2022 elections are already hoving – heaving? – into view:
Rep. Jody Hice, a Republican, announced last week that he is running for Georgia secretary of state, the state’s top elections job. His 2022 campaign was immediately endorsed by former President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly launched dishonest attacks against the Republican currently in the post, Brad Raffensperger.
And then Hice went on television and made a series of false claims about the 2020 election.
This was not new behavior. Since November, Hice has been a vocal and frequent purveyor of inaccurate election claims — baselessly saying or insinuating that the results were tainted by mass fraud and that Joe Biden did not legitimately beat Trump in Georgia. [CNN/Politics]
While Raffensperger is well-known as a very conservative Republican, his failure to be corrupted by Trump has marked him for cancellation by the Trump cult. The cult – and obviously Trump – is unforgiving in an arena where forgiveness is much more fruitful than the sword.
This can go two ways.
First, Raffensperger can give up and not run for reelection to the Secretary of State office. He may do that in order to preserve the integrity of the Republican Party. Or he’ll take a skip on the hassle of running against a cultist.
Or he runs. Based on Trump’s immature view of politics, I would expect the primary to become a war of no quarter. Winning, at least for Hice, won’t be sufficient; Raffensperger’s unforgivable failure to become corrupted must be punished by complete political destruction.
And Raffensperger won’t be able to restrain himself in his return attacks. This will turn into the worst sort of internecine war between cousins. And that will have consequences, both within the ranks of independent voters and in the Republican Party itself. As more and more Republicans become disaffected, and as the independents are reminded, time after time, of Hice’s idol’s feet of clay, more and more Republican voters may end up sitting out the general election.
And hand the Secretary of State office to a Democrat.
