The Witness Chronicles, July, 24, 2024
GOP same old same old
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The Republican Campaign Really Doesn’t Get It
Racist memes are backfiring but they can’t shut up
They’re not used to playing defense. First, they hammered the public with their constant harping about Joe Biden’s age and that was successful, admittedly with unintentional help from Biden. So successful that it led to Biden dropping out, leaving Donald Trump the faltering old man in the race.
They seem to have learned nothing from that. They made age the central issue in the race, apparently never considering that their guy is also old and sounding more and more confused every day. Not only that but they handed the issue to the Democrats on a platter and you can bet that Trump’s numerous gaffes will not go unnoticed anymore.
He had a free pass on that one. But he is known for not staying on script, as evidenced by his rambling and hysterically paranoid acceptance speech last week at the Republican Convention, the only time the American public at large has seen his incoherence on a big stage.
They were still having a victory celebration at that point. Which now seems like ancient history after Biden leaving the race and Kamala Harris stepping in, to universal acclaim by the party leaders and generating a huge groundswell of support.
That support not only raised an astounding $250 million in just 48 hours, much of it from individual donors, an estimated 60% of which had not previously donated. If that is not enough, the Dems have an estimated 60,000 new volunteers signed up to get the vote out.
So, what do the shell shocked Republicans do? They double down on their own mistakes by pulling out the race card and calling Harris a ‘DEI’ candidate and a dumb woman, things that are not only not hurting her but also pissing off a lot of voters, including people of color and women in general.
Nice move guys. But they haven’t stopped there. If you read the news you’d think they were still running against Joe Biden, as they target him with all kinds of insults, conspiracy theories, and absurd health claims.
Could someone tell them that Joe isn’t in it anymore?
Actually they were caught so flat-footed by his dropping out that it’s obvious they were trying to resurrect him as the enemy, collective wishful thinking on a scale never seen before.
What all this tells me is that they have no ideas, no accomplishments, and no real talent to bring to the table, just their endless litany of negativity, insults, fear, racism, and divisiveness. The Trump playbook.
There is something Kamala Harris brings to the table that Biden could never quite pull off, the ability to laugh at their inept antics and remind voters that we do not live in a hellhole of a country, far from it.
She brings joy to the campaign, but behind that laugh is a tough woman who can and will prosecute the Republican lies in a public forum every day.
Continuing the folly they created by having no backup plan for Biden quitting, the choice of J.D. Vance as Trump's running mate now looks like a terrible mistake. He was chosen for his artificial redneck credentials to shore up the MAGA wing of the party.
But now MAGA doesn’t look like the political force many thought it was and what we see is Vance’s lack of any experience on the bigger stage. The man is shifty in the literal meaning of the word, willing to change his views to get ahead, and shifty is the last thing the Trump campaign needs right now.
Add in his extremist positions on abortion and he represents yet another GOP failure to secure the women vote, a vote that is excited about the possibility of the first female President. And it appears they are not the only ones excited.
Initial responses to her candidacy are showing Gen Z reconsidering their apathy about a race between two tired old white men. Many were simply not going to vote, feeling they were not represented by either Trump or Biden. Now they have a candidate they can relate to and it is not Donald Trump.
The swiftness of this remarkable shift is startling and no one is more startled than the Republican Party in general. To put it bluntly, the air is out of their sails and they are adrift and desperate, with no fallback strategy. If Trump stepped down, who would take his place?
I have no answer to that question and neither do they. And that’s the true failure, a failure of imagination by a party wildly out of touch with the future.
~ I write The Grasshopper, an occasional letter on the creative life and it’s sister, mostly daily publication The Witness Chronicles, a place for my articles on politics and climate. They share a free and paid subscription. I don’t paywall any content in these, however this is how I live and I strongly believe all writers and creatives should get paid, if we provide value. Your support with a paid subscription helps make that happen.
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The GOP crowned their MAGA king long ago and sealed their fate at his coronation - the RNC. They are like a 3 pack-a-day smoker saying "Okay! That's the last cigarette!" but they keep reaching for another coffin nail.