January 6, 2021

"The Georgia results broke the back of Trumpism. His phone call to Brad Raffensperger was hunker-in-the-bunker bonkers."

"The President’s coattails are toxic. He under-performed all five Republican congressmen in Wisconsin, who won election without difficulty. Had he matched their performance, he would have won the state. Georgia, we should note, elected a Republican legislature in November and until today had two Republican U.S. senators. Republicans in November flipped two Democratic seats to take 10 of its 14 House seats even as Trump lost the state for the first Republican defeat in 28 years..... As for the crazies who would suspend the Constitution in order to install Donald Trump for four more years, they are our version of the Squad and their social justice warriors. Tuesday 2021 is on Donald Trump.... It will take some time for the Republican party to detoxify itself from Trump’s paranoid narcissism. But the man did show the way to a worker-oriented, traditional values political movement. The party’s task is to find someone with the common touch who isn’t batty. So far, Sen. Tom Cotton looks good. Maybe Ben Sasse or Nikki Haley. Like they say after hurricanes, we will rebuild."  

Says David Blaska (on his blog).

111 comments:

Dave Begley said...

If there was a primary election in Nebraska tomorrow for Senate, I would beat Ben Sasse.

victoria said...

Like I said before, all this damage is self inflicted.

Vicki from Pasadena

Douglas B. Levene said...

Sasse and Cotton are good men.

Mattman26 said...

Anyone who's recommending Ben Sasse has lost all credibility.

Lurker21 said...

CNN is talking about how Ossoff can "pad" his totals or margin with votes from Atlanta and Savannah. "Padding" a budget or a resume means indulging in shenanigans to make the budget bigger or the resume more impressive, so one could easily infer that "padding the totals" likewise implies deception and fraud.

Doubtless it was all very innocent and they were talking about legitimate late returns coming in from heavily-Democrat precincts, but really one could easily take what they were saying "out of context" as a reference to cheating (maybe even a recommendation to cheat).

That is essentially what the media did with Trump's phone call with Raffensperger: the took it out of context.

daskol said...

lol, Sasse is the giveaway. A preening, ineffective showboat, losing in a dignified way and preserving norms. That's just a list of politicians, Blaska. We don't like them anywhere, enchanted as we are with paranoid narcissism.

Ken B said...

The silliest argument I heard recently was that Trump lagging behind down ballot Republicans was evidence of fraud. I heard it here too. But there are obviously people who would vote Republican but not Trump. The regulars here have made a hate fetish of such people: Romney for example. Then they deny their existence to push the fraud claim.

Rabel said...

Ben Sasse?

Nonapod said...

The old Republican party is gone forever. There is only the Uniparty now. Republican and Democrat are just meaningless labels. Anyone who doesn't toe the Uniparty line is to be marginalized as a crazy extremist.

Leland said...

The inevitable elites claiming they knew all along. We are to believe that a man whose campaign primarily consisted of trips within 30 miles of his basement won a national campaign with 10 million more votes than anyone previously, yet that same man had no coattails and lost ground in the US House and most state governments with the exception of just crossing the line with enough wins in the Senate.

Show me the elite that predicted this scenario.

daskol said...

Hey Ken B, I know it's just polls and all, but Trump has something like 95% support from self-proclaimed Republicans, so his lagging behind other GOP candidates is pretty strange. I know everyone hates Congress but for their own Congressman, but the polls and especially the turnout for Trump in the primary, which was high and overwhelmingly for Trump, is nothing to sniff at. Sometimes the fraud is so big and so obvious it's easy to miss.

Dave Begley said...

Sasse is an Ivy Leaguer who worked for Bain or McKinsey before he came back to Nebraska as President of tiny Midland College in Fremont. Total smart ass.

Bob Smith said...

Trump is an effect not a cause. He may not think of himself that way but he’s a logical evolution of the Tea Party. So we tried twice within the system. What’s next?

LYNNDH said...

Sassee is an assee.

MadTownGuy said...

I give Blaska a pass on this one. He has described himself as a "recovering liberal."

Recovery is a long process.

HSAT, I mostly enjoy his blog. He knows Wisconsin, and Madison in particular, as well as anybody there, and he is adept at skewering the Woke Folk who dominate the city.

mccullough said...

Blaming Trump for Georgia distracts GOP supporters from the problems the GOP faces.

