Governor Gavin Newsom (D-CA) has not only survived the recall effort which was voted on yesterday, it wasn’t even close, as Newsom picked up well north of 60% of the vote. So much for those who organized the recall effort, which requires the signatures on a recall petition of 12% of the number of voters in the election which put the governor in his seat. And while Erick Erickson tried to claim that If only the front runner for the Republicans had played it differently … I cannot help but see his commentary as a buck-up for his listeners, rather than a truly honest assessment. Even if his suggestions are accurate, the fact of the matter is that the Republicans have lost far too much institutional wisdom, which, as a form of elite expertise, they are inclined to disdain anyways.
One of the subplots of this story was the projected reaction, prior to the vote, to the expected Republican loss, especially that of said front runner John Elder, described as a highly conservative radio show host. It was reported that there were claims of electoral fraud posted on his website prior to the beginning of voting, indicating intent and preparations to scream foul at the loss.
So the surprise of the day?
Larry Elder, the leading GOP candidate in California's recall, tells his supporters to be "gracious in defeat" after they boo Gov. Newsom's name.
"By the way," he adds, "we may have lost the battle, but we are going to win the war." https://t.co/cagDpkFQdS pic.twitter.com/ifStV5RLLx
— CBS News (@CBSNews) September 15, 2021
Yea. He acknowledges the loss without screaming foul. It’s not quite the same as saying there was no fraud, but perhaps he affirms the sentiment elsewhere.
Importantly, this stands in stark contrast to the notorious “audit”/fraudit in Arizona, along with allied efforts in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, as well as the repeated claims from the former President himself.
Does this mean that Elder, who has already said he’ll be running in the next election, finally saw the fraud claims to be a double-edged sword? If he won the next election, that he’d be spattered with the mud of such claims? There is little prestige in winning a position in which the entire process has been discredited.
Even falsely. Especially if you are the leading proponent of the position. It just screams hypocrisy.
The recall vote was a major effort by the national Republicans, and if Elder refuses to deploy an element of their national strategy, that may mean that at least a few leading far-right extremists are breaking with the former President. If there are any more prominent special elections, it might be worth paying close attention for screams of “fraud” from losing and even winning Republicans. If they don’t appear, especially if the former President encourages them, that would be highly significant for Republican Party culture.
And the former President is well-known for his intolerance of allies who refuse to toe the line he lays down. His repeated attempts to discredit our elections are a central element of his strategy to, well, soothe his ego; fellow Republicans refusing to repeat that particular mantra, so central to his narcissism, is a very good reason to toss the traitors under the bus.
So I’ll be keeping an eye out for Republicans, even prominent Republicans, becoming enemies of Trump, if only in his mind, for refusing to affirm that, when Republicans lose, the elections were stolen.
The intra-party wars that may be initiated by his wounded ego will continue to repulse independent voters, even if it makes the excluded Republicans look good to a few independents – after all, Why did you wait this long to reject Trump? is a very uncomfortable question. Worse yet, the very act of conducting the audit in Arizona has been revealed by news reports to be little more than the mad scramblings of partisan zealots, not the disinterested operations of experts dedicated to accuracy and truth. It is costing taxpayer money both directly through fees to the companies doing the work, however badly, and by rendering the voting machines untrustworthy. They will have to be replaced. And the results? Completely untrustworthy.
In other words, the Hell of fourth- and fifth-raters that I’ve been predicting, for years, that the Republican Party would descend into has become a nauseatingly public spectacle of utter partisanship, entitlement, theocratic-wannabes, and shared delusions, the latter in the form of the most of the movement refusing to take the vaccine for Covid-19, thereby arguably crippling the economy of the United States – or at least trying.
The next election cycle continues to look quite intriguing.
