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When Will the GOP Learn? Never I Suspect
I’ll admit that I really didn’t follow this election too much. Where I live all we had on the ballot was some school board and water district seats where the candidates were essentially carbon copies of each other and some Constitutional Amendments that are worded so carefully that it is nigh impossible for people to vote against them (of course they never talk about how they will pay for all of these things). For example:
PROPOSITION NUMBER 1 (HJR 126) THE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT PROTECTING THE RIGHT TO ENGAGE IN FARMING, RANCHING, TIMBER PRODUCTION, HORTICULTURE, AND WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT.
This passed 79% to 21%
Of the 14 Amendments proposed, only one failed to pass. That was the one that proposed to raise the mandatory retirement age for State Justices and Judges.
Evidently, elections in other places were more interesting and intense. In Ohio, the voters passed an Amendment to legalize abortion at a Constitutional level. They also passed by a similar margin the authorization of the recreational use of marijuana. The usual suspects are out today saying that abortion is a losing issue for the GOP, and Trump is a losing issue (though one person pointed out that in KY you see two candidates one who was anti-Trump GOP and one who was pro-Trump GOP and both won, the pro-Trump one likely because of turnout by Trump people). Still, reading X today almost every pundit is saying that if only the GOP would abandon Trump then the GOP would own the issues and win handily.
Of course, this ignores two major issues. The first is that the GOP was outspent in KY, OH, and VA.
Spending in Key Races in ’23 Election
Ironically, I saw a Xeet today that blamed this on Trump as well, saying that if only the ignorant rubes of the party would get rid of him, the donors would open up their wallets.
The second problem is even worse. That is ballot harvesting that the Dems perfected in ’20 and continued in ’22. The GOP continues to focus on election-day turnout, completely missing that these elections are not about voting, but collecting ballots.
Pennsylvania Election Showing Mail Ballot Advantage
In this race, the GOP candidate turned out 860K on election day, winning by a healthy 180K, but the mail-in ballots were skewed so heavily to the Democrats that he lost by 200K. Then think about this Xeet and what it means:
Another point – Biden quietly signed EO 14019 and deputized federal agencies and offices to identify recipients of government aid not registered to vote
Federal workers then got those recipients registered, got them a ballot, and got those ballots counted
That Executive Order…
— Ashley Hayek (@ashleyhayek) November 8, 2023
The Biden administration is using the Federal gov’t to register voters and get them to apply for mail-in ballots. Here is part of EO 14019:
Sec. 3. Expanding Access to Voter Registration and Election Information. Agencies shall consider ways to expand citizens’ opportunities to register to vote and to obtain information about, and participate in, the electoral process.
(a) The head of each agency shall evaluate ways in which the agency can, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, promote voter registration and voter participation. This effort shall include consideration of:
(i) ways to provide relevant information in the course of activities or services that directly engage with the public—including through agency materials, websites, online forms, social media platforms, and other points of public access—about how to register to vote, how to request a vote-by-mail ballot, and how to cast a ballot in upcoming elections; (ii) ways to facilitate seamless transition from agencies’ websites directly to State online voter registration systems or appropriate Federal websites, such as Vote.gov;
(iii) ways to provide access to voter registration services and vote-by-mail ballot applications in the course of activities or services that directly engage with the public, including:
(A) distributing voter registration and vote-by-mail ballot application forms, and providing access to applicable State online systems for individuals who can take advantage of those systems;
(B) assisting applicants in completing voter registration and vote-by-mail ballot application forms in a manner consistent with all relevant State laws; and
(C) soliciting and facilitating approved, nonpartisan third-party organizations and State officials to provide voter registration services on agency premises;
(iv) ways to promote and expand access to multilingual voter registration and election information, and to promote equal participation in the electoral process for all eligible citizens of all backgrounds; and
(v) whether, consistent with applicable law, any identity documents issued by the agency to members of the public can be issued in a form that satisfies State voter identification laws.
Each Agency was given 200 days to implement these provisions and further allowed States to request that an Agency act as a “voter registration agency” and if they cannot, they have to tell the President directly why they cannot. Do we really think they didn’t?
I ask, when will the GOP learn? They haven’t yet, and I doubt ’24 will be any different. The pundit class very much wants the GOP to dump Trump so that they can go back to being the leaders of the party, without ever actually realizing that they lost that role long before Trump. If they could articulate sound reasons and policies that the people supported and actually thought would help them…and the Banana Republicans actually enacted those policies, then Trump would never have been possible because instead, the conservative movement would be winning elections at a national level like they have tended to at a State level. Of course, much of that State-level momentum was a backlash against President Obama as opposed to brilliant pundits and politicians capturing the gestalt of the people and working towards solutions. Some of these State-level efforts have been successful, but a lot of it, especially in places like Texas, has been politicians promising what the voters want and then not delivering.
Will the GOP lose every election? No, but they will lose the ones that really matter until they actually learn how these elections are being won. Very little implies to me that anyone in the GOP, the political class, or the pundits has learned a thing about anything since 2015. If they had, then they might be wondering how Trump can lead in five of six swing states over Biden and yet Ohioans still voted to legalize pot and abortion. Alas, it is way too easy for them to just say it is all someone else’s fault, never mine…if only they would listen to me (and pay me lots of money) everything would be great. We might not actually enact any conservative policies that voters want, but I’d still get paid.
Published in Elections
Thank you for this excellent analysis, which is far more thorough than the shallow “It’s all Trump’s fault!” thread that was posted last night.
FWIW the constitutional amendments outcome matched my vote exactly, which made me quite happy.
I’m glad we have both posts. I wouldn’t want to discourage either kind.
My vote only matched three, but I vote against everything unless I REALLY want it to pass. So I voted for two and the one that failed matched my default vote.