Chuck said...

Blaska nailed this one with each and every word.

Tom Cotton and Nikki Haley have an awful lot of TrumpStink to wash off. The Lincon Project has documented them, and won't forget.

iowan2 said...

institutional republicans think they have won. Because Republican voters refused to vote, they think they have won. More votes for a sitting President in history, and it is a Trump failing. Idiocy on stilts

Isn't that precious?

stevew said...

Republicans dislike Trump as much or more than Democrats, isn't that obvious now?

Sebastian said...

"The party’s task is to find someone with the common touch who isn’t batty. So far, Sen. Tom Cotton looks good. Maybe Ben Sasse or Nikki Haley."

Yes. But Sasse is Mittens II, hence a non-starter. So far, Haley lacks fire and substance, hence would be best as VP.

More than Trump, I blame Covid. But a loss is a loss.

mccullough said...

Blaska should note that Perdue received 250,000 fewer votes in the special election than in the general election.

Joe Smith said...

This hasn't broken anyone's backs...it's just pissed people off like never before.

This guy has no idea what's coming.

Bill said...

yeah all those democrates winning on Pervy Joe's coatails. But let's face it, they learned there are no consequenses to vote fraud, should win 100% in every election now. Here's to hoping Madison becomes the next Minniapolis...

Chuck said...

...but Trump has something like 95% support from self-proclaimed Republicans, so his lagging behind other GOP candidates is pretty strange...

It isn't strange if, as a result of Trump, 10 or 20 percent of FORMER Republicans have been peeled off to not being Republicans anymore.

Joe Smith said...

"Tom Cotton and Nikki Haley have an awful lot of TrumpStink to wash off."

The jig is up...neither Cotton nor Haley will ever be president.

They are democrats with an 'R' after their name, just like Romney.

The scales have fallen...

Btw, 'TrumpStink' isn't even cute. But it does reveal the mind of the writer...the mind of a child.

Joe Smith said...

@AA

Btw, the Captcha has become incredibly annoying...it is wrong half the time.

campy said...

Sasse?! Haley?! They're both LITERALLY WORSE THAN HITLER!!!!!!!!!!!!!

mccullough said...

Trump won 10 House districts in which the Dem House candidate also won.

Biden won 6 House districts in which the GOP House candidate also won.

D.D. Driver said...

More votes for a sitting President in history, and it is a Trump failing.

But...the other guy got even more votes. Trump lost to Joe Biden--the third worst presidential candidate in my lifetime (behind Trump and HRC).

Don't kid yourself-this race was easily winnable. You think Reagan would have even broken a sweat beating Biden?

Trump is a loser. I don't why you think doubling down is smart but I think it's funny as fuck.

Breezy said...

For a future president, I would like to consider another pro America business leader who gets things done but attracts more people to serve who are actually loyal and willing to fight alongside him/her. I think this is a key takeaway from Trump’s term.

Balfegor said...

Re: Daskol:

Hey Ken B, I know it's just polls and all, but Trump has something like 95% support from self-proclaimed Republicans, so his lagging behind other GOP candidates is pretty strange.

Not if he lags them with independents. I tend to think Trump was a net positive for Republicans, allowing them to massively overperform expectations in both 2016 and 2020. But I think that overperformance involved attracting new voters to the Republican coalition at the expense of driving away traditional Republican leaners (particularly wealthy White professionals, who went from Democrat-leaning to lopsidedly Democrat). This is particularly apparent in 2020, which disproved the conventional wisdom that high turnout elections are significantly better for Democrats. In fact, they performed significantly worse in the House in 2020 (66% turnout) than in 2018 (53% turnout), although both represented historically high turnout elections. Trump persuaded a lot of low propensity voters to vote for Republicans.

Generic Republican candidates could still win some of the anti-Trump Republican-leaners in the suburbs, so in a lot of places, they'd overperform Trump. But without the Trump voters, I suspect the electorate looks more like 2018 than 2016. The Republican challenge, more or less, as Blaska says, is going to be to hold onto the suburbs while still turning out the Trump voters. And there, I think people are underestimating the degree to which Trump's brash, coarse manner was important in making inroads and building credibility with those low propensity voters, particularly minorities. I doubt that a more decorous Sasse or a Cotton (or a Romney) could have reached them.

