I noticed yesterday, via an Erick Erickson’s post, a prospective split in the GOP, but didn’t have time to address it because the lawn needed mowing. This involves the Georgia GOP primary battle for nomination to the governor’s seat involving incumbent Brian Kemp and former Senator David Perdue (R-GA), who was defeated in his reelection bid by now-Senator Jon Ossoff (D-GA). Because Governor Kemp didn’t arbitrarily, and no doubt futilely, refuse to validate the 2020 election results in Georgia, Trump is determined to run Kemp out of the GOP, using the vehicle of the aforementioned Perdue. But:
I’ve confirmed with both sides, Vice President Mike Pence is himself formally endorsing Brian Kemp and will be in Georgia the day before the May 24th primary election. on May 23, Pence will campaign in Georgia for Kemp. …
With Pence for Kemp, it puts him directly at odds with President Trump. We probably will not see Perdue attacking Pence for the endorsement, though perhaps Trump will say something.
Via Professor Richardson, I learn from Greg Bluestein of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution of others on the Pence side of the split:
But many of Trump’s fiercest Republican critics have rallied to Kemp’s side. That includes former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who plans to soon stump for Kemp in Georgia, and former President George W. Bush, who recently donated to his campaign.
Both of whom qualify as old-line Republicans, but while the endorsement of a former President usually carries some weight, Bush is little more than a footnote to most Republican voters these days. It’s not just his Administration ending on the low note of the Great Recession, but his failure to convert into yet another MAGA-ite.
Erickson notes Kemp’s commanding lead in the primary:
Kemp has never been behind in the polls. Initial polling in the race had Kemp under 50%, but for the last three months, every public and all the private polling I’m aware of has had Kemp above 50%, meaning he will escape a runoff. Likewise, President Trump has largely downplayed the race and set expectations for a Kemp victory.
And that last line is a doozy. This is Trump’s conception of loyalty, noted time after time by many observers, and it’s not surprising, given Perdue’s debate performance in his Senatorial reelection bid in 2020 – staring vacantly while Ossoff verbally dumped his sins on his head. A former businessman, he doesn’t really understand being a politician, and shouldn’t have permitted Trump to persuade him to challenge Kemp. Perdue supposedly had prestige as a former Senator, even if he lost to political novice Ossoff, but his utter loyalty to Trump was the key for Trump to endorse him. That uncompromising loyalty marks the amateur, the unwillingness to think for oneself. Perdue never had a chance.
But Bluestein’s comment concerning MAGAites in Georgia reminded me of something important:
The event announced Friday illustrates a growing proxy fight in Georgia between establishment forces backing Kemp and the Trump loyalists who want to remake the state Republican Party in the former president’s mold.
This is really the issue that distinguishes the Trump cult from the traditional American parties and politics, isn’t it? Rather than rallying to a collection of principles and goals, the Trump base rallies to … Trump. Whoever he is, whatever he does, that’s where the loyalties lay.
If he leads them over the cliff of treason, as on January 6, 2021, then that’s where they go. They have no external guideposts, not even their religious beliefs, to stop most of them.
This situation really discourages fruitful discussion, doesn’t it? I mean, you can’t really talk with someone about conservative principles and fossil fuels when it’s all about Trump, and all he does it make up fake statistics about cancer and wind power. We saw him in office, as is common with all mendacious politicians whose focus is gaining and holding power, and his positions shifting and uttering supposed plans – it’s Infrastructure Week again! – as he perceived them to be best oriented to attract his base.
And without discussion, without honest criticism – or praise, are you listening to me you professional pundits? – how is anything supposed to improve?
But that’s the autocratic form of government, isn’t it? All about some self-centered person for whom the metric is How much attention am I getting? rather than Is the nation improving? And while admitting that the second question is far harder to answer than the first, that doesn’t make it invalid. It only makes it far more challenging – and interesting.
Bluestein’s description is an insight into the importance that Kemp – himself saddled with a dubious ethics illustrated by his failure to recuse or even resign as Secretary of State for Georgia when he chose to run for the governor’s seat in 2018, thus tainting the voting system – win, and win with a commanding margin, in the primary over Perdue.
And then we’ll see how Stacey Abrams, former member of the Georgia Legislature, does in the gubernatorial race rematch.