This one is useful again:
Mail-in ballots are inherently fraudulent. There is no chain of command…including the US Postal Service itself. There is no way to determine whether the vote has been cast by the signatory on the ballot or even if the ballot represents an actual voter. So if Republicans went out and signed up all of their voters to mail-in balloting, unless they cheated, lied, and broke the law, they would still lose to the Party that does lie, cheat, and break the law. Please explain to me how mail-in voting is the answer for Republican losses.
It darn well is a losing issue for the GOP!
I did follow this election closely. Every direct vote on abortion rights since Dobbs has resulted in a pro-choice election victory.
The issue has bled over into any election where it became an issue, e.g. Virginia legislature where Youngkin bet on an unacceptable 15-week ban proposal. The GOP lost the legislature, and the Murdoch media lost their favorite hope for a Deus ex Machina 2024 anti-Trumper.
Meanwhile in Kentucky, Daniel Cameron got clobbered in the Republican state after strutting his anti-abortion credentials prominently in his campaign for Governor.
And let’s not forget all the declared anti-abortion U.S. Senate candidates who went down last year. They would have exercised anti-abortion Senate confirmation votes, and voters know this.
Even the Murdoch media, the WSJ and Fox News (which barely covered last night’s returns while CNN went full-on election night) is beginning to concede the pro-choice electoral landslide trend. Liz Peek of Fox News posted a no-nonsense column, and Steve Hilton issued a passionate live TV rant.
Consider Trump’s margin of victory in Ohio, and the substantial win for the abortion rights amendment there in yesterday’s vote. There must be a decisive swing wedge of YES voters there who also voted for Trump. This group, composed of independents, Republicans, and maybe even Democrats, gets no support and scant public representation from the GOP and its allied media.
In the 21st century media environment, representation is as important as anything. The Republican Party, the conservative movement, major allies like Fox News and The Wall Street Journal, and other less popular outlets which aspire to influence better begin representing voters who mean to keep government out of reproductive choices.
Instead of inclusive discourse, we pro-choice and otherwise-conservative voters are shunned by the GOP elites, and endure inflammatory language equating abortion with murder from the lower orders. There’s an answer in kind to that in the Abortion, Every Day substack, which diligently covers all the legislative battles.
I’m slightly less elated only because the Democrats, beneficiaries of the electoral trickle-down, are so wrong about so much else. The (D) crowd, after all, is only just now beginning to understand that their partners in “allyship” include sympathizers of terrorists funded by the Iranian theocracy. Democrats are keen on separating church from state in this country, but they’ve also been filling the coffers of the least religiously tolerant people on earth.
Wisconsin Democrats: “It’s overly burdensome to require a witness signature on an absentee ballot! And racist, too!”
Lawsuit challenges Wisconsin absentee ballot witness signature requirement
If two million absentee ballots were cast here, and 7.2% of them did not have the required witness signature, that’s 144,000 fraudulent ballots.
Joe Biden “won” here by 20,000 votes.
(That doesn’t take into account the ballots harvested here by other illegal means such as drop boxes or in nursing homes where Democrats fill out ballots on behalf of people who can’t even remember their own names.)
Voting machines switch votes in Pennsylvania.
Anyone surprised?
Only ‘slightly’, huh….if abortion up until birth (or at least until a point that would be considered extremist in most of thoroughly secular Europe) is that much of a priority for you, you should probably save yourself years of discomfort and just exit the party. This isn’t about you having heterodox opinions, its about you prioritizing an extreme manifestation of a position that is plain and simply incompatible with the priorities of even the most pragmatic of the Republican base. Meanwhile, you can rest assured that the majority of GOP elites are secretly as pro-choice as the average Democrat (which is not nearly as pro-choice as you seem to be), and will do everything within their power to prevent the ‘lower orders’ from holding them accountable.
Pretty much nailed this. I’d only add that in abortion fueled campaigns, the GOP seems incapable of actually pointing out the Democrat position on abortion. Not sure why they refuse, but they won’t do it. The country appears to be OK with early abortions (first 12 weeks seems almost overwhelmingly accepted), but the Democrats continue to promote no restrictions and the GOP cannot get out of its own way. I suspect it is as Lowtech Redneck says…they are actually pro-choice but know that their base isn’t. It’s also that many pro-life people aren’t comfortable with conception as a starting point, and others that feel that an exception for rape/incest should be allowed. Politics is the art of the possible and finding that current middle ground seems difficult when one side wants abortions on demand and the other side seems unwilling to articulate a position. Pass laws at the State level that allow.abortions up to 12, 15,20, 24 weeks, whatever makes sense now and then we work on changing people’s minds to lower those numbers until, absent some specific cases, it doesn’t happen anymore.
This is so true.
1) They’re mostly pro-abortion and cannot articulate a message of life.
2) They don’t really want to change hearts and minds, and do not want to win.
Now I know exactly where I stand with you. Good to know who you are.
I’ve been inspired!
Bill O’Reilly reckons that Biden is only the 2d worst President in American history. He places Buchanan at #1 because he did nothing the stop the Southern States from seceding and attacking federal institutions in those states. (Of course, had Lincoln done nothing and let the South go, there would have been no Civil War.) But here is where O’Reilly’s formulation is wrong: Buchanan was passive and let things go to the point where change would require a fight; Biden is pushing change that will lead to a fight if Lincoln’s example is taken and the change is not accepted. Which of these — passive or active — is worse? I say active. It is Biden leading a confederacy invading every part of the country.
Well, except maybe to the extent it’s not really Biden doing any of this.
A good post only done better by Vivek at the debate.
https://twitter.com/VivekGRamaswamy/status/1722655637388095905