Browndog said...

The failed GOP is the reason you had Trump in the first place.

This is nothing new, been going on for a long time.

McConnell and Boehner took the historic class of Tea Party legislators, a record breaking number of seats, chewed them up and spit them out in record time, destroying the movement.

Yes, you can vote. Yes, you can even elect who you want-

But it will never matter as long as the GOP is the only place you have to go to escape marxism.

William said...

I voted for Trump and was happy with his policies. That said, this loss in Georgia has something to do with his over the top rhetoric. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I find the pieties of the left more offensive than Trump's hyperbole, but that's not how other people see it.....Schumer, Pelosi, and Biden. Ugh, but life goes on.

Chuck said...

mccullough said...
Blaska should note that Perdue received 250,000 fewer votes in the special election than in the general election.


Well, I don't think they're done counting yet, but let's say you're right in the approximated numbers. So what? Runoffs after generals always see fewer voters.

Perdue did about 100,000 votes better than Trump in the general; sort of helping to prove Blaska's point.

And all of the Trump Party voters, who showed up for the general but who stayed home for the runoff; lot of good they did for the Republican Party.

Fernandinande said...

Vicki from Pasadena

When I see your name I always think something like -

She drives real fast and she drives real hard
She's the terror of Colorado Boulevard
It's little old Vicki from Pasadena

mccullough said...

Reagan is dead. The High Deficits and Amnesty are his lasting legacy.

D.D. Driver said...

But without the Trump voters, I suspect the electorate looks more like 2018 than 2016.

Will Trump voters show up if Trump isn't on the ballot? Trump has driven away a lot of reliable republican voters--the type of voters who turn out for Spring elections--and replaced them with people who will show up once every four years to vote for their hero.

daskol said...

But I think that overperformance involved attracting new voters to the Republican coalition at the expense of driving away traditional Republican leaners (particularly wealthy White professionals, who went from Democrat-leaning to lopsidedly Democrat)

I hear people saying this, and I've seen the numbers by which Trump lost some white men, but he increased his totals with white women. Don't think I saw that broken down by income, but I suspect this narrative is post-facto exaggeration to explain the inexplicable or at least the highly psephologically improbable.

JPS said...

Re 74 million votes, and Biden's basement campaign somehow winning 80 million:

How is it so difficult to believe that Trump generated tremendous enthusiasm, winning more votes than before, yet also generated such opposition that even more people turned out to vote against him?

I couldn't believe the extent to which the Biden campaign made this campaign all about Trump. Biden himself: Don't talk about me, talk about my opponent! When the hell would that ever be a winning strategy? Well, when the opponent is Trump. It was jiu jitsu, and it worked.

I voted for him. I think we're going to regret the Trojan horse that is Biden, and really regret giving the Dems the executive branch and both houses of Congress. But I'm not surprised, and I don't need fraud to explain the result. I also think they'll overreach, and President Harris will be facing a Republican congress, possibly in both houses, in early 2023. Unless the Republican Party commits a string of unforced errors, which, gosh, would be unlike them.

AZ Bob said...

Don't blame Trump for the trouble that the Dems will be bringing. California is the template for the nation. There is no turning back. They have crossed the Rubicon.

Lurker21 said...

Was Trump really toxic or was it COVID? To me, Bush-McCain-Romney Republicanism, Bernie-AOC leftism, Pelosi-Schumer Democrat elitism, and Clinton Foundation-Bulwark-Lincoln Project scamming all look toxic.

At the same time, though, I'm not really on board with all the RINO bashing. Politicians have to represent their districts, not toe some ideological line. That gives the ideologues too much power. I wouldn't vote for Sasse or Romney, but I'm not going to expect ideological conformity from everyone in Washington. I can understand disliking, even hating, politicians one is substantially in agreement with, and wouldn't regard one of them as an improvement over an incumbent who didn't follow some ideological line.

A few Republican voters never quite liked Trump, and some got tired of him, but did down ballot Republicans all get more votes than him? It's unlikely. Republican incumbents did tend to do better than Trump. However much people hate Congress they also claim to be satisfied with their own representatives. If you look at open seats or Democrat seats, Trump outperformed the Republican in many cases. The problem with Trump, though, was that you can't keep the volume tuned to 11 all the time and think that people won't eventually switch stations.

wendybar said...

