As in, If they all have special problems, maybe it’s not peculiar to any one of them after all.
The apparent defeat of sitting incumbent Republican Governor Bevin (R-KY), despite a campaign visit from President Trump, is being explained away by Trump allies, according to WaPo:
Many allies of President Trump rushed to explain away the poor performance of incumbent Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin (R) as an anomaly, while other GOP veterans expressed alarm about the party’s failure in a state where Trump won by nearly 30 percentage points in 2016 — and where he just campaigned this week. …
Allies of McConnell, the Senate majority leader, argued that Bevin’s loss did not indicate any looming trouble for him, who is up for reelection in 2020 and is working to hold the Senate GOP together amid the impeachment debate.
“Republicans won every office on the ballot except [Bevin’s],” Scott Jennings, a longtime McConnell adviser, tweeted. “Some unique candidate problems. GOP brand was fine elsewhere.”
But I have to wonder, because it seems every time I look at some Trumpist, they’re someone with unique problems. There are a variety of names which require little effort to dredge up: would-be governor of Kansas Kris Kobach, who thought it was a good idea to campaign with a machine gun in hand; former Minnesota Rep Jason Lewis, a paleo-conservative radio personality who repudiated his own positions on women the moment they became inconvenient during his campaigns; InfoWars host Alex Jones, the bull-roarer who claimed in divorce papers that his paranoia schtick was nothing more than entertainment, and later claimed, when sued over asserting that the Sandy Hook elementary school massacre was a hoax, that he’d been having a psychotic breakdown. And don’t forget Senator Graham (R-SC), who’s migrated from Never Trump Because He’s An Idiot to Brown-Noser in Chief, aka the Pathetic Kicked Puppy.
The point is, in a party in which team politics and swearing to embrace all the party positions, no matter how putrid or even nonsensical, has become mandatory, it’s becoming apparent that the personalities attracted to power through such a shit storm are going to be unique. They have to be unique, because to embrace what has been mandated by President Trump and the other, less well-known leaders and influencers of the Republican Party requires a personality bordering on cognitive dissonance and dependent on adherence to strict ideologies without reference to reality (think 2nd Amendment absolutism). Even Senator McConnell (R-KY), who I would not classify as a Trumpist, has become such a twisted caricature of a politician, due to Trump’s influence, that he really should be retired for his own good – if not for his legacy, which he’s already managed to destroy.
Jennings should be careful of his own observations. If he thinks the candidates he advises are normal people, he may be living in the epistemological bubble that pundits have been warning of for the last twenty years.
