done with gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and her deep dive into MAGA.
That political movement led by Donald Trump probably destroyed itself on Jan. 6, 2021, when it attacked the United States Capitol and ended our national commitment to peaceful transition.
In the first election since the Capitol riot, voters made Republicans pay the price. They closed the door on what should have been a midterm expansion of the party out of power and delivered Trump his third defeat in the last three elections.
In Arizona, voters rejected the election denialism that Lake made central to her campaign. They turned against the bare-knuckled rhetoric she used to batter her Democratic opponent and even her fellow Republicans who weren’t fully onboard the MAGA bus.
Even in defeat, Lake’s extremism reared itself in a tweet that should have been all gracious concession. “Arizonans know BS when they see it,” she wrote, providing yet another sign that voters had rendered the right verdict.
Her loss to Katie Hobbs, a timid campaigner, only underscored voter disgust for Lake’s populism. They correctly understood America’s democratic values are intrinsic to its people and its relationship to the world.
Trump may announce as early as Tuesday that he’s running for reelection, but his voters are on notice that they have no future as a political movement led by him.
The Republican Party must either change or begin its long decline.
Trump didn’t birth this turn to radical politics in the United States. It began after the Great Recession rocked the country in December 2007.
The worst economic crash since the 1930s Great Depression started with the collapse of an $8 trillion housing bubble and eventually wiped out $20 trillion in financial assets of American families.
It toppled major Wall Street banks and several hundred smaller banks across the country.
By 2009, some 15 million Americans were out of work.
The recession ended that same year, but it left Americans poorer, less equal and more uncertain about their future. The frustration was widely felt.
Economic upheaval gave way to a new populism on both left and right with the emergence of Occupy Wall Street and the tea party movement.
Eventually, Trump harnessed the tea party’s populist energy and used the Republican Party to create a movement built around his personality called Make America Great Again or MAGA.
After Trump’s first term as president, Americans grew weary of his chaos and voted him out of office.
On Nov. 8, they reaffirmed that decision by voting down major Trump candidates in Pennsylvania, New York, Michigan and Arizona, while nonTrump candidates won reelection to governor in Florida and Georgia.
If there was a common thread in all these races it was that a small but still large enough share of Republican and independent voters had rejected MAGA and supported Democrats.
The upshot was that Republicans crashed in a midterm when they should have flourished, even though all the classic indicators seemed to favor them.
For the Republican Party, it was a disaster.
But in the sunbelt states of Florida and Georgia, Republicans saw the first mellowing rays of recovery that could help the party shed Trump extremism and return to a more responsible brand of conservative politics.
Govs. Ron DeSantis and Brian Kemp easily won reelection while maintaining a healthy distance from Trump and his influence. Trump loathes both because they represent his eventual demise.
Across the conservative universe, Republicans were seeing the first green chutes of change. Rod Dreher, senior editor of The American Conservative magazine, tweeted a text message from a friend in Alabama after Trump attacked DeSantis:
“My dad says, ‘I think Trump has lost it.’ You lose my dad, then it’s over for [Trump]”.
Conrad Black, former British newspaper publisher and Trump confidant, wrote in Canada’s National Post:
“I have steadily supported Donald Trump because of his policy positions, as well as for reasons of long-standing personal friendship . ... It is accordingly with regret that I tentatively conclude that it would be better if he passed the baton of his policy innovations and his influence over his huge political following to DeSantis.”
MAGA acolyte and Fox News host Jesse Watters was among Fox commentators who pointedly questioned Trump’s influence, the Washington Post reported. Watters said, “I love Trump. I want him to run. I think he’s a great candidate. I loved him as president.” But then added, “He brings out such insanity on the left. They will walk over hot coals to vote against Donald Trump.”
Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome EarleSears, a longtime Trump supporter, said, “It turns out that those he did not endorse on the same ticket did better than the ones he did endorse. That gives you a clue that the voters want to move on. And a true leader knows when they have become a liability to the mission.”
Trump is unlikely to ever concede he has become a liability to the mission, so we are likely to see a continuing struggle in the Republican Party.
But for the first time we are seeing new Republican leaders whose stature is rising above Trump for party dominance. In a new ABC News and Ipsos poll, Republicans were asked who they want to have a “great deal” of influence on the future of the party. Forty-four percent said DeSantis. Thirty-four percent said Trump.
In those numbers is reflected a national craving to return to more normal politics and to finally put Trump extremism and, ultimately, all the destruction of the Great Recession behind us.