Tell that to the hundreds of thousands that are at the rally today, not counting the rest of us who couldn't attend. This may be over, but karma is a bitch....Stay vigilent.

mccullough said...

Chuck,

Perdue got about 1,000 more votes than Trump in November. Not 100,000.

Browndog said...

I love this line of thinking:

Yes, Trump says mean things. I still voted for him, but nobody else did.

Kevin said...

Shorter Article: This time Trump is finished! Seriously, this time's the one!

narciso said...

They decided to adjudicate a few less ballots no big deal.

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

I get what Blaska is saying, but how can he claim that Trump's coattails are "toxic"? The mystery is rather why they weren't. The blowout that was supposed to come from Republicans following Trump obviously just didn't happen. The Republicans down-ballot did much better than expected. Remember all those House seats Pelosi was supposed to pick up?

It's Biden, obviously, who had the toxic coattails. The Democrats were able to get Biden across the finish line, but the rest of their slate suffered badly in the process. It's as though a lot of people were content to be rid of Trump personally, but not especially keen on the alternative, and definitely not anxious to vote for any of it, unless it be down-ballot Republicans.

Shouting Thomas said...

If I were a rightist political activist, the lesson I would have learned over the past year is that my side needs to create an institutionally funded Brownshirt militia.

The DNC did. There was no penalty, only rewards. Nobody is on trial.

These elections took place at the end of a cycle of Democratic militia incited violence, looting and rioting in dozens of cities.

This strategy worked.

Why are Republicans not noticing the obvious?

narciso said...

They voted for a cop hating fan of castro and hamas, tell me another one.

Shouting Thomas said...

What sort of elections are those that occur as one side is engaging in Brownshirt militia rioting, arson, looting and cop killing in our major cities?

Leland said...

While people continue the charade that Trump's base will turn on him; let's remember:

Local Democrat politicians really do mean "defund the police". Convicts will be released from jail to save them Covid, while boomers are stuffed into nursing homes without visitation rights. Awards will be given to Governors that comply, so you'll know they will have incentives.

Biden has promised a national lockdown. Momentum is on his side. I'd say forget your vacation plans this year, but then you can also forget seeing live entertainment, visiting relatives from out-of-state, and gays as well as straights will have to marry in secret ceremonies not condoned by their government. Less I forget, Davos is still on, and this year world citizens will travel to ski the Alps and reset your savings plan.

Sports stars and Hollywood stars will get paid this year, but if your name isn't on the marquee, you don't have a job. However, farmers will be needed, trucks for delivery, and people to maintain the infrastructure. Those are dirty jobs, and they'll be asked to payoff the debt of those who went to college to study art and now don't have a job. I'd say they should have studied law, but its not like the local courts are operating on full schedules.

Oh, staunch Democrats can look forward to a new healthcare law. Enjoy paying even higher insurance premiums to "healthcare providers". Yeah, you can now see a doctor by phone, but good luck in getting them to identify that subcuticular bump. Meanwhile, hospitals will be barred from non-essential procedures because profit is bad. After taking losses in 2020; they'll take more losses until their doors are closed. On the positive, no embarrassing precautionary upper and lower GIs and you'll have a mandate to buy insurance!

So enjoy your Trump bashing today. He'll be gone in two weeks, and you'll have so much to enjoy afterwards! I'm sure people will be partying in the streets in no time. Peaceful like.

Chennaul said...

A few Republican voters never quite liked Trump, and some got tired of him, but did down ballot Republicans all get more votes than him? It's unlikely

..............

I noticed something weird in Colorado Springs/El Paso county area of all places. People say that Colorado has gone purple because of Californians moving in— but Cory Gardner beat the Democrat candidate there. He also received more votes than Trump at the top of the ticket.

campy said...

"Don't kid yourself-this race was easily winnable. You think Reagan would have even broken a sweat beating Biden?"

Even Reagan couldn't have beaten the fraud machine.

As long as amazon sells printers, ink, and paper no democrat will ever lose an election again.

roesch/voltaire said...

Do you think now all the armed right wing Trumper's who have been harassing public officials and elections workers with protests outside their homes and in hundreds of death threats resulting in the need for police protection will stop?

Eleanor said...

