Electromagnetic Distortion

The GOP's Problem & Sundries

Image generated by Bing Artificial Intelligence (powered by DALL - E3) in response to the query: “Visualize an electromagnetic distortion field”

Dear Friends,

I have been buried in a project and finally peeked my head out of my hole this morning to catch up on the news. I heard much wailing and gnashing of teeth, as apparently the Republican Party had a pretty poor Election Day yesterday. The Virginia legislature got shaken up a bit, and Republicans lost a couple of winnable governorships. But the biggest news was that the supposedly “red” state of Ohio voted—with a large margin—to enshrine total laissez faire abortion rights in their constitution. Good job, everybody.

Donald Trump promised me that I would get “tired of all the winning.” And if this is what winning looks like, he’s delivered. I am well-nigh exhausted. But is that really fair? Can I really tie disappointing GOP results year (2017) after year (2018) after year (2019) after year (2020) after year (2021) after year (2022) after year (2023) to Donald Trump?

Um, yes. The best analysis of yesterday’s results came in Tweet form from Erick Erickson:

It really cannot be said any better than that. Well, maybe it can: Charlie Cooke calls Trump an “electromagnetic force” that distorts and bends everything in its orbit. That’s a great way to put it. The way I describe it is that in terms of national politics, Trump is an anvil the GOP willingly and enthusiastically ties around its neck. And, sadly, there are so many figures, organizations, and “influencers” on the Right who do not care. I will say that one more time for those of you in the back: They. Do. Not. Care. They have built an entire incentive structure around losing. Losing allows them to keep stoking apocalyptic hysteria about how the Left is winning, and only [fill-in-the-blank] can “save America” if you would only click here and send your donation. They make their mountains of cash by Republicans losing, and Republican voters keep rewarding them.

It’s an abusive relationship and we (well, lots of other people, anyway) need to stop empowering this.

As for Ohio’s abortion vote, it illustrates perfectly how politics is the outgrowth of culture, not the other way around. You can propose whatever legislation you like, but if you haven’t done the hard work of persuading your neighbors then it’s worthless. Pro-lifers have a lot of cultural work to do. Political success comes second.