The Republicans lost the Senate with the votes in Georgia because the only way to show idiots and children what they think they want is really bad for them is to give it to them. Like when your parents let you eat all the candy on Halloween night. The Democrats now own it all. We'll be waiting to clean up after them just like responsible adults always do. If they burn everything down, we'll start from scratch again.

daskol said...

r/v, if you take your medication more regularly, it will probably stop

narciso said...

No they stole it fair and square with sterling and raffenberger giving the signal.

I Callahan said...

Do you think now all the armed right wing Trumper's who have been harassing public officials and elections workers with protests outside their homes and in hundreds of death threats resulting in the need for police protection will stop?

Didn't happen. It was Antifa and BLM who did that. You're flat-out lying through your typing fingers.

I Callahan said...

One thing I've learned? The Republican Party cannot be trusted. Period. The Dems are flat-out nuts (just look at R/V's post above for an example), but the GOP is corrupt to its core.

I will never vote for an establishment candidate for president again. So let them put up a Haley/Sasse/Romney type every 4 years for all I care. I won't vote for them, and I suspect a lot of people feel the same way.

Balfegor said...

Re: daskol:

I hear people saying this, and I've seen the numbers by which Trump lost some white men, but he increased his totals with white women. Don't think I saw that broken down by income, but I suspect this narrative is post-facto exaggeration to explain the inexplicable or at least the highly psephologically improbable.

I don't think we have detailed breakdowns from 2020 (and polling data has been dodgy so it's uncertain how accurate that data is), but he went from 63 million votes to 74 million votes (vs Romney at 61 million, McCain at 60 million, and Bush II at 50 and 62 million), so at minimum he pulled in an additional 11 million voters in 2020, even as he lost about 5-6% in suburbs and among counties with more educated voters (the latter of which I am treating as a proxy of sorts for the kinds of rich White professionals I am talking about). That said, turnout was up significantly overall, so maybe he kept almost all his voters from 2016, and it was just a matter of how many new voters went for Biden vs. Trump.

daskol said...

If by "new voters" you mean unsolicited mail-in ballots filled in by fictitious, duplicated, deceased folks, I'm with you.

Balfegor said...

Re: daskol:

You . . think Trump got 11 million new votes from dead people and duplicate ballots??

daskol said...

I was talking about Biden's "new voters."

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Call was not bonkers.

Did you listen to it?

The fact that the phone call was recorded - Soviet style - is bonkers.
The fact that the collective insane left want to impeach Trump over... free speech - is bonkers.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

I Callahan - that's your choice. But the GOP is not corrupt. The democrat party and their media are corrupt.

D.D. Driver said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
D.D. Driver said...

Even Reagan couldn't have beaten the fraud machine.

Stop The Cry.

Reminder, Reagan was selling conservative ideas and building a base at the time when the media was ONLY only NYT, WaPo, etc., the big three networks, and CNN. There was no Foxnews (there was no Fox network). There was no conservative talk radio to speak of. Well the before the internet and political blogs. You got your "news" from Tom Brokow, Peter Jennings, Dan Rather, or no one.

Because Reagan was Reagan--it just didn't matter.

n.n said...

If a vote cannot be audited, was it democratic? The call was for the data from the election. The misconception spread by The Washington Post, Blaska et al is disinformation.

n.n said...

You . . think Trump got 11 million new votes from dead people and duplicate ballots??

The no longer viable and multiplicity. Yes, the very people... persons who joined with him in urban, suburban, and rural spaces to pursue policies of revitalization, rehabilitation, and reconciliation. The conventional belief is: what doesn't abort you, makes you stronger; but, in fact, it is: what doesn't break you, may leave you stronger.

n.n said...

engaging in Brownshirt militia rioting, arson, looting and cop killing in our major cities

Ah, yes, the neo-fascists marching, rapping, and setting up abortion zones: 50 shades of Charlottesville. Don't forget the neo-KKK that invaded neighborhoods to intimidate and force people to kneel. Just imagine: Dezis, neo-KKK, and neo-fascists together again. A diverse medley of leftism on parade.

Kai Akker said...

Trump aint no never mind here, what the results broke the back of is the bond market. Look at those yields flying!

Utilities average up in the last bits of the mania but say goodbye to those stock prices. Dow Industrials up over 500. What a fantastic day to be a seller.

Earnest Prole said...

Clown Car Dumpster Fire: If only there were some way we could have seen it coming.

Roughcoat said...

Reagan is dead. The High Deficits and Amnesty are his lasting legacy.

Destroying Soviet Communism.

Rosalyn C. said...

I never heard of David Blaska before and I'm not impressed with his analysis. There is no way to make conclusions about Trump from this election because of the taint of massive fraud. It's ludicrous and pointless to speculate. Stacey Abrams bragged to Rachel Maddow the other day about her cache of ballots and that she was able to eliminate the requirement to check signatures and verify voters. Tens of thousands of fake voters and fake ballots were counted. There's no limit to how many fake ballots can be submitted, just make sure you win by a little. How can anyone compete with an opponent who is willing to cheat?

One could just as easily interpret the failure of the Georgia Republican Senate candidates as a repudiation of the Republican Party establishment. Why should the "little people" in Georgia turn out and defend a Republican Senate if those Republicans in Congress don't want to defend their President? Put the bigwigs out and let them have to get real jobs.

Roughcoat said...

The elephant in the room is that a majority of the American electorate has more or less embraced the progressive vision, and all that it is entails.

I find that depressing.

Roughcoat said...

One of the commenters at Powerline remarked yesterday that Americans, in the aggregate, may be "too dumb for democracy." I think there's some truth to that. Maybe a lot of truth.

tim maguire said...

"The President’s coattails are toxic. He under-performed all five Republican congressmen in Wisconsin, who won election without difficulty.

David Blaska seems unclear on what "coattails" means. It's not an obscure term.

Temujin said...

Blaska knows not what he's talking about. Ben Sasse will go nowhere with the new Republican Party. Trump may not be around as President, but the people who voted for him are still here. Duh.

Tom Cotton is nothing like Ben Sasse. Nor is he like Nikki Haley. Cotton is his own man. Sasse is the old style Republican- country club style. He has zero appeal outside of the country club set. He's already been busy distancing himself from Trump voters. All 75 million of us. Haley is strong, but too establishment. That might win her the nomination. Not sure if its a passport to anything more.

I think, at this early stage, Tom Cotton could grab the flagpole from Trump. He could galvanize the crowd looking for a smart, strong, independent thinker who does not Tweet unnecessarily. But, again, time will tell. Four years is a very long time. Remember America before Trump? Neither do I.

Kai Akker said...

Oops, I mean Dow up over 400.

...

mccullough said...

The Russians still have 6,000 nuclear weapons.

They hack the US constantly.

Some Cold War victory.

narciso said...

yes they had about 30,000 at the peak,

mccullough said...

6,000 nuclear weapons can destroy Earth.

20 million illegal aliens can destroy the US.

Anyone here defending Reagan on Amnesty?

IKE was a much better president. So if the GOP wants to indulge in nostalgia, they’d be better skipping over The Gipper.

Breezy said...

Will the Republican led State legislatures revert the mail-in voting allowance in any way, by 2022? And will they ensure removal of any system that enables ballot switching or interference via internet? And do a wholesale review to be sure to remove all the other loopholes? I live in MA so I’m stuck, but those in swing states should be raising bloody hell with their reps to get these things resolved. Plus enforcement oversight....

Kai Akker said...

Oh. Look at that. OK, well, Dow Industrials up over 300, then.

Bilwick said...

If people are blaming Trump for the defeat of Loeffler and Perdue, they clearly don't know the low-fo Georgia constituency who turned out in force (or stole the election at the direction of Tank Abrams). The vote-for-a-living crowd would vote for whoever promised them the most loot (or in Warnock's case, would be most likely to look the other way while they looted). Ossoff became Bwana Jon, trotting out a parade of fat, ugly and uneducated Blacks responding to his promises of Free Stuff. If you think for a moment the canaille was considering voting for the Republicans, but decided not to because of Trump, you're pretty stupid.

Jim at said...

The President’s coattails are toxic.

Is that why he received 11 million more votes?
Is that why not a single Republican House member lost, and they actually picked up seats?

I swear. The only people more stupid than our political leaders are the pundits who think they know jackshit.

D.D. Driver said...

So if the GOP wants to indulge in nostalgia, they’d be better skipping over The Gipper

I'm talking about winning elections. If the GOP wants to talk about actually winning elections instead of losing and making excuses they'd better skip DJT.

Trump could barely---just barely--beat HRC. He is not a good candidate. Good candidates win. They don't make pathetic excuses because they don't need to.

Jim at said...

Do you think now all the armed right wing Trumper's who have been harassing public officials and elections workers with protests outside their homes and in hundreds of death threats resulting in the need for police protection will stop?

No. Why should it? You assholes showed it works.

D.D. Driver said...

The vote-for-a-living crowd would vote for whoever promised them the most loot

What reality do you live in? Thanks to Donald Trump--both parties are now the Free Money Party. Trump has convinced Americans that are entitled to free money. So much so that Americans--Republicans--scoff at the meager $600 that they didn't fucking earn because they deserve $2,000.

Balfegor said...

Re: Kai Akker:

Today's shifts, at least looking at DJI, seem pretty much noise. Overall, indices have been on a steady upward trend after the big coronavirus drop in March. There was a big drop just before the election, but the upward trend resumed within a day or two of the results. All through that period, I think betting markets indicated that people were pricing in a Democratic victory (my recollection is it only flipped on the day of the election -- well after the drop -- as returns came in and Republicans kept winning supposedly Democrat-leaning races), so it may just have been market uncertainty. We didn't veer off trend after the election -- contrast the huge drop after Obama's 2008 election, or the modest bounce after Trump's 2016 election -- which suggests to me either that traders expect mostly continuity between Trump and Biden, or that they trusted the polls and assigned Republicans such a low chance of victory to begin with that the market didn't have to adjust much in light of the Democrats winning.

Static Ping said...

Who?

Curious George said...

""The President’s coattails are toxic. He under-performed all five Republican congressmen in Wisconsin, who won election without difficulty. Had he matched their performance, he would have won the state."

What a bunch of bullshit. First, as another has mentioned, it's clear that Blaska doesn't know the meaning of coattail. Trumps coattails are not toxic if ALL FIVE GOP supporters won their election. That's the opposite of toxic Blaska!

As for the rest, it's hard to find how Trump did in the applicable congressional district, but he did have the same results as Brian Stell in WI District 1: 54% of the vote. I'll bet dimes to dollars Blaska is comparing these winners high percentages to Trumps 49% STATEWIDE. WHich is as dumb as the coattail deal. Sheesh.

Unknown said...

Said previously, but Sasse is an asse. He is going nowhere...I will help to make sure of that!

Kai Akker said...

--- Today's shifts, at least looking at DJI, seem pretty much noise. [Balfegor]

Looked for a while like a reversal day in the making to me. NDX down -1.4% today. Treasury yields soared on the Georgia results. Big spikes in cyclicals like CAT, the basic materials, and the financials looked toppy to me, like a last gasp. Democrats hate corporations, nothing they do is going to help the markets. Imagine if corporate profits tax raised back, as they've threatened repeatedly.

Market is so overwound, any change could produce a helluva selloff.

That was the story of the Georgia results. Trump seems irrelevant to me on this one.

Bilwick said...

D. D. Driver, the reality I live in is the greater Atlanta area, a place (as JFK said of Washington DC) combining Northern charm with Southern efficiency), and where the low-fo, low-IQ crowd that gave us Sen. Warnock ("Rev. Wright Jr") and Sen. Bwana Jon Ossoff rule the roost and contribute to that "efficiency." What you say about both parties contributing to the growth of what Leonard Read called "the plundering" is unfortunately true. But it was Ossoff and Warnock whose ads overwhelmingly promised free stuff. I know because I had to sit through them . . . over and over and over. Thanks, Soros!

Bilwick said...

The Leonard Read expression I was going for was "The Plunderbund," but I guess the computer didn't get it.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Did Blaska adjust his totals for the illegal ballots printed up by the Dems and cast at the illegal ballot collection boxes?

Friedrich Engels' Barber said...

Blaska explains why Wisconsin will be known now for a generation as Crooked Wisconsin. Suspect that was not what he meant to do.

Kai Akker said...

--- The Leonard Read expression

I don't know who L Read is. The name made me think of Ishmael Reed, such a neat combination of two names, and I went looking for a memorable Ishmael Reed quote. They turned out to be pathetic. A bunch of stupid, obvious, or simply ungrammatical meanderings of no distinction whatsoever. Which, truth be told, is what his books were like, too. I always wanted to like the writing of a cool black dude named Ishmael. But the Coffin book or whatever I read was poor.

Small digression.

Bilwick said...

I don't know if you're joking, but Leonard Read and Ishmael Reed are different people.

Kai Akker said...

Thank you Bilwick. If I knew Ishmael Reed but didn't know Leonard Read, what are the probabilities I thought they were the same person? Still, I understand your confusion over my digression. So who is Leonard Read? Rhetorical; if I cared enough, I would have looked him up.

rcocean said...

WHy are you posting this from some obscure Blogger "Dan Blasca"? Who the hell is he?

Anyway, he's a moron. The two Senators from GA, may lose, and if they do its their own fault. They should have been at the forefront, screaming at the top of their voices that the Nov 2020 election was stolen, and the run-off would be stolen too, unless things were changed.

Instead, these two R clowns said almost nothing, until trump forced forced them, at the point of a symbolic bayonet, to take his side. Again, these two R clowns did NOTHING to support Trump. Both of them were McConnell's butt boys, and voted to overturn Trump's Defense Act Veto, supported open borders/amnesty, and wanted 500,000 H-1B visa's for Indians to help silicon Valley. Perdue was telling big donors "He looked forward to working with Biden"!

There was zero reason for any Trump supporter to care whether they got elected or not. I certainly didn't care. Its not like Mitch was going to do anything with a 51 vote majority or a 99 vote majority. He's probably happier to be in the minority. He can now sell us out us to the Globalists and Silicon Valley, and blame the D's. Back to the good times under President Obama.

rcocean said...

As for Trump's "coattails". He's the ONLY reason the R's didn't get wiped out in 2016, 2018, and 2020. He won the election in 2020 and it was stolen from him. Without Trump, the Republican party is the loser party of Mitt Romney and Mitch McConnell.

Old well-to-do Ladies like Althouse might like that, but it has zero appeal to young people, people of color, and the working class. Its the party of the country clubs and Democrats lite. You get the same globalist, democrat policies with a little less taxes and a little more defense spending. And that's it. Take out trump and you got the Party of Bush, Dole, Romney, and Ford. IOW, Losers.

Bilwick said...

Kai Akker, I had already guessed that Leonard Read would not be your cup of tea. On the chance, however, that you or any other reader might want to expand your horizons, there is a section about him in Jim Powell's excellent TRIUMPH OF LIBERTY. Read it while you're still allowed to.

DEEBEE said...

Must be my memory or your hypocrisy about extreme neutrality— do not remember quotes from pro-Trumpian blogs. I understand they are perhaps not “interesting”.

Douglas B. Levene said...

I’m totally pissed off at Trump and his paranoid narcissism. I’m also totally pissed off at the Lincoln Project and its principals. I’m also totally pissed off at the Democrats ands their socialism lite, cultural Marxism, and soft and not so soft totalitarianism.

Nowhere to go, nowhere to hide.

Readering said...

Boy, talk about a blog post being overtaken by events.

Unknown said...

Trump had amazing coat tails, except when Election Fraud was allowed.

That is why the GOP won so many House Seats.

DINKY DAU 45 said...

Being told you are always winning even in light of non reality and living in alternative facts a new right wing mindset brings the losers to total breakdown as everything must be rigged because they always win.All right elections are only valid if ithey win,forget 61 courts ,Scotus,lawyers even some of their own is a well formulated Svengali mind Fuk.

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

I last tussled with Ishmael Reed a few decades ago, when Schindler's List was just out in theaters and Reed defended the black teenagers at the Paramount in Oakland laughing their asinine heads off when a camp commandant was shooting random Jewish prisoners just for the hell of it. Ooh, cool, wow, that Jew lady just got her head shot off! Hey, the Holocaust is funny! Who knew? But, of course, the death of the Jews is always funny to certain minds.

I wrote a letter to the Times. Well, to the Chron, but we didn't have a Times in the Bay Area.

JackOfClubs said...

A Haley/Sasse ticket would be awesome. Tom Cotton is also a great choice. I would prefer a Fiorina/Haley ticket, but I could live with any of the four in any combination. My preferences tend not to make it out of the primaries, but maybe the blowhards will be on the outs now that Trump has flamed out? Ha! As if! But dum spiro